Harrison Ford
INFO WAS OBTAINED FROM http://www.dormnet.his.se/~a95pergr/ford/bio.htm
The Early Days 1942 - 1964
A product of the Midwest and a typically middle-class American family, Harrison Ford was born on 13 July 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. By Ford’s own definition there’s nothing unexceptional about his upbringing and youth. He was the quiet, serious son of an Irish Catholic father and a Russian-Jewish housewife. Although he would quite stumble into acting, the Ford family already had its connections to the world of show business. His grandfather had been a vaudeville comedian and his father was an advertising executive and a modest pioneer in the field of television commercials.
As youths Harrison and his younger brother Terence were often treated trips to the cinema by their father. The first film Harrison remembers seeing is Disney’s Bambi. Although entertained by the flickering images, the child always left the theatre unaffected. In fact it was his brother’s love for acting that was triggered by those early visits to the cinema. Through all of his life, Harrison has never been much of a film fan. The main reason why he still kept coming to the cinema in his youth was because of dating, prefering the art-house circuit which he found more successful as far as dating went. ”They were a cheap, dark place you could go with a girl.”
The magical allure of belonging to a gang, did not appeal to Ford. He prefered his own company and rarely got into serious trouble or fights with other boys in his early days: ”I guess I was what you’d call a loner.” But at East Maine Township Junior High in Des Plaines, Illinois, that changed dramatically and he was being bullied relentlessly, perhaps because he didn’t fit in. Being the shy and independent boy he was, made him into an attractive target for bullies. Every afternoon during the recess the bigger pupils would force Harrison to walk out on the edge of a sharply sloping parking lot and then throw him in. The object of this game was to watch the victim desperately clamber out and then, as he succeeded, throw him back in again. ”The entire school would gather to watch this display. I don’t know why they did it. Maybe because I wouldn’t fight the way they wanted me to. They wanted a fight they could win, and my way of winning was just to hang in there.” Ford’s persecution continued into High School. But finally, one day, he was pushed to far and years of pent-up anger was released on the offender, who fell backwards down a flight of stairs. No one picked on him after that.
As a teenager Harrison became a more accessible and active individual. He began to go out to parties more, and participated in school activities such as the model railroad club, the class council, gymnastics and worked as a DJ for the Park Ridge High School’s campus radio station WMTH-FM. He avoided playing outdoor sports and hated exercise and games. However, he remained a loner and wasn’t particularly popular with girls. His classmates considered him an oddball, but he didn’t care much for what they thought.
After High School, from which he graduated in 1960, he went on to college. He decided to study English and philosophy at a small liberal arts college called Ripon College, situated in central Wisconsin. In college he was, by his own admission, downright lazy, an unhappy student always on the brink of failure. During his years of academia he possessed no driving ambitions. His last year was especially disastrous: ”I slept pretty well all through my last year, just waking up from time to time to eat a pizza”. When failing to complete a thesis on American playwright Edward Albee, he was booted out of college, just three days before graduation. In those last few months at Ripon Ford refused to attend classes or sit exams; he apparently felt that the two subjects he was studying wouldn’t get him anywhere in life. So instead of being bored out of his skull he chose to try the drama course. Being the shy and introvert man he was, this was a very bold step to take. The first stage appearance turned out to be the most frightening ordeal of his young life. The prospects of making a fool out of himself in front of 600 fellow students terrified the 21-year-old. This was the first time he’d ever faced an audience. But as much as it terrified him, it also produced an addiction for the craft. Drawn to overcome his fear, he journeyed further into the world of theatre and appeared in a number of college productions, most notably as Mr. Antrobus in Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. Acting became the perfect escape route from the horrors of a future as a nine-to-five worker.
Full of enthusiasm for theatre and acting he signed up with the Belfry Players in June 1964 for a season of summer stock in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. When the curtains rose at the Belfry Theatre on 26 June, this marked the professional acting debut of Harrison Ford. No one knew then that on stage was a future Hollywood superstar. At that time he was just one of the guys, part of the team. By mid September, and after six productions, it was all over, and fall and eventually winter was closing in on Wisconsin. It was time to move on.
