Strong, sporty, sexy, successful

25.9.2000
Bild der Frau
(translated by YG)

Strong, sporty, sexy, successful: That's how Hollywood's dream guy is today. But he was at the very bottom: desperate, weary of life. For the first time he talks about the serious crisis. The best, most successful and probably also richest (estimated fortune: 600 Mio. DM) of all top stars in Hollywood immediately leaps from his chair as I enter his suite in the Munich noble hotel. Harrison Ford (58) grabs my hand firmly, as if he wanted to prove to me by his handshake that he really had to feed his family for a long time in the seventies as a carpenter.

"Wie geht's?" he asks in German after the English welcome and grins roguishly like a little boy who has been thinking up something. Anyway, apart from his manliness Harrison Ford possesses something endearingly boyish. Has this singular mixture of steely selfconfidence and disarming helplessness in his eyes. And always seems to be a bit absent-minded and dreamy...

But now the actor, who came to Munich to promote his new movie "What Lies Beneath" (starting Sept. 28th), takes care of his interviewer. Pours some coffee, serves the mineral water the typical American way with lots of ice cubes. And starts to swoon over Michelle Pfeiffer: "She plays my wife. She is wonderful. A charming, lovable person. It's our first movie together." A psychothriller. She hears voices, sees inexplicable things. Fantasy? Supernatural? Ghosts?"I do not believe in ghosts," Harrison Ford says with his sonorous bass. He speaks slowly, considers carefully what he says. "I believe in science and have both feet on the ground. But I also believe that the human mind is capable of generating the belief that we can see ghosts. As I said, it's not given to me. But it's fascinating and very complicated. But the whole life and the people are complicated."

When he was young, Harrison Ford studied philosophy for one year. Questions about the meaning of life. But his studies bored him. He was "a lazy-bones," he says. Slept during the daytime, went to dance with the girls in the evening. And was dreaming of a stage career on Broadway. But it was also a time of doubts about himself and of deep crises. Ford: "I had serious depressions, was totally down." He broke off the contact to his friends, lead a life withdrawn in himself.

"But now let's talk again about today," Harrison Fords cuts off the look back. Just so much: Not much later, in 1964, he married college student mary Louise, moved with her to Hollywood. Two children, career, marital crisis. Ford: "I was a quite obnoxious back then. All that counted for me was my work. We were separated for months." And love and family broke apart.

Harrison Ford has learned a lot from the mistakes he had made. And the love and the patient understanding of his second wife Melissa freed him from his depressive state of mind. "Today, harmony is very important to me," he says. He enjoys his status as a superstar, because he can make "the best movies with the best people". One movie a year is enough. The rest of the time he spends with Melissa and the children Malcolm (13) and Georgia (10) in New York and, during the holidays, on his 320 ha ranch in Jackson Hole (Wyoming, near Yellowstone national park).

"I don't need this whole Hollywood fuss with parties, affairs and gossip," Harrison Ford says. He does many things together with his children, goes rowing, fishing, riding with them. And he also has a good relationship with the "big ones" from his first marriage: Willard (31) is a history teacher and has a son (7), Ben (33) is a chef and will be a father this year.

"It doesn't happen to me anymore that I don't know what my family is doing and thinking at home," Harrison Ford says. Is he a happy man?  "Yeah, I am," he replies very softly, barely audibly. "Relatively happy." Why only relatively? You've got success, wealth, a wife and children you adore - do you happen to be ill?  "No, no, that's not it," Harrison Ford declines. "Apart from problems in the back and in the knee, I'm fine. It's nothing serious. You know, this is very personal now. Life is very complicated..."

But he doesn't want to be ungrateful, Ford says. And further: "Happiness is something you have to learn. I don't want to be anything special. A father who loves his children and accompanies them a little on a good way into life. I think today I'm a good husband. We talk a lot at home, listen to each other. Love each other. My wife's life is more important to me than my own."

Maybe you can describe it as a feeling of responsibility and fear of the future that depresses Harrison Ford. He says: "I worry almost neurotically about our environment and about our society. Civilisation has come to a point where we care more about how we can do less harm to people than about how we could make them better people. I find that rather depressing."

Do you believe in god, Harrison Ford? "Yes, but my god is no god in heaven. My god has no churches, no priests. He lives in me, works in me. Only in myself can I find him and admit him. I explain it this way: If you have a problem with what or who god is, then look for the central and really important issues in your life, and call that god. Love, charity, health, art - whatever. God is in each one of us. We only have to learn to realize this."

Do you believe in guardian angels? As an experienced helicopter pilot, you recently saved the life of a young woman who had broken down in the mountains. Later you took a child out of a heated car...

"I'm not a hero," Harrison Ford denies. "Everybody in my place would have done that. Forget about it." Typically Harrison Ford. He wants to be approved for his work at the movie. In private he's shy, modest, does good things in secret. His feelings of happiness? "When I'm walking across the farm with Melissa and our children, drinking cool water from a fountain and listening to the wind in the trees." And what do you love about women? "Of course I do look after beautiful women. But it's not just beauty that attracts me. A beautiful face, a sexy body, that's only the shell. Not the color of the eyes is important, but what they communicate. The charisma of a woman captivates me. The way she moves, the way she smiles. The fact that she's got a good character and the secret that still surrounds her after 20 years of marriage. In that respect I have found the very best wife." And there it is again, his boyish grin: "Meanwhile I know Melissa so well, and still she remains mysterious to me. But before I despair, I always tell myself: Let it be, you cannot understand women. Shut up and be nice..."

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