Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. Regarded as a cinematic cultural icon, he has starred in many films over seven decades, and is one of the highest-grossing actors in the world. Ford's accolades include nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, an Emmy Award, five Golden Globe Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Honorary César, and Honorary Palme d'Or, and he was honored as a Disney Legend in 2024.

After making his screen debut in 1966 and early supporting roles in the films American Graffiti (1973) and The Conversation (1974), Ford achieved global stardom for portraying Han Solo in the space opera film Star Wars (1977), a role he reprised in five films for the eponymous franchise spanning the next four decades. He also received recognition for his portrayal of the titular character in the Indiana Jones franchise (1981–2023); Rick Deckard in the Blade Runner franchise (1982–2017); Jack Ryan in the action thriller films Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994); and Thaddeus Ross in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain America: Brave New World (2025). These roles established him as an action hero and one of Hollywood's most bankable stars from the late 1970s into the early 2000s.

Ford's performance in the thriller film Witness (1985) earned him his sole Oscar nomination for Best Actor. His other films include The Mosquito Coast (1986); Working Girl (1988); Presumed Innocent (1990); The Fugitive (1993); Sabrina (1995); The Devil's Own (1997); Air Force One (1997); Six Days, Seven Nights (1998); What Lies Beneath (2000); K-19: The Widowmaker (2002); Cowboys & Aliens (2011); 42 (2013), The Age of Adaline (2015), and The Call of the Wild (2020). Ford has also starred in the Paramount+ western series 1923 (2022–2025) and the Apple TV+ comedy series Shrinking (since 2023), earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the latter.

Outside acting, Ford is a licensed pilot. He has often assisted the emergency services in rescue missions near his home in Wyoming, and he chaired an aviation education program for youth from 2004 to 2009. Ford is also an environmental activist, having served as the inaugural vice chair of Conservation International since 1991.

Early life

Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942, at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, to former radio actress Dorothy (née Nidelman) and advertising executive and former actor John William "Christopher" Ford.

His younger brother, Terence, was born in 1945. Their father was a Catholic of Irish descent, while their mother was an Ashkenazi Jew whose parents were emigrants from Minsk, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire. When asked in which religion he and his brother were raised, Ford jokingly responded "Democrat" and more seriously stated that they were raised to be "liberals of every stripe". When asked about what influence his Jewish and Irish Catholic ancestry may have had on him, he quipped, "As a man I've always felt Irish, as an actor I've always felt Jewish."

Ford was a Boy Scout, achieving the second-highest rank of Life Scout. He worked at Napowan Adventure Base Scout Camp as a counselor for the Reptile Study merit badge. Because of this, he and director Steven Spielberg later decided to depict the young Indiana Jones as a Life Scout in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Ford graduated in 1960 from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. His voice was the first student voice broadcast on his high school's new radio station, WMTH, and he was its first sportscaster during his senior year. He attended Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, where he was a philosophy major and a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. A self-described "late bloomer", Ford took a drama class in the final quarter of his senior year to get over his shyness and became fascinated with acting. Ford was expelled from college for plagiarism four days before graduation.

Career

1964–1976: Early work

In 1964, after a season of summer stock with the Belfry Players in Wisconsin, Ford traveled to Los Angeles and eventually signed a contract with Columbia Pictures' new talent program. His first known role was an uncredited one as a bellhop in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). There is little record of his non-speaking (or "extra") roles in film. Ford was at the bottom of the hiring list, having offended producer Jerry Tokofsky. According to one anecdote, Tokofsky told Ford that when actor Tony Curtis delivered a bag of groceries, he could tell that Curtis was a movie star whereas Ford was not; Ford immediately retorted that if Curtis was truly a talented actor, he would have delivered them like a bellhop. Ford was apparently fired soon after.

His speaking roles continued next with Luv (1967), though he was still uncredited. He was finally credited as "Harrison J. Ford" in the 1967 Western film A Time for Killing, starring Glenn Ford, George Hamilton and Inger Stevens, but the "J" did not stand for anything since he has no middle name. It was added to avoid confusion with a silent film actor named Harrison Ford, who appeared in more than 80 films between 1915 and 1932 and died in 1957. Ford later said that he was unaware of the existence of the earlier actor until he came upon a star with his own name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ford soon dropped the "J" and worked for Universal Studios, playing minor roles in many television series throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Gunsmoke, Ironside, The Virginian, The F.B.I., Love, American Style and Kung Fu. He appeared in the western Journey to Shiloh (1968) and had an uncredited, non-speaking role in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film Zabriskie Point as an arrested student protester. In 1968, he also worked as a camera operator for one of the Doors' tours. French filmmaker Jacques Demy chose Ford for the lead role of his first American film, Model Shop (1969), but the head of Columbia Pictures thought Ford had "no future" in the film business and told Demy to hire a more experienced actor. The part eventually went to Gary Lockwood. Ford later commented that the experience had been nevertheless a positive one because Demy was the first to show such faith in him.

Not happy with the roles offered to him, Ford became a self-taught professional carpenter to support his then-wife and two young sons. Clients at this time included the writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, who lived on the beach at Malibu. Ford appears in the documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. He and his wife became friends of the writers. Casting director and fledgling producer Fred Roos championed the young Ford and secured him an audition with George Lucas for the role of Bob Falfa, which Ford went on to play in American Graffiti (1973). Ford's relationship with Lucas profoundly affected his career later. After director Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather was a success, he hired Ford to expand his office and gave him small roles in his next two films, The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979); in the latter film, Ford played an army colonel named "G. Lucas".

1977–1997: Worldwide stardom and acclaim

Ford's work in American Graffiti eventually landed him his first starring film role, when Lucas hired him to read lines for actors auditioning for roles in Lucas's upcoming epic space-opera film Star Wars (1977). Lucas was eventually won over by Ford's performance during these line reads and cast him as Han Solo. Star Wars became one of the most successful and groundbreaking films of all time, and brought Ford, and his co-stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, widespread recognition. Ford began to be cast in bigger roles in films throughout the late 1970s, including Heroes (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978) and Hanover Street (1979). He also co-starred alongside Gene Wilder in the buddy-comedy western The Frisco Kid (1979), playing a bank robber with a heart of gold. Ford returned to star in the successful Star Wars sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), as well as the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). Ford wanted Lucas to kill off Han Solo at the end of Return of the Jedi, saying, "That would have given the whole film a bottom," but Lucas refused.