About the only thing Ford knew about being an actor was that he had to be in either New York or Los Angeles to be able to succeed. To decide which way to go, east or west, he enlisted the services of a coin - tails he’d go to the West coast and heads to the East coast. He flipped the coin. Heads. But he didn’t find the thought of both freezing and starving appealing, so he kept tossing until it landed on tails. That way he’d at least starve in nice weather, he thought. So he and his college sweetheart Mary Marquardt loaded all their belongings in their Volkswagen and drove off and didn’t stop until they saw the Pacific.
The Lean Years 1964 - 1976
When Harrison and Mary arrived in California in 1964 (they got married the same year) they were full of hopes and dreams of a fresh new start in life. But if wouldn’t be easy. Harrison knew very little about his chosen profession, save that Hollywood was probably the place to be. Stardom was the last thing in his mind - to be just a regular, working actor in a television series was about the height of his ambition.
The couple’s journey ended in Laguna Beach, a coastal town south of L.A., where the couple got themselves an apartment. After a brief spell working in a paint store the resourceful Ford managed to land a role in a local production of John Brown’s Body. He also secured an assortment of day jobs to help to pay the $75 per month rent. He worked as a yacht broker, a management trainee in a department store and as a late-night pizza chef, an experience which Ford enjoyed.
While appearing at the Laguna Beach Playhouse Ford’s potential was recognized and he was sent over to Columbia studios for an interview. Well there, he found himself facing the archetypal Hollywood mogul figure, smoking thick cigars and sitting behind a large oak desk. Ford was asked for his name and then he had to write down detailed information about himself: how tall he was, his weight, what were his hobbies, special talents and so on. After this the bald-headed man told him that they’d call if they had any use for him. Standing up, Ford thanked his hosts and left. Before leaving the studio he had to go to the toilets. On his return from the rest room an assistant to Mr. Gordon (the interviewer) came running towards him in panic shouting, ”Come here, come here, he wants you”. Back inside the office, much to Ford’s surprise, he was offered a permanent place at Columbia. Why the fat man changed his mind remains a mystery.
He was now signed up, for $150 a week, to a seven-year pact, part of Columbia’s short lived new talent program. The initial jubilation over being recruited by a big Hollywood studio soon evaporated. Ford was among the last to experience the sometimes degrading privilege of being under contract to a studio, and soon tired of the factory methods used to try to create new stars. Ford the human being was uninteresting. He was being used as publicity fodder for studio campaigns and the acting lessons included in his contract gave him nothing. They even wanted him to change his name (Harrison was seen as too pretentious).
The feature film debut of Harrison Ford arrived in 1966 with the movie Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, where he played the part of a bellboy who has to deliver a telegram to the star of this crime drama, James Coburn. For this first real contact with moviemaking, which resulted in forty-five seconds of screen time, he was severely reprimanded. The vice-president of Columbia told him personally that: ”Kid, you ain’t got it!”, and Ford had to return to the acting classes for six months. After appearing in minor roles in movies like Luv and The Long Ride Home (a.k.a. Time For A Killing) in 1967 he was sacked from the contract, to his enormous relief.
Three days after his departure from Columbia, and much to his own surprise, Ford once again entered into a similar working relationship with Universal. Again he was under a contract, but this time it was different. The studio’s policy was to use their contract players in the many television shows that they produced. Between 1967 and 1974 he appeared as guest star in numerous American shows, like The Virginian, Gunsmoke, Kung Fu and the Partridge Family. In mid 1969 he was loaned out to MGM for what was then the most important movie of his career, Zabriskie Point. As it turned out, no one knows if he’s in the movie somewhere or if his part was cut out altogether. The following year was hardly any better and soon he found himself on the threshold of making one of the most important decisions in his life, quitting acting.
