Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor who, between 1977 and 1983, appeared in what were then the top ten highest-grossing movies of all time.

He is most well-known for his performances as the tough, wisecracking space pilot Han Solo in the Star Wars films, and the droll but tenacious archaeologist/action hero Indiana Jones of Raiders of the Lost Ark and its sequels.

The U.S. box office grosses of all of Ford's films combined totals about $3.18 billion, with worldwide grosses at approximately $5.65 billion. No other actor in history has box-office grosses as large.

Biography
Ford was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Dora Nidelman (born 1917 in New Jersey to Harry Nidelman and Anna Lifschutz) was Jewish; his father, Christopher Ford (born November 20, 1906 in New York to John Fitzgerald Ford and Florence Veronica Niehaus; died on February 10, 1999), was Irish/German and a Catholic, as well as a former actor. When asked what religion he was raised, Harrison jokingly responded, “Democrat," though his parents did take him to occasional services.

He graduated from Maine Township High School in Park Ridge, Illinois, 1960 where he claims he was picked on by bullies and ignored by girls. He attended Ripon College in Wisconsin, taking a drama class in his junior year chiefly as a way to meet women. He was expelled after failing a philosophy class his senior year, three days from graduation. He asked his favorite professor, Dr. Tyree (who he mentions in The Last Crusade), for a letter of recommendation to avoid the draft, but he refused to write it. Since then he has broken contact with Tyree. Once he became famous, Tyree repeatedly tried to make contact again to use Ford's star power to help their small school, but the actor refused.

Ford, a self-described "late bloomer," became fascinated with acting. While in college, toward the end of his freshman year, he was a member of a folk band called The Brothers Gross, in which he played gutbucket. He was a brother of Sigma Nu Fraternity.

He married his college sweetheart, Mary Marquardt, in 1964. The newlyweds moved to Los Angeles, California, where Ford signed a contract with Columbia Pictures for $150 a week in the studio's New Talent program, getting bit parts in three films. He then went to Universal Studios and did minor television roles. Not happy with the acting jobs being offered to him, Ford became a self-taught professional carpenter to better support his wife and two small sons before his break-through role in American Graffiti. Coincidentally, it was his work as a carpenter that would land Ford his biggest role. George Lucas hired Ford in 1975 to build some cabinets in his home and used him to read lines for actors being cast for parts in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It was Steven Spielberg who first noticed that Ford was perfect for the part of Han Solo.