Born on 13 July 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, United States, Harrison Ford’s life wasn’t sunshine and rainbows during his initial years of adulthood. His films are now an integral part of American culture and history, and he is deeply respected and looked upon as a living legend by the film moguls for his brilliant acting performances in many films.
For each dollar he takes away as his salary, his movies return 10x the amount of the producers, and this is also a major reason why his performances are top-commanding for the movie business.
Ford was not an alien to the movie industry. His parents were related to it, with his father being a former actor and his mother being a former radio actress. At 22, Ford headed to Los Angeles to try his hand in Hollywood and started with voice-overs. He failed to land a job but wasn’t deterred and stayed in the area.
I don’t know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments, he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life—anybody’s life; my life. All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.
For the following two years, Ford saw many ups and downs and worked many odd jobs to bring the table to the food and to pay the rent. At 24 in 1964, he landed an unaccredited role as a bellhop in a movie called ‘Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round’.
“You would never make it in this business”, studio executives thought about him and often told their minds to him. Little did they know that a legend was in the making, and they would kneel to a legend to work for them in the future.
Those rough behaviours and challenging words of studio executives never dashed Ford’s hopes, and he refused to give up. For the next 9 years, he chose to struggle day and night in the hope that the sun would shine on him one day.
In 1973, after 9 long years, he finally succeeded in landing his breakthrough role in ‘American Graffiti’ to position him among the Hollywood heavyweights for the years to come. His performance was critically acclaimed, and the movie was a massive success. In the process, he formed a lifelong friendship with George Lucas and landed the role of ‘Han Solo’ in the biggest blockbuster of that time, ‘Star Wars’. Lucas also recast him as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
That’s Not How The Force Works
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