Harrison Ford and the Conversation

In the 1974 production of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, Gene Hackman and John Cazale take center stage in a film about a paranoid surveillance expert who has a change of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered. While this was a great movie in my opinion, It was definitely a movie that brought together a cast full of newer actors that would go on to become even bigger names in Hollywood. One of these rising stars in particular was a young Harrison Ford.

Ford was born July 13, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, to an Irish Catholic father and a Russian Jewish mother. Growing up in the Illinois suburb of Des Plaines, young Harry (as he was referred to as a child) did not share the rugged, adventurous, heroic characteristics that he shares with most of his onscreen characters. While his high school years at Maine Township High were better, Ford was the scrawny, nerdy little boy that was a common target of neighborhood bullies. (Wills, n.d.)

Ford attended college at Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he took an acting class to try raising his low grade point average. This didn't help much at all, since Ford was kicked out of Ripon just a few weeks before graduation. However, the acting classes did serve Ford with another purpose...they gave him a sense of direction as to where to go with his life. Following this series of events, Ford married his college sweetheart Mary Marquardt, and the two left for Los Angeles. (Wills, n.d.)

Once in LA, Ford received small "bit parts" in television series such as Ironside, but this was enough to live on, and Ford took up carpentry as a career. It was only while building a studio for Brazilian compiser Sergio Mendes five years later that Ford met and began his relationship with acclaimed director and producer George Lucas. (Wills, n.d.)

Ford became more known when Lucas offered him a part in the 1973 classic film American Graffiti, which Ford took only after his meager salary was raised. This was the film that sealed the fate of his career in acting, for just a year later, Ford landed his role as Martin Stett in The Conversation. (Stephan, 2005)

What makes The Conversation interesting is how Harrison Ford got the role he did. Originally, according to Dominic Wills, Ford was up for the role of the young man being spied on by Gene Hackman, but didn't get the part. However, he was told that F. F. Coppola would instead write into the script a part for him. Ultimately, he became Stett, Robert Duvall's creepy assistant. (n.d.)

Ford had decided that his character ought to be gay, which is something that was very rarely (if ever) portrayed in movies of the time. So he went out and bought a pool table-green flannel suit. On seeing him, Coppola asked "what the hell was going on". Ford explained his though, and Coppola loved it. So Stett became a shady, dangerous figure in the background. For this, and many other reasons, The Conversation would turn out to be one of the Seventies' finest movies. (Wills, n.d)

Although Harrison Ford only held a small role in The Conversation, his career was only just beginning. It was through his relationship with F.F. Coppola and his role as Martin Stett that Fod got his foot in the door.

From there, Ford's career would only continue to get better. Starring in a couple more smaller roles following the release of The Conversation, Ford continued to do some carpentry work on the side. It was while building an entryway for his former director, F.F. Coppola, that George Lucas passed by. He was holding auditions for his new science fiction movie Star Wars, which he asked Ford to read for. Eventually Ford received the part of Han Solo - a role that would make him notorious in the acting business for many years to come (Wills,