Ford reflects on his luck

Oct. 8, 1999
Democrat and Chronicle
by Jack Garner

Filmgoers who rush to see every Harrison Ford movie should be grateful to Ripon College professors of the early '60s. Ford's grade-point average collapsed and he quit the Wisconsin college after two years to try acting. The college lost a bad student; we gained a good actor. By the late '70s, Ford was undeniably a superstar, and earlier this year he won a People's Choice Award as all-time favorite movie star. Today, his latest star turn -- as a cop in Sydney Pollack's Random Hearts -- hits the big screen. Back in the '60s, without a clue to his future, the Chicago native stumbled from college into summer stock performances. He eventually headed for California, where he became a contract player in the fading years of the Hollywood studios. Able to secure only bit parts for more than a decade, he took up carpentry to put food on the table.

Then in 1977, George Lucas remembered Ford as a bit player from American Graffiti and chose him as the ideal Han Solo for his high-risk space opera, Star Wars. Ford became a key part of the Star Wars ensemble for all three original films -- and then took the part of Indiana Jones, the colorful lead in Hollywood's other great trilogy. "I'm astonished by my luck," Ford says. "By having fallen into this particular hole, I've had extraordinary experiences and a very fulfilling professional life. It was a thrill that Star Wars took off, but it's been a slow process to become consistently viable and to try to remain useful." He insists he's grateful it took him more than a decade to achieve that initial fame: "I know I was not ready till I was ready. There was lots to learn and experience before I was ready. So I'm glad I didn't have earlier success. I wasn't ready."

In Random Hearts, Ford is a Washington, D.C., police officer. After his wife dies in a plane crash, he meets a New Hampshire congresswoman (Kristin Scott Thomas) because her husband died in the same crash. Together, Dutch and Kay develop a sort of relationship, though it's understandably filled with all sorts of emotional land mines. That's typical for a movie romance by director Pollack. The creator of The Way We Were, Pollack says the most fascinating love stories involve seemingly insurmountable impediments. "Sydney always puts people in the worst possible context and then looks for the values and behaviors that allow them to overcome the circumstances and find comfort in each other," Ford says. "It was not just emotionally rewarding to be involved with this film, but also very difficult. But the harder it is, the more fun it is."

Ford was speaking by phone from New York City, where he and his wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, live during their children's school year. They long for their 800-acre spread in Jackson Hole, Wyo., but Ford says, "Our kids are in school in New York. Their educational needs are more easily met here than in Wyoming." Though Mathison has been extremely successful with her screenplays for such films as E.T. and The Black Stallion, she hasn't yet written anything for her husband. "No, I've never encouraged that," Ford says. "I'd rather do something written for Dustin Hoffman. "Melissa and I have interests in common. But part of the idea of two working people is that we work for other people outside our relationship. Then we bring that experience back into our lives. Then we're both enriched by our relationships with other people." Interestingly, the two epic trilogies that made Ford a superstar have been in the news this year. First came the release of a new Star Wars film. "It's very hard for me to be an audience for those films," he says. "I appreciated the effort and intelligence that went into it. And I thought performances and the film itself were great. I'm very pleased that the ideas involved are still of interest."

Then, at the launch of Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, Lucas said he'd like to revisit Indiana Jones. Although Ford is 57, Lucas says, "I thought he still looked great in Six Days and Seven Nights last year and could still play Indy." "I've always hoped we could do another Indy movie," Ford says. Grateful that acting has let him spend time in the skin of so many different types of people, Ford says: "I've experienced all sorts of lives. And I've tried to establish an emotional connection with the audience and steer them down a road."

If you do it right, he adds, "They have to go with you. They know they'll learn something of value along the way. They learn what it's like to be a different kind of human being."

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