58 Fun Facts About Harrison Ford

In which city was Harrison Ford born?

Chicago-born and raised in its suburbs, he left the Midwest for Los Angeles in 1964 after a summer-stock season in Wisconsin.

Ford's fifth Indiana Jones film premiered at which festival?

Cannes: before the premiere of The Dial of Destiny the festival gave Ford, then 80, an honorary Palme d'Or, and he said his life had just flashed before his eyes.

Ford studied philosophy at which college, in the self-styled birthplace of the Republican Party?

Ripon College: in The Last Crusade, Indy points truth-seekers to 'Dr. Tyree's philosophy class', Ford's shout-out to his old professor there.

For what offence was Ford expelled from college four days before graduation?

Plagiarism: he has said he was not strict enough about whose words went into his senior thesis, admitted it when accused, and left without a degree.

Which Boy Scout rank, short of Eagle, did Ford reach and later share with the young Indiana Jones?

Life: Ford served on the summer staff of a Wisconsin Scout camp, and The Last Crusade pinned the rank's red-heart badge on River Phoenix's teenage Indy.

Ford's first known film role, in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966), was an uncredited part as what?

A bellhop: afterwards a Columbia executive told him Tony Curtis looked like a star even delivering groceries, and Ford replied that Curtis was meant to look like a delivery boy.

Ford was first billed as "Harrison J. Ford" to avoid confusion with a namesake who had been what?

A silent-film actor: the elder Harrison Ford died in 1957, and the newcomer only learned of him by finding his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The J stood for nothing.

Which unrelated actor sharing Harrison's surname starred in A Time for Killing (1967), his first credited film?

Glenn Ford played the Union major in the Civil War western, which Roger Corman began directing before Phil Karlson replaced him weeks into the shoot.

Which trade did Ford teach himself to support his family when acting work dried up?

Carpentry: his first job was a backyard recording studio for bandleader Sérgio Mendes, who, Ford said, never asked whether he had built one before.

Which writing couple hired Ford to work on their Malibu beach house?

Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne became his friends: he spent a couple of months at their house, explaining each day why the job was running late and over budget.

What was the name of the drag-racing character Ford played in American Graffiti (1973)?

Bob Falfa wears a cowboy hat because Ford refused to cut his hair short for the part, which is set in 1962.

Which director, whose offices Ford helped to remodel, gave him a small part in The Conversation (1974)?

Francis Ford Coppola's offices later hosted the Star Wars casting sessions, and Ford recalls sweeping up there, broom in hand, as Richard Dreyfuss arrived for the first interview.

Ford's army colonel in Apocalypse Now is named after which real filmmaker?

G. Lucas: the colonel is a nod to George Lucas, who was set to direct Apocalypse Now himself until Star Wars took over his time.

How did Ford end up being cast as Han Solo in Star Wars (1977)?

Reading lines as a favour: the film's maker had ruled out anyone from American Graffiti, but the casting director asked Ford to read with the other actors, and the readings won him the part.

In which film did Ford ask for Han Solo to be killed off, only to be turned down?

Return of the Jedi: he thought a death would give the film some 'bottom', and joked that the idea was refused because there was no future in dead Han toys.

In the 1979 comedy western The Frisco Kid, Ford played a bank robber opposite which comic star?

Gene Wilder played a Polish rabbi crossing the Old West; Ford's outlaw part was first meant for a much older Western legend, who withdrew when the producers tried to lower his fee.

Ford was cast as Indiana Jones only after which actor had to turn the part down?

Tom Selleck was held to his Magnum, P.I. contract by CBS; an actors' strike then stalled the series for months, so he could have made the film after all.

What injury forced Ford to fly home from London for surgery during the 1983 shoot of Temple of Doom?

A herniated disc: Ford blamed days of jolting elephant rides, joking that the only fun thing about riding elephants is the getting off.

What is the name of Ford's character in Blade Runner?

Rick Deckard was human as far as Ford was concerned, but the film's director has long insisted that the detective is himself a replicant.

Which 1985 film earned Ford a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards?

Witness: to play a city detective hiding among the Amish, he embedded with a Philadelphia homicide squad before filming.

