Starring in two of the most successful film trilogies of all time, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones adventures, actor Harrison Ford became the action hero for a new generation of blockbusters in the 1970s and 1980s. Throughout the 1990s he further consolidated his film star appeal and was voted "The Greatest Movie Star of All Time" by Empire magazine in October 1997.

Ford's most notable roles prior to Star Wars were appearances in George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), establishing him as a competent character actor and, more importantly, making him known to the "Movie Brat" directors who came to dominate commercial cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. The most famous biographical fact about Ford was that he was working as a carpenter to the stars when Lucas called him in to take part in auditions for a new science-fiction...