Fittingly, it was Star Wars (1977) that gave the world its first inkling that Harrison Ford was a truly stellar leading man. Side-by-side with Chewbacca, his Wookie wingman, the then 33-year-old Ford made the part of Han Solo his own, with his piloting of the iconic Millennium Falcon proving the launch pad to his portrayal of countless other leading men – from Indiana Jones to Jack Ryan, by way of Rick Deckard, the is-he-isn’t-he replicant who took centrestage in the two Blade Runner movies (1982 and 2017).
Looking back today, he is quick to acknowledge the importance of his role in that far, far away galaxy in terms of his own career, saying, “Star Wars really did mark the beginning of my working life.”
Repaying this debt, he went on to star in a further three instalments of the swashbuckling space saga – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983) and The Force Awakens (2015), with his apparent death in the latter triggering a fan-spasm among the Star Wars faithful. His commitment to defeating Darth Vader and his evil cohorts, however, seldom stopped him from becoming the founding father of other franchises across a career that has now spanned more than half a century.
Along the way, he has notched up four appearances as Indiana Jones, two appearances as Blade Runner’s Deckard and as Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy’s ever-ingenious CIA operative. Return gigs aside, he also dominated the screen in more than his fair share of the most iconic movies to have been released over the last 50 years, including Apocalypse Now (1979), Witness (1985) and The Fugitive (1992).
Despite his glittering cinematic CV, Harrison Ford was no overnight success. Indeed, prior to his big Star Wars break, he trained as a carpenter, determined to have a fallback profession should Hollywood fail to recognise his thespianic qualities. By the time Star Wars plucked him from relative obscurity, he had already spent more than a decade failing to set the film world alight in such uninspiring roles as “airport worker” in 1970’s counterculture hit Zabriskie Point and “irate motorist” in Luv, a 1967 slapstick rom-com.
Looking back at his early struggles to make his mark in the fickle world of filmdom, he says, “It took me a long time to figure out how to act and how to give directors just what they wanted.” He was a persistent student, though, and by the time he auditioned for American Graffiti, a 1973 coming-of-age comedy, he had learned enough of his craft to impress its director – 32-year-old George Walton Lucas, the man who was just three years away from making Star Wars, the highest-grossing movie of all time.
Despite his relatively short screentime in American Graffiti, Ford’s performance was clearly memorable enough to land him a spot on the shortlist for the role of Solo. While Star Wars elevated Lucas into a select pantheon of the World’s Most Commercially Successful Directors Ever, it had a similarly transformative effect on Harrison’s own life. Pretty much overnight, he became an internationally-feted superstar, lauded wherever Star Wars became the hottest ticket in town – which was pretty much everywhere.
With fame also comes rumours and gossip. In terms of affairs, Harrison Ford has been linked to several of his leading ladies, including Lesley Ann-Down, his co-star in 1979’s Hanover Street. He was, however, just as likely to be flirting as fighting, as he apparently loathed Sean Young who played opposite him in the original Blade Runner.
There was also the “fact” that he bought the Sunset Hills Golf Course (he hadn’t), was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease (he wasn’t) and, on several occasions, that he had died, a claim that most recently surfaced on 1 January this year. One apparently scurrilous tale, however, turned out to be true, when he finally acknowledged that he had, in fact, had a brief but intense affair with Carrie Fisher, his love interest in the original Star Wars movie.
The claim had first surfaced in The Princess Diarist, the final instalment in Fisher’s memoirs, published in December 2016, just a month before her untimely death. It was a testament to the affection widely felt towards both performers that the revelation proved endearing rather than outrageous.
As to Ford’s own mortality, while he is clearly still with us, over the last couple of years it could be seen that he is tying up the loose ends of his cinematic legacy. In 2015, Han Solo was grimly cut down by his own son in The Force Awakens, while last year’s Blade Runner 2049, although clearly leaving Ford’s character alive, did seem to mark the end of his particular story arc.
For 2020, we are promised the fifth Indiana Jones movie, giving the by then 78-year-old actor the chance to reprise the last of his truly iconic movie roles. Should it all end for him then, though, perhaps that carpentry qualification will finally prove its worth.
Text: Robert Blain
Photos: AFP