The regular income had enabled him, Mary and their first son (Benjamin, born 1967) to buy a house high up in the hills above Los Angeles. But the house needed drastic refurbishment, and the Ford’s didn’t have the money to hire a crew of professionals. Undeterred, Ford bought some power tools and went to a local library to read up on carpentry and woodwork, subjects about which he knew very little. Using his own home as a guinea pig for the first attempt at carpentry might have ended with disaster, but instead it turned out to become quite a success for the beginner carpenter Ford. After totally stripping his house from top to bottom, he rebuilt it after his own specifications, learning as he went along. To his surprise he found that he was able to derive a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from the job. Being able to put things together with his own hands, making beauty out of dead wood, fascinated him greatly. So when his acting career was heading nowhere fast in the late sixties it was to carpentry he turned for salvation. Since he figured that he hadn’t learnt anything of value while contracted to the to major studios, he turned his back on Hollywood and became a full-time carpenter.
Ford’s first professional assignment as a carpenter was the conversion of a three-car garage into an recording studio for the Brazilian composer Sergio Mendes. At a cost of $100 000, and weighing in the fact that he was a novice in the field of carpentry, it was needless to say a risky undertaking. But, after many hours at the library, and much depending on his intuition and luck, the studio stood ready. This was also an unexpected success, and news of Ford’s accomplishment spread amongst showbusiness folk. He was now in business and soon business was booming. He became, in his own words, ”carpenter to the stars”, a respected member of the community. Soon his new career was paying better than the old one, and with this achievement came the kind of self-respect he could never have gained as a lowly contract player in the shrewd Hollywood world. But, Ford never really contemplated leaving showbusiness altogether, he had invested to much of his life to throw in the towel now. He wouldn’t accept defeat. Now that he had a steady job he was able to turn down acting offers that came along, the money issue was not a case anymore. Slowly, slowly, because of only accepting parts in ”good” productions, his name was beginning to be associated with good work.
Unquestionably Ford’s most valuable customer at this time was a man by the name of Fred Roos, a casting director and one of the few friends from the days at Universal. In return for Ford fixing parts of his house, he began to audition Ford for ”anything that he was remotely right for”. At the time Roos was working for Francis Ford Coppola, and this close association led to him being appointed on the second feature of an unknown director called George Lucas. Roos had no difficulty including Ford’s name among the hundred or so young hopefuls gunning for a place in American Graffiti, which the production was called. Ford first displayed arrogant indifference about becoming involved in the project. Not for artistic reasons, but because of money. Carpentry had become so lucrative that if he were to take the part it would mean a cut in wages. He and Mary was expecting the birth of their second son (Willard, born 1969), and he had fallen behind in his health insurance payments. But, since he believed in the project he accepted to take the part as Bob Falfa at the fee of $500 a week. ( falfa.wav - listen to Bob Falfa, singing "Some Enchanted Evening")
Released in August 1973, American Graffiti was the surprise smash of the year. For the first time in his acting career Harrison Ford felt that he had actually made a worthwhile contribution to a movie. Artistically richer for having worked with Lucas, he returned to carpentry duties, pleased to know that he finally could be associated with a successful product.
Over the next three years Ford accepted only three acting jobs (one of them was a part in Coppola’s The Conversation, which Roos got for him). He continued to develop his acting skills and grew in stature and confidence as an actor. But when 1976 came he found that his career was again going nowhere. Though he had been working with some enormously successful films in the last five years, the success didn’t seem to rub off on him. When Fred Roos called him up again with a third job it did little to raise his spirits. The role this time certainly seemed like a suspicious one, an interplanetary knight by the name of Solo.
