Staff Writer
While starting out in the movie industry, a movie executive told Harrison Ford he didn’t have enough star power to make it as an actor after his first movie role being an extra in Dead Heat On A Merry Go Round’.
The 71-year-old actor, who career spanned six decades, appeared on Conan last Wednesday and spoke to O’Brien. Ford on his first role said, “I was in a contract at Columbia Pictures for $150 a week which back then in those days was still only $150 a week. It was ridiculous. My first movie role was a bell boy, a bell man in a hotel. I delivered a note or a telegram or something to James Coburn and my lines were, ‘Paging Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones, paging Mr. Jones’ and he raised his hand and I went over and said, ‘Mr. Jones? Room 204?’ and he said, ‘Yes’ and I gave him the note and that was my job.”
Ford went on to talk about the movie executive who told him he wasn’t ever going to be a star. Ford said, There was a guy that was in charge of what they call the new talent program and he called me into his office and he said, ‘Sit down kid, I saw the rushes from yesterday, you’re never going to make it in the business just forget about it.’ He said, ‘The first movie Tony Curtis was ever in he delivered a bag of groceries. You took one look at that guy and you said that’s a movie star.’ And I leaned across his desk and said, ‘I thought you were supposed to think that was a grocery delivery boy.’ He said, ‘Get out of my office,’ which I was happy to do. I didn’t last much longer with them.”
Ford was actually spotted by that same executive in a restaurant 15 years later after he had heard of his success. Ford had “great pleasure” in received a note on a business card from the executive apologizing for his comments. Ford said, I picked up the business card and written on it was ‘I missed my bet’ and I turned it over and it was the name of the guy and much to my great, immediate pleasure, it still gives me a little bit of pleasure now – I looked around and I couldn’t figure out which one he was.”
After memorable roles in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Fugitive, and Blade Runner, Ford was ranked No. 1 in Empire’s “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list in 1997. Boy was that movie executive wrong about Ford…
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