Harrison's Date With Destiny

With the release of the final Indiana Jones film, Harrison Ford is still at the top of Tinseltown - but he's come a long way...

- SUE CRAWFORD

He is one of the most famous faces on the big screen, best known for his iconic roles in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies.

But if Harrison Ford had taken the advice of his first film boss, he'd have given up acting and pursued an different career altogether.

His film debut came in 1966 when he appeared as a bellboy delivering a note to James Coburn in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round. It was a "blink and you'll miss it" moment and Harrison clearly wasn't expecting rave reviews. Even so, the reaction of his boss at Columbia Pictures still took him by surprise. Harrison, who was being paid just $150 dollars a week at the time, recalls: "He said: "Sit down, kid. I saw the rushes from yesterday. You're never gonna make it in this business. Just forget about it. The first time Tony Curtis was ever in a movie he delivered a bag of groceries.

You took one look at that guy and you said: 'that's a movie star." The harsh words could have crushed the 23-year-old actor on the cusp of his career, but instead Harrison refused to take the insult lying down. He said: "I leaned across his desk and I said: 'I thought you were supposed to think that was a grocery delivery boy'. He said, 'get out of my office and I didn't last that much longer with them!"

With little work following the altercation, Harrison re-trained as a carpenter to support his wife and two young sons. But continued with acting, eventually landing minor parts, before gaining fame for his starring role as Hans Solo in 1977's Star Wars.

Hot on its heels came the 1981 action-adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, which saw Harrison as archaeologist Indiana Jones.