Harrison Ford nearly torpedoed his career early on as a member of Columbia Pictures’ New Talent Program in the 1960s.
The wet-behind-the-ears actor had the stature and looks of a born movie star, but he didn’t want to coast on his physical gifts.
When a studio executive told him Tony Curtis had famously distinguished himself as a star by popping off the screen as a delivery boy, Ford countered that Curtis had blown the assignment by being a star, not a delivery boy.Ford stuck to his code as an actor by tending to the needs of his characters in classics like “American Graffiti” and “The Conversation,” rather than trying to blow Paul Le Mat or Gene Hackman off the screen.
He waited until a part called for him to throw the switch, at which point he gave us an intergalactic scoundrel whose cocksure charm is repeatedly undercut by his leap-without-looking decision-making.
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