What was Harrison Ford’s first movie as an actor?

Posted On January 25, 2025January 25, 2025

In 1977, a movie emerged that would completely change cinema. Star Wars, a sci-fi drama featuring Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, would come to define an era when blockbusters and epic stories were piquing the interest of many cinema-goers. Directed by George Lucas, the film would give Ford a chance to become a star, and he subsequently became a household name.

Star Wars wasn’t Ford’s first role, however. He began acting in the 1960s