Ford the Star 1976 -
Strongly influenced and inspired by the Flash Gordon TV serials (which he enjoyed greatly in his youth), Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings and Dune, George Lucas set out in January 1973 to write the scripts that would eventually become the epic Star Wars saga. It wasn’t until March of 1976, shortly before filming on the first film began, that the final screenplay emerged. The problem of casting wasn’t confronted until very late in the preparation process. During the two months of auditioning for Star Wars, he held on to the strategy that had worked so well with American Graffiti, sifting through hundreds of unknown actors for the perfect combination. Perhaps the most hotly contested role was that of Han Solo. Numerous twists of fate and an incredible run of luck led to Harrison Ford. At the time of the auditions Harrison Ford, who had no ambitions about being in Star Wars, was installing an elaborate entrance at the old Goldwyn Studios for director Coppola. This put him at the exact same location as Lucas, who held the interviews on one of the stages. Ford found this to be more than mere coincidence, so he started to carry out his work at night. But one day something came up and he had to work on the afternoon; and sure enough that was the day that Lucas decided to pay a visit.
Fred Roos remembers that Ford wasn’t high on George’s list, but three or four days before the final casting decision Ford did a video test. When asked to help out with reading the male parts opposite the contenders for the part of Princess Leia, he took a week off from carpentry. Around the time of Ford’s call-up from Lucas he was busy carrying out domestic chores for actress Sally Kellerman. Ford left her residence in such a hurry that he forgot all his tools and his overalls. He was never to return for them.
Work began officially on Star Wars early in 1975. The special effects was treated top priority right from the start. The Tatooine desert sequence was shot in southern Tunisia and thereafter the crew moved to Elstree Studios in London, which could provide Lucas with nine large sound stages simultaneously. Ford, revelling in the opportunity to shine at last in a role of substance, was determined to have fun amidst the monotony routine that was demoralizing everyone. When carrying out a wide range of practical jokes the english crew thought he was totally out of his mind. But although having a great time during shooting and enjoying the company of his fellow actors, he remained a very reserved person.
On Wednesday 25 May Star Wars opened, without very high hopes of success, at theatres across the U.S. But within a couple of weeks box-offices were tumbling. By August Star Wars had taken in $100 million (the final cost for the movie was $10.5 million!), until then the fastest growing picture in history. By christmas Ford’s face was known across the globe when the toys and games market was flooded with Star Wars souvenirs. Ford had become a leading actor in the mainstream movie world and now critics hailed him as an overnight success. But in fact, that night had lasted fifteen years and had been full of anger and frustration. By never giving up on his quest and committing himself to always do a good job, whatever the profession was. In addition, being a late bloomer had allowed him to gain some maturity before being confronted with fame. And, not to forget, Star Wars gave him financial security and the creative freedom which accompanies it.
Terrified of the horrors of typecasting, Harrison escaped from the post Star Wars frenzy by working with movies that he thought would widen the audience perception of him as an actor. During the years between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back he associated his name with six movies. His obsession to work against type almost wrecked his career. Accepting a small part in Heroes was the first step in his anti-type crusade, knowing that what he had accepted was an underdeveloped part. Although a flop it served his purpose. Then he had a small role as colonal in Coppola’s epic Vietnam movie Apocalypse Now. Possibly the only person on location (the Philippines) who had a good time, Ford enjoyed his short visit to the madhouse production. Another source of pleasure was his burgeoning friendship with Coppola’s assistant Melissa Mathison. They hit it off from the moment they met and found that they were remarkably well suited as a pair, both sharing that anti-Hollywood trait.
At this stage of his life when he was becoming more and more involved with projects and felt the new pressures of fame, his marriage started to crumble under him. As his commitment to moviemaking escalated the marriage suffered as a consequence. Trying desperately to keep the family together, Mary and the kids visited him at the shooting locations as much as possible. But at this time, when many of his productions were being made over-seas (especially in London), this became harder. Also, the new and unexpected relationship with Melissa placed an even greater strain on Ford’s already crumbling marriage. Eventually, the break-up was unavoidable.