Which director made The Mosquito Coast (1986) with Ford, a year after their first film together?

Peter Weir's film was, Ford said in 1992, the only one of his that hadn't made its money back, and he was still glad he had done it.

In Working Girl (1988), Ford was the romantic lead opposite which two actresses?

Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver: the studio gave Griffith the lead only once Ford and Weaver had signed on as box-office insurance.

Ford took over the role of Jack Ryan from which actor, who reportedly resented it for years?

Alec Baldwin had played Ryan once; in his 2017 memoir he claimed the recasting was arranged behind his back while he was still negotiating with Paramount.

Ford played Jack Ryan in Patriot Games (1992) and which other Tom Clancy adaptation?

Clear and Present Danger survived Tom Clancy's fury: he called an early script 'really awful' and faxed the production team memos attacking it before it was rewritten.

Which actor played the marshal chasing Ford through The Fugitive (1993)?

Tommy Lee Jones won the supporting-actor Oscar as the deputy marshal, then brought the character back to lead the 1998 spin-off U.S. Marshals.

Donald Trump singled out Ford's hero in which film, saying he "stood up for America"?

Air Force One: asked about the praise on Australian television, Ford replied, 'It's a movie, Donald. It was a movie.'

Which 2000 thriller was the box-office bright spot in Ford's run of disappointments?

What Lies Beneath cast him against type: the screen hero plays a research professor who turns out to be the villain.

Ford regrets turning down which thriller, in a role that won George Clooney an Oscar?

Syriana: Ford said he had not felt strongly enough about 'the truth of the material' and came to think he had made a mistake.

In the baseball film 42 (2013), Ford played which real Brooklyn Dodgers executive?

Branch Rickey: Ford vanished into a fat suit and false eyebrows for a part that called for a character actor, which he says is what he always expected to be.

Ford starred opposite which James Bond actor in the 2011 genre mash-up Cowboys & Aliens?

Daniel Craig took the gunslinger role only after Robert Downey Jr. left the project to make a Sherlock Holmes sequel.

What fell on Ford during filming of The Force Awakens in 2014, sending him to hospital in Oxford?

A hydraulic door on the Millennium Falcon set broke his leg, and the film's production company was later prosecuted and fined over the accident.

Which director made Blade Runner 2049 (2017), in which Ford reprised his replicant-hunting role?

Denis Villeneuve was directing when Ford accidentally punched Ryan Gosling in the face during a fight scene; Gosling's face, Ford said, 'was where it should not have been'.

Ford's first animated-film role was farm character Rooster in which 2019 sequel?

The Secret Life of Pets 2: despite the name, Rooster is a gruff herding dog, whose coaching helps the nervous terrier Max to find his courage.

In The Call of the Wild (2020), Ford played which master of the dog Buck from Jack London's novel?

John Thornton shares the screen with a dog that was never there: Buck is a computer-generated character, not a real animal.

Which co-star of Ford's in the Paramount+ series 1923 had acted with him 36 years earlier?

Helen Mirren, his co-star in The Mosquito Coast (1986), says he never wanted fame and had to overcome his natural character to become a movie star.

The comedy series Shrinking, with Ford as a therapist who has Parkinson's disease, streams on which service?

Apple TV, which dropped the plus from its name in 2025; Ford said he took the job without a script, on faith that its creators would deliver a good one.

Ford entered the MCU in 2025 playing which character, taking over from the late William Hurt?

Thaddeus Ross, now US president, turns into the Red Hulk; Ford said he signed on after watching terrific actors having a good time in Marvel films.

Ford met his third wife, Calista Flockhart, at which 2002 event?

The Golden Globe Awards, on the night Ford received the Cecil B. DeMille Award; he recalls that a spilled glass of wine between them sealed the deal.

Ford and Flockhart married in 2010 in which city, where he was filming at the time?

Santa Fe, New Mexico: the state's governor, Bill Richardson, a friend of the couple, performed the ceremony himself at the Governor's Mansion.

Ford's second wife, Melissa Mathison, worked in what profession?

Screenwriter: Mathison wrote E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, finishing a first draft in about eight weeks that its director said he was willing to shoot the next day.

