More Human Than Human

When film historians look back on the cinema of the 20th century, there’s every chance that the one actor’s name that stands above all others will be HARRISON FORD. The highest grossing actor of all time, his films have brought in $4.87 million so far thanks to appearances in four STAR WARS movies, four Indiana Jones films and numerous other hits…

- Mark Newbold

Born on July 13th, 1942 in Chicago, both of Ford’s parents were performers. His father Christopher was a former actor while his mother Dorothy was a former radio actress. Irish Catholic and German on his father’s side and Russian Jewish on his mother’s, Ford often pondered his heritage, saying “As a man, I’ve always felt Irish; as an actor, I’ve always felt Jewish.”

Ford graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1960 before moving on to Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he majored in philosophy. Taking a drama class in the final quarter of his senior year, he was bitten by the acting bug and, by 1964, a season of summer stock with the Belfry Players in Wisconsin led to a journey west. Following in his mother’s footsteps, he applied for a job in radio voiceovers, something he had done at high school on radio station WMTH.

A $150-a-week contract with Columbia Pictures’ New Talent program saw Ford take his first steps on the acting ladder. His first uncredited role was as a bellhop in 1966’s Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, with his first screen credit coming a year later in 1967’s A Time for Killing (The Long Ride Home), which starred Superman’s adoptive dad Glenn Ford, future Dracula George Hamilton and ill-fated Swedish actress Inger Stevens, who would die from a drugs overdose in 1970.

A move to Universal Studios saw an increasing amount of television work and roles in a variety of shows including Gunsmoke, Ironside, The Virginian, The F.B.I., Love, American Style, and Kung Fu, while his movie credits continued to build up in 1968’s Journey to Shiloh and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point in 1970.