The Empire Strikes Back was to resurrect Harrison Ford’s career, and it brought him back into the minds of the mass audience. The warm familiarity of Han Solo acted both as a comfort and a protection for a man whose own fragile reality was crashing around his ears. In the second part of the saga Han Solo is given a more dominant part and Ford’s creative input was on overdrive. ”It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything I’ve done that I’m happy with. I don’t think I ever walked away from a scene thinking that I hadn’t given it my best shot.”, Ford said afterward. Empire turned out to be just as successful as its parent, despite the chaotic circumstances that surrounded it during production. The complex story and the concentration on human relationship made it a much richer piece of work than Star Wars.
It was during his 1977 vacation in Hawaii, where Lucas had flown to avoid the opening of Star Wars, that one of the most famous film-making collaborations were ignited. While laying on the beach, his worries put to ease by the news of Star Wars success, Lucas started to fantasize with Steven Spielberg about which movies they’d like to next. (Spielberg was relaxing from the headaches caused by Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) The concept of a trilogy featuring a daredevil archeologist by the name of Indiana Jones began as a daydream long before he had even created Star Wars, but it was now, during the childish discussions with his friend since eleven years, that the idea was given some real substance. Spielberg was entranced by the idea of making a true adventure movie, so after returning to California he was offered the director’s chair for the movie that would eventually become Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Everyone’s unlikely first choice to play Indiana Jones was a then unknown TV actor called Tom Selleck. The audition for the part had impressed all at Lucasfilm, but CBS refused to release him from his contract to the TV series Magnum. The sudden unavailability of Selleck left Lucas and Spielberg with just a few weeks to come up with a new leading man. Numerous actors passed before Lucas’s video cameras before Harrison Ford became Selleck’s emergency substitute. It wasn’t until Spielberg attended a screening of The Empire Strikes Back that Ford suddenly became the clear option for the part. Signed for Raiders, Ford immediately found himself at a striking disadvantage, being unfamiliar with the classic serial heroes on which Lucas had based Indiana Jones. So, instead of following in steps already throd, he created Indy in his own image. He dedicated himself greatly in the part and wouldn’t let any details be left to chance. For example, he dedicated himself to learn how to handle the famous ten-foot bull-whip to such a degree that he became so proficient that it became incorporated into several of the fighting scenes. He also insisted on doing as many of the stunt scenes as possible, without the aid of a stunt double. Anything that simply promised serous injury or total disability, Harrison did; anything that promised death through fatal miscalculation the stunt team did.
The sparkling exchange of ideas, the great sense of fun generated on the set and Spielberg’s willingness to involve him as much as possible in the creative process made Raiders the most enjoyable film of Ford’s career. For the first time in his career he was being called upon to use his charisma and ability to carry a movie single handed, which at the time terrified him. Thankfully the nerves experienced on the set never transferred to the screen, and the portrayal of archeologist Indiana Jones won him the best notices of his career and he was being compared with actors like Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne. Not only a terrific movie, Raiders is also a masterpiece of economic moviemaking. The movie was shot under the break-neck schedule of 73 days and had the intention of looking like a $40 million movie although the cost was half of that.
Suddenly Ford found himself in the absolute center of attention. His name solely guaranteed an audience. He had become the world’s number one box-office draw and a pulp star to a whole new generation of moviegoers. This hero worship became a great burden on Ford’s shoulders. He has never really believed in the obsession of adopting heroes from movies and making them the focus of one’s life (he never had any idols as a kid) and now that he became a subject of this fascination he found it even more unnerving. The days of walking unnoticed on any street in the world was over and the popularity of Raiders meant that it was impossible for him to maintain his anonymity.
Released on an unsuspecting audience in June 1982, Blade Runner was rejected out of hand by the masses, earning a lowly $14 million in the U.S. Diehard Raiders of the Lost Ark fans found Ridley Scott’s film to be sharply at odds with their Star Wars vision of the future. This aspect, the portrayal of a bleak and crumbling future, was one of the reasons why Ford eventually agreed to accepting the role as Rick Deckard. He didn’t want to reprise his hero roles but instead lend his name to a project that would be a contrast to recent work. Today Blade Runner has earned its place as probably the cult classic of the eighties, and one of the most accomplished movies of it genre. Ford himself saw his performance as tough cop Deckard as an important step towards more serious roles.
