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I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky. Harrison Ford, on being an actor
Behind every Great American Movie Star, there seems to be a Great American Hard-Luck Story. Harrison Ford's early career is long on rejection and frustration, and desperately short on money (at one point, he hastily taught himself carpentry to survive). Of course, every Great American Hard-Luck Story must have its happy ending, and Ford's is no different: these days, he cashes eight-figure paychecks and relaxes between films at his ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Given the heroic attributes of Ford's best-loved on-screen characters, there is no small irony in the events of his childhood, in suburban Des Plaines, Illinois. He exuded hopeless nerdiness during his years at Maine Township High, where he earned C and D grades, hung out mostly with the girls. After graduation, Ford attended Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he majored in English. A summer acting in stock theatre captured his interest, and while he failed too many of his classes to graduate, he headed for Los Angeles with his dream of becoming an actor. It quickly became apparent that finding steady work in his chosen profession would be no easy feat. A relentless perfectionist, Ford was ejected from talent stables at both Columbia and Universal for his refusal to cooperate with directors and producers who did not share his standards of excellence. One studio executive told him he was hopelessly lacking in "star quality," and at age twenty-four, Ford took a carpenter's job building a new recording studio for Brazilian composer Sergio Mendes. Ford discovered he possessed a natural gift with tools, and before long the novice builder was earning a respectable living constructing everything from decks to bookcases. He occasionally supplemented his income with small television and film roles whenever he could land them. Perhaps the most fateful casting of his career was for a role that Ford nearly refused. A promising young director named George Lucas offered him a part in his film American Graffiti, but Ford walked off the set in disgust when he learned that he would be paid only $485 a week (less than a half he was earning as a carpenter). Luckily, he changed his mind when the studio offered him an extra fifteen dollars a week. The film was a surprise hit, and, more importantly, it marked the beginning of a lasting friendship between director and actor. When Lucas was unable to cast the role of Star Wars' cynical space adventurer Han Solo, he asked Ford to read for the part and, at the age of thirty-four, the actor was a star in one of the most phenomenal blockbusters in the history of cinema. Although Star Wars made Ford a minor star, he had no luck replicating its box-office magic until Lucas's The Empire Strikes Back welcomed Han Solo back to the silver screen. The following year, as Lucas and Steven Spielberg were unable to schedule filming around Tom Selleck's commitment to Magnum P.I. on their first collaborative effort, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford stumbled onto the role he was born to play. His performance as roguish archaeologist Indiana Jones was an unqualified critical and commercial smash, and made Ford both a household name and an international sex symbol. Accordingly, his career flourished; most notably, he strengthened his reputation as a commanding, intelligent actor in Ridley Scott's cult classic Blade Runner, and in Peter Weir's police thriller Witness (his performance in the latter film garnered a Best Actor Oscar nomination for 1985). Moviegoers responded favorably to his gift for portraying ordinary men who grapple with extraordinary circumstances while never losing sight of the irony of their situation--a quality which made huge hits out of Presumed Innocent, Patriot Games and The Fugitive. Ford has two adult sons from his first marriage to Marquardt. That marriage ended in divorce in 1979, and four years later Ford married screenwriter Melissa Mathison. The couple has since boasted one of Hollywood's most stable marriages, and they have two children of their own. Fans of Ford's action-oriented films thrilled to the 1997 releases of The Devil's Own, in which he played a tough-on-terrorist (Brad Pitt) New York policeman, and the hijacking-themed actioner Air Force One, in which he portrayed a tough U.S. President. Ford next headlined a brace of romantic films: he co-starred opposite Anne Heche in the action-tinged romantic comedy 6 Days, 7 Nights, and appeared opposite Kristin Scott Thomas in the Sydney Pollack-directed drama Random Hearts. Fans will be happy to know there is another Indiana Jones adventure in the works, but don't hold your breath. "There's another script," Ford admits, but warns, "the last script took five years until everyone was happy." |
