Legends- Harrison Ford

   "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is currently shattering every box office record in the galaxy, eclipsing it's own seemingly insurmountable expectations to the delight of Disney execs. At this rate, J.J. Abrams' highly-anticipated revival of George Lucas' landmark property has a VERY strong chance of dethroning "Avatar" as the biggest domestic grosser of all time. More important than that though, the film is actually good. The saga's legions of tireless supporters breathed a huge sigh of relief as Daisy Ridley's Rey handed her lightsaber over to a bearded, elusive Mark Hamill, brilliantly setting the stage for Episode VIII. Their crusty costar pictured above(spoiler alert!) doesn't look to be joining them on movie screens in 2017, which makes this the perfect time to talk about everyone's favorite space pirate. Harrison Ford was, without question, the premier leading man of the 1980s(I feel sorry for anybody that doesn't know that already). Two colossal characters are the main reason why, but it would be unfair to pin his appeal solely on Han and Indy(or Lucas and Spielberg, rather). He's proven himself elsewhere from Ridley Scott's rain-soaked version of 2019(that "Blade Runner" sequel is up next!) to a memorable stay in an Amish community. He enjoyed the longest tenure as Jack Ryan in between an exhausting search for a one-armed man. Was he ever the best actor in the biz? No, but we never needed or wanted him to be. You see, there are actors and there are movie stars, and Ford always sat quite comfortably in the latter category. He couldn't transform the way De Niro and Daniel Day-Lewis did, and they couldn't fill theater seats just by being their ruggedly masculine selves. Humphrey Bogart wishes he had Harrison's pop culture cachet. Let's look back at the legacy of the world's most famous former carpenter.

   Born and raised by his Irish-Jewish parents in a Chicago suburb in 1942, the self-professed late bloomer worked for his college radio station and was drawn to acting in his senior year to get over his shyness. He moved to the West Coast upon graduation in 1964 to pursue jobs in radio, but didn't get any. He DID get a $150 a week contract from Columbia Pictures after settling in Los Angeles as part of a New Talent program to find bit players for the studio's films. His screen debut came in the role of a bellhop in 1966's "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round", an appearance that did not impress producer Jerry Tokovsky who told the future box office champ that he had no star qualities. After a string of minor film and television roles and an objection to being credited as 'Harrison J. Ford'(to avoid confusion with a 1920s silent film star), he defected to Universal Studios as Nixon prepared to take the White House. Inconsistent acting work was supplemented by odd carpentry gigs in the early '70s(the press would never let him forget that he once contemplated a "real" job) until he made crucial, life-altering contact with two chummy, bearded geniuses named George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. "American Graffiti" was Lucas' modestly-budgeted, coming-of-age breakthrough about California teens in '62, and Ford was the cool hot-rodder in the cowboy hat. George's mentor FFC, hot off his beloved Best Picture winner "The Godfather", would soon call upon Ford to play a smarmy suit in his Gene Hackman hit "The Conversation"(and later an Army intelligence officer in his instant 1979 classic "Apocalypse Now"). In the meantime, Lucas was having a hard time casting his elaborate sci-fi adventure that few in the industry expected to turn out much better that his first stab at the genre, 1971's "THX-1138". When Al Pacino and Burt Reynolds failed to predict the omnipresence of snarky smuggler Han Solo, Ford stepped into the middle of the most popular movie ever made.

   The earth-shattering success of "Star Wars" in 1977 can't possibly be overstated, and the previously-struggling unknown was(along with costars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher) now a household name. It didn't even matter that his next three movies("Heroes", "Hanover Street"and "The Frisco Kid") vanished without a trace, because Lucas again had his back with "The Empire Strikes Back", the highest-grossing film of 1980. This is where things get really crazy. Lucas had a vision of a rugged, globetrotting archeologist that battles Nazis in the 1930s, an idea that best pal and "Jaws" director Steven Spielberg loved. The resulting film was "Raiders of the Lost Ark", another franchise-starting sensation that permanently placed it's three principals atop the Hollywood hierarchy. Indiana Jones is the most iconic hero in the annals of cinema not named James Bond(who would not-so-coincidentally play his dad), and his subsequent outings in 1984's "Temple of Doom" and 1989's "Last Crusade" would both be among the decade's top ten ticket-sellers. "Alien" director Ridley Scott recruited Ford to chase down renegade replicants in a bleak futuristic landscape in 1982's "Blade Runner", which overcame a polarizing summer release to achieve near-universal embrace in the burgeoning cable/home video aftermarket. "Return of the Jedi", a mass-merchandised juggernaut of a sequel, took everybody's disposable income in 1983 as the original "SW" crew(seemingly) took their final bow.