Morally Ford was committed to seeing the Star Wars trilogy through to the bitter end. Professionally he was bored sick of Han Solo. Granted he owed Solo a great deal, and Star Wars had launched his career, but whereas his return in Empire was a welcome opportunity to save his name as an actor, an appearance in Return of the Jedi would be a backward step. But his loyalty to Lucas finally convinced him that he ought to fire his blaster one last time.
The three leading actors approached this final chapter with mixed emotions. On the one hand they were relieved to be finally finished with it all, but at the same time they lamented the loss of friendships and working alliances built up over six years. The Return of the Jedi closed the book on Han Solo once and for all. ”I had great fun doing it”, Ford said at the time. ”I’m glad I did all three of them. But, as well, I’m glad I don’t have to do any more.” Ford knew that his contribution to the last chapter had been bleaker than previous and that Han Solo seen in Return of the Jedi was a more shallow character than in Empire. But he had Indiana Jones to fall back on, and judging from the fan mail he received, Indiana Jones had more followers than Solo.
By September 1982 Harrison and Melissa had been living together for four years, but he kept quiet about the rumours of a coming marriage. Six months later they tied the knot. It was his idea. Both were content merely living together until thoughts of starting a family of their own were raised. Ford then felt it proper that they should marry. ”Harry’s old fashioned that way”, said Melissa. The ceremony took place in Santa Monica on 14 March 1983 behind closed doors and in the utmost secrecy. The whole ritual lasted only fifteen minutes and was carried out by a judge in his chambers. Afterwards the couple sped away in Ford’s black Porsche.
Even before the pen had touched the paper the plan was to make the second Indy installment a prequel rather than a sequel: Just like the Star Wars trilogy, the second ”chapter” was to become a darker and more gloomy piece. Lucas’s intention was that the second movie should be like a trip through the haunted house, compared to the jungle ride at which the audience experienced in the first. The audience expectations were so impossibly high that every flaw in the movie would be magnified, and everybody involved with the production knew this. Ford, aware of this fact, still manages to spellbound the audience with a actionpacked performance and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom went to history as one of the most successful movies at the box-office.
Known to the whole world as the greatest comic-book hero around, Ford was on the hunt for a script that could redeem his a serious actor. Along came Witness, a murder mystery set in an Amish community. When accepting the part of John Book, everyone in the business saw this as a firebath of him as an actor. Was he able to carry a part of this magnitude? There were no gadgets, no special effects wizardry, to aid him on his way. Everything depended on him and his skills as an actor.
Upon release in 1985 all fears were stilled. Perhaps the greatest recognition of all was the Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Witness represents one of the finest films that Ford has done and it also marks the culmination of the most remarkable half-decade in the career of any film actor. From 1980 to 1985 Ford didn’t put one foot wrong, making some of the most popular films in screen history.
Ford has always been very selective in his choices of project. No more so than after Witness, when he was deluged with scripts, most of which he wasn’t interested in enough to finish reading. A year went by and then finally he signed up for the controversial role as Allie Fox in the screen adaptation of Paul Theroux’s best-selling book The Mosquito Coast. The script was the best he had ever seen, an actor’s dream. Now proven as a fine and subtle actor Ford was a logical choice for the part. This would be his toughest assignment so far, requiring great physical and emotional strength. Before he had always portrayed protagonists, heroes that the audience willingly took to their hearts. This time he had accepted to portray an unsympathetic person. The opportunity to work with Peter Weir was a further inducement (he directed Witness).
