Celebrities Online - celebz.com

Harrison Ford - Biography

Actor. Born on July 13, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. Handsome, rugged star of Hollywood films. The son of an Irish father and Russian-Jewish mother, he began acting while attending Ripon College in Wisconsin and, after briefly performing in summer stock, headed for Hollywood, where he signed as a contract player with Columbia, then Universal. He played secondary parts, typically as a cowboy, in a number of films of the late 60's and in such TV series as "Gunsmoke", The Virginian", and "Ironside". Discouraged by the progress of his career, he dropped out of acting for a while and became a professional carpenter. But he returned to the screen in 1973, portraying Bob Falfa, a wise-guy racer in George Lucas' American Graffiti. Four years later he achieved "instant" popularity as co-star of Lucas' space fantasy Star Wars, in which he played Han Solo, the daring captain of a pirate starship, the Millennium Falcon. His popularity soared to superstar heights when he portrayed archeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones in the action-packed serial-inspired Steven Spielberg thriller Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its two sequels, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

Gaining experience and maturity with every role, Ford proved himself capable actor in drama and comedy as well, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrait of a big-city copy out of his element in Amish country in Witness (1985). Since the mid-80's, he has become one of Hollywood's favorite (and most bankable) leading men.

Moviegoers responded favorably to his gift for portraying ordinary men who grapple with extraordinary circumstances while never losing sight of the irony of their situation--a quality which made huge hits out of Presumed Innocent, Patriot Games, The Fugitive, and Clear and Present Danger. The same wry perspective made his corporate fable Working Girl a hit on par with his man-on-the-run blockbusters.

Ford has two adult sons from his first marriage to Marquardt. That marriage ended in divorce in 1979, and four years later Ford married screenwriter Melissa Mathison. The couple has since boasted one of Hollywood's most stable marriages, and they have two children of their own. Fans of Ford's action films will be pleased to learn of his next three projects: he plays an Irish cop in the thriller The Devil's Own; he plays a tough-on-terrorism U.S. President who gets hijacked aboard Air Force One in an as yet untitled actioner; and he will portray the sheriff of a 1920s town in a still-untitled Western scripted by Jim (Legends of the Fall) Harrison. And yes, there is another Indiana Jones adventure in the works, but don't hold your breath.