Harrison Ford was told to ditch ‘pretentious' name, copy Elvis Presley to succeed in Hollywood

Fox News

2 days ago

Harrison Ford was never going to be a household name, according to a Hollywood executive in the '60s.
Ford explained that when he got his debut role in "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round," he was making $150 per week and was treated accordingly.
"I was under contract to Columbia Pictures at the time for $150 a week and all the respect that that implies. I was called into the office of the head of the new talent program, and he told me that I had no future in the business, which was OK," Ford told Variety.
He explained that the head of talent at Columbia Pictures told him to change his look and his name.
"And then he asked me to get my hair cut like Elvis Presley. That I didn't go along with."
"I was called into the office of the head of the new talent program, and he told me that I had no future in the business, which was OK."
"He thought that 'Harrison Ford' was too pretentious a name for a young man," the actor said.
Ford told the outlet that, later on in his career, he saw the Hollywood executive while he was at dinner one night.
"I met him later, across a crowded dining room. He sent me a card on which he'd written, 'I missed my guess.' I looked around, couldn't remember which one he was, but then he nodded at me and smiled, and I thought, 'Oh yeah, I know you,'" he told the outlet.
Although he's undeniably one of the most famous leading men in Hollywood history, he said he never expected or necessarily desired the level of fame he's achieved.
WATCH: Harrison Ford walks the red carpet at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards
"No one ever believes this, but I never wanted to be rich and famous. I just wanted to be an actor," he told People in 2023.
"I never thought that I would be a leading man. I really was just hoping I could make a living as an actor and not have to supplement my income with some other side hustle.
"I thought I would be lucky to have a character part on a regular TV show."
During his interview with Variety, Ford took a trip down memory lane and recalled the moment he discovered a love for acting. He was in college and was searching for an easy course to get his GPA up and stumbled upon drama.
"The first line of the paragraph that described the course said, 'You read and discuss plays,' and I thought, 'I can do that.' I didn't read all the description — typical of me in those days — because the last few lines described that the course also required you to be part of the school plays for that academic year. I hadn't ever done anything like that before, so I was shocked by that part of it.
"But I quickly recognized that I loved telling stories. I liked dressing up and pretending to be somebody else. And the people that I met had a similar bent, people that I might have overlooked. They're people that probably hadn't been really seen before, for who they are, for what they were — and they were storytellers," Ford told Variety.
Ford has made a name for himself in numerous iconic roles, including "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones" and the "Blade Runner" franchises.
In 2017, Ford reprized his role as Rick Deckard in "Blade Runner 2049," which starred Ryan Gosling.
While on set, Ford accidentally punched Gosling in the face.
"[We were rehearsing a fight] and we got too close, and I hit him. I apologized right away. What more could I do? Can't take back a punch. Just take it. He's a very handsome man. He's still very handsome," he told Variety.
Ford is never going to retire from acting.
"No. That's one of the things I thought was attractive about the job of an actor, was that they need old people, too, to play old people's parts," he told the outlet.
In 2023, Ford admitted that although things have been getting tougher for him as he gets older, he's also glad to be his age.
"I don't want to be young again. I was young, and now I enjoy being old," he told People at the time.
"You are certainly physically diminished by age," he explained, "but there are wonderful things about age — richness of experience, the full weight of all the time you've been spending getting to being old — and there's a certain ease in it for me."
Another thing that comes easily to Ford is being a movie star.
"I am very gratified that I still have the opportunities that I have to work, and I owe that to the audience," he said.
With a decades-long acting career to support him, Ford doesn't care about how anyone sees him.
In 2023, Ford sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss therapy. He plays a therapist on the Apple TV+ show "Shrinking," and he revealed his thoughts on the subject.
"My opinion is not of the profession, it's of the practitioner. There are all kinds of therapy. I'm sure many of them are useful to many people. I'm not anti-therapy for anybody — except for myself. I know who the f--- I am at this point," he said at the time.