The role of Allie Fox was to cripple Ford physically and mentally. He was a tough character to be with for fourteen- sixteen-hour days, six days a week. The long location shooting in Belize got to him and when the shooting was over he swore to never return to the hot and energy draining jungle. While no method actor, Ford is undeniably affected by his characters after he leaves the set. Allie Fox was harder to shake off than most, and it took him months to come down from ”a period of personal afflection”, as he chose to call it. The general antipathy shown in the States towards The Mosquito Coast, by public and press alike, upset the actor greatly and almost certainly robbed him of a second richly deserved Oscar nomination. Normally he doesn’t pay an awful lot of attention to them. However, he took the criticism of The Mosquito Coast very much to heart and urged people to go and see it and make up their own minds. He wrote protests to newspapers and accused critics of the treatment the movie had received. But it didn’t help. It was impossible for the audience to accept the adored Harrison Ford, an icon of American heroism in their eyes, in an anti-american movie. But, despite its lack of success, The Mosquito Coast stands as a testimony of what Harrison Ford can do when he’s at his best. The work behind Allie Fox is some of the best acting he has ever accomplished.
Like most people raised in the suburbs of a big city Ford would dream of escaping to a pastoral setting, to live off the land as a farmer or perhaps work as a forest ranger. In fact he could easily had become a farmer instead of an actor, he acknowledges. Since he could remember, Ford had always wanted to own a place in the country, somewhere secluded and peaceful. In 1985 he made the dream reality.
Seven miles from the town Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with a population of 4500, he found his Eden. He purchased 800 acres of virgin land situated so remotely that he had to build a road, bring in electricity and water and so on, before construction of his home could even begin. The result of all the efforts is a simple two-storey white clapboard farmhouse and a series of outbuildings. Architecturally plain, it is a house where form follows function. The only outward signs of wealth is a tennis court and a satellite dish near the garage. Fords defection to Wyoming from the goldfish-environment of Los Angeles was partly precipitated by the problem of losing both his privacy and anonymity, a tragic but inevitable side-effect of fame. The move was just a way of buying back some of his lost freedom.
Harrison has become a more and more important member of the community through the years, and takes pride in lending his name to local issues. For example, he sponsors a kids ski team each winter, and helped to raise funds to a local library. He’s known for doing a lot for the community. The locals generally respect his privacy and have grown accustomed to his presence. When he happens to go into town, which he seldom does, it’s hard to recognize him and he can easily be mistaken for just another ranch hand coming into town to stock up on provisions. Ford is ferocious about his right to lead a life that’s as normal as anyone else’s, and the amazing thing is that he has succeeded. His home is, in many respects, indistinguishable from the homes of millions of fellow rural Americans.
In March 1987 Melissa gave birth to Ford’s third son, Malcolm. Although concerned about the age gap between son and father (Ford was 44 at the time) such fears were overshadowed by the prospect of a second chance at fatherhood. Determined that Malcolm would be capable of divorcing the man he sees in the movies and the one who tucks him up in bed at night, Ford takes the boy with him whenever he leaves home to make a film. In fact, he insists that his family always accompany him on location. ”If I can’t bring them with me there’s no deal”, he’s once said. With Ben and Willard he wasn’t paid enough to be able to do that. In June 1990 there was a new addition to the Ford family when baby girl Georgia was born. After three boys Ford was thrilled about becoming the father of a daughter at last. His sons from the marriage with Mary had now entered their twenties, and neither of them contemplated a career in showbusiness. Benjamin, the oldest, is a chef nowadays while Willard has become a high school teacher.
In 1988 Ford appeared in Roman Polanski’s psychological thriller Frantic. His character, Richard Walker, is a typical Ford hero - an honorably ordinary everyman figure, whose unexpected depths of courage spring from his love for his wife. Frantic never became a success, perhaps because of it’s lack of appeal among non-European audiences. Then along came the script for Working Girl, which seemed ideal in every respect. Ford found the modern relationship issue very interesting and was further attracted to the production by the choice of director, Mike Nichols.
For the first time in ages Ford played a secondary character, Jack Trainer, and he was more than happy to share the workload with the two leading ladies: Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith. He didn’t intend to make a habit out of playing supporting roles, but found this particular role to be too interesting to let it slip by. As it turned out, Working Girl became one of the most well received movies in 1988, by both critics and the audience, and Ford’s acting, especially his comic abilities, were highly praised.
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