   Ford had completed a seven year run in the mid-'80s that saw him at the center of some of the most towering titles in modern movies, but he was eager to step out of the lucrative land of fantasy filmmaking and into some more serious projects that wouldn't require quite as much running, jumping, and falling. He got his wish in Peter Weir's "Witness", a cross-cultural romance/detective drama that received rave reviews in 1985 and landed him on that year's list of Best Actor nominees(he lost the Oscar to William Hurt for "Kiss of the Spider Woman"). He quickly reteamed with Weir for "The Mosquito Coast", the story of an eccentric inventor that moves his family to Central America- an acting stretch that can be classified as his only real failure during this highly profitable and productive period. Ford then made a frantic search for his missing wife in umm, "Frantic", an intriguing mystery thriller from exiled "Chinatown" director Roman Polanski, stylishly set in the underbelly of Paris. Later that year, he romanced Melanie Griffith in Mike Nichols' "Working Girl", a holiday hit that charmed critics and audiences in 1988.

   With all due respect to Cruise, Costner, and Gibson, Ford always stood a little taller than his crowd-pleasing counterparts and seemed unstoppable as the '90s got underway, even with his two career-defining creations in the rearview mirror. He continued a winning formula of mixing sobering drama with classy action, with the underrated legal drama "Presumed Innocent" keeping the momentum going. "Regarding Henry" didn't register with Oscar voters, so he replaced the less-bankable Alec Baldwin as CIA hero Jack Ryan in "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger". He helped launch Tommy Lee Jones in the interim and DIDN'T kill his wife in 1993's "The Fugitive", the biggest and best movie ever based on an old TV show(take that, "Mission Impossible"). There were a few missteps- his 1995 remake of "Sabrina" didn't make anyone forget about Audrey Hepburn and would only turn a tiny profit that Christmas, while "The Devil's Own" with Brad Pitt was a dull cop thriller that sank in the spring of 1997, despite the dual drawing power of it's superstar leads. He bounced back that summer as a kick-ass Commander-In-Chief in Wolfgang Petersen's "Air Force One", perhaps the last great 'Harrison Ford movie'. What I mean by that is it seems to be the last time Ford truly excelled in the kind of role that audiences were accustomed to. Gary Oldman got off his plane, moviegoers cheered and all was right with the world. Maybe he got bored after this. Maybe we did. Father Time waits for no man. Whatever the reason, there was definitely something missing in "Six Days Seven Nights" and "Random Hearts", two unbecoming duds that lowered his stock as we entered the uncertainties of the new millennium.

   Ford cozied up to Michelle Pfeiffer, briefly leaving his comfort zone as an adulterous professor with a sinister secret in the Robert Zemeckis supernatural thriller "What Lies Beneath", a big box office hit in the summer of 2000. It would be his last for a long while. He seemed to have the reverse Midas touch during George W. Bush's presidency. Our sudden lack of faith in our elected officials would also apply to one of our biggest movie stars as he racked up one disappointment after another. Kathryn Bigelow may be the world's best female director, but you wouldn't know it watching(or hearing) Ford's dodgy Russian accent in 2002's "K19: The Widowmaker". Yet I'll take a ride in that submarine any day over "Hollywood Homicide", a horrendous buddy cop flick that prompted the powers-that-be to rethink the viability of Josh Hartnett(maybe Harrison deserves a thanks for that one). He turned down George Clooney's role in "Syriana" to do "Firewall", a lazy, clichéd 'thriller' that finds an aging Ford trying to save his family for the umpteenth time. There were always rumors about a fourth "Indiana Jones" during this fallow era. We were granted the wish we should've been more careful about in 2008's "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Sure, it brought in the expected $300-plus million, but die-hard fans were left deeply dissatisfied by a reckless revival that Spielberg mistakenly dusted off a decade-and-a-half too late. I have yet to take in the 2009-10 trio of "Crossing Over", Extraordinary Measures" and "Morning Glory". I know I'm not alone in that.



   You'd be forgiven for thinking "Cowboys & Aliens" and "Ender's Game" were the end of the road for the laconic legend. The Jackie Robinson story "42" started the healing process that preceded his joining of Sylvester Stallone's old school all-star team for "The Expendables 3"- a mere warm-up for taking back the controls of the Millennium Falcon. I'm pleased to be ending this on a positive note as his career is definitely on the upswing. Disney will send Indy on a fifth adventure(presumably as a penitent man) any summer now, and it's difficult to imagine anyone other than Ford wearing his fedora. A throwback to a time when major stars retained an air of mystery, his private life is just that, and he never talks politics(what a novelty!). He is a known aviation enthusiast, and walked away from a 2015 plane crash in a manner that would leave the durable Dr. Jones proud. I'll be rooting for all his upcoming ventures as I've always done. I know I speak for all seasoned movie buffs when I say I love Harrison Ford. He knows.