In which 2016 memoir did Carrie Fisher reveal an affair with Ford during Star Wars?

The Princess Diarist grew out of the diaries she kept on the 1976 shoot: 'It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend,' she said.

A hiker Ford airlifted to safety in 2000 later said she couldn't believe she had done what in his helicopter?

Thrown up: 'I can't believe I barfed in Harrison Ford's helicopter,' said Sarah George, who had not recognised the pilot in his T-shirt and cowboy hat.

Where did Ford crash-land his vintage plane in Los Angeles in March 2015 after it lost engine power?

On a golf course: the engine quit just after take-off from Santa Monica Airport, and Ford clipped a treetop while trying to get back to the runway.

Which famous pilot replaced Ford as chairman of the EAA's Young Eagles programme in 2009?

Chesley Sullenberger took the post jointly with his co-pilot Jeff Skiles, months after the pair landed a crippled airliner on the Hudson River.

Ford was vice chair of which environmental organisation when he addressed the UN's 2019 climate summit?

Conservation International: Ford told leaders they had been talking about saving the Amazon for 30 years, and urged them to get out of the way of the young people trying to do it.

A species of what was named Calponia harrisonfordi in Ford's honour in 1993?

Spider: an ant was later named for him too, and in 2023 a Peruvian snake, which Ford joked he would probably have befriended in the early '60s.

In 1995 Ford testified before a US Senate committee in support of whom?

The Dalai Lama: Ford's public support for Tibet reportedly led the Chinese government to bar him from entering it.

Ford's 2000 AFI Life Achievement Award was presented to him by which two collaborators?

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg handed it over, though Lucas had at first been wary of casting Ford as Indiana Jones, having already used him in two films.

In 1987 a jet breakdown stranded Ford in Maine with which fellow star, then a serving mayor?

Clint Eastwood's town was Carmel, California, where one of his first acts as mayor had been to ease a law that stopped shops selling ice-cream cones; he and Ford were grounded in Bangor on a flight from Paris.

For which band did Ford work as a camera operator on tour in 1968?

The Doors: Ford was second camera on a film of the tour, and later said he couldn't keep up with the band and doubted any of his footage was in focus.

Ford has a brief uncredited part in which Michelangelo Antonioni film, shot in California and released in 1970?

Zabriskie Point gave him only a fleeting, unbilled moment; Jacques Demy had wanted him to star in Model Shop, but the studio insisted on a more experienced actor.

Ford left Hollywood in the 1980s for an 800-acre ranch in which state?

Wyoming: from the ranch near Jackson he has flown his own helicopter on rescue call-outs, once finding a lost 13-year-old Boy Scout near Yellowstone.

Ford's high school, Maine East, was also attended by which future First Lady?

Hillary Clinton spent 1961 to 1964 at Maine East, arriving the year after Ford left; he had been a sportscaster on the school's new radio station.

As a Boy Scout camp counselor, Harrison Ford taught which merit badge?

Reptile Study was his badge at Napowan Adventure Base, a wink given that his Indiana Jones cannot stand snakes; Spielberg later made the young Indy a Boy Scout in The Last Crusade.

In 2008 Harrison Ford was elected to the board of North America's oldest institute devoted to which field?

Archaeology gained an off-screen ally: the Archaeological Institute of America said his Indiana Jones films had stirred public interest in digs, and he backs its fight against looting.

In 2017 Harrison Ford mistakenly landed his plane on a taxiway, flying over an airliner, at which California airport?

John Wayne Airport had cleared him for a runway; instead he passed over a waiting 737 with 110 passengers and was recorded asking controllers whether the airliner was meant to be underneath him.

Ford and Mark Hamill each voiced a 2020 election ad for which anti-Trump Republican group?

The Lincoln Project, run by former Republican operatives, had Ford narrate a 60-second spot telling voters they could keep only one of the two: Donald Trump or Dr Anthony Fauci.

The inaugural Legacy Award that Ford received in 2025 is named for which ant biologist?

E.O. Wilson described an ant, Pheidole harrisonfordi, that was named in honour of the actor's environmental work, and the award's bronze medal carries three leaf-cutter ants.