Gimli goes ga-ga for Ford

March 8, 2001
Winnipeg Free Press

LIKE Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom, Harrison Ford swooped in, completed his mission and left unscathed.

"Everybody was out looking for him," beauty salon manager Leona Johnson said in Gimli, where the A-list star was shooting scenes for the movie K-19: The Widowmaker. He had the whole town agog, she said.

The greying heart-throb was in Gimli for less than 24 hours to shoot a scene from the submarine drama, which included about 70 locally hired extras.

"Not too many people got to see him," Johnson said at Shear Pleasure Hair Design. Susan Zielke, who had staked out the Lakeview Resort Tuesday with her children Scott and Kayla, didn't get to see Ford.

"Scott's teacher did and a bunch of my friends did," she said. But Zielke wasn't disappointed. Her kids had an opportunity to see how a movie is made and, besides, she wasn't that big of a Ford fan, anyway.

"He's just a person like everybody else." Except that Ford is reportedly earning $25 million US for his role as the Russian sub captain. And worth every penny, if you ask Donnalee Moffatt, who spied the star in costume at breakfast yesterday. "He looked very handsome in his naval uniform," said the general manager of Lakeview Resort, where the cast and crew were staying.

There were no fans to fawn over the dashing middle-aged movie star -- the only customers at the hotel restaurant after the crew had eaten and left were Ford and a few breakfast "regulars." After his brush with Hollywood royalty, one of the regulars went for a haircut at Johnson's shop.

"He was surprised (Ford) was eating all by himself --and that he looked like an average guy -- except he makes $20 million a movie," said Johnson.

When it comes to close encounters with movie stars, St. Andrews resident Rick Schween is 42 going on 16.  The former real estate agent could barely contain his excitement yesterday after getting an autograph from Ford in Gimli Tuesday night and nearly clipping the visiting hunk with his snowmobile.

"I was as giddy as a schoolgirl," said Schween, who drove up to the Interlake on his sled to check out the submarine model that was being used for a scene in the film. "He was very gracious. He gave me an autograph on a match box cover because that's all I had."  Schween says he encountered Ford and an assistant at 9 p.m. on a snowmobile trail leading from the Lakeview Resort to the waterfront.

"They were in front of me. I had to pull off to the side," said Schween, who has long considered himself a major Ford fan. "He turned around and I caught him full in my headlights. He was a little freaked out by the noise."

Schween says his encounter with Ford lasted at least a minute because he had to run back to the parking lot to find someone with a pen. "I got one from a woman in a car," he said. "She came and got an autograph, too." Afterward, Schween went into the hotel lounge to phone his wife about his brush with greatness. Ford, who had just knocked back a double vodka on the rocks, walked by him again.

"This time he gave me a kind of 'get off my submarine' look," Schween said. "I knew what he had to drink because I asked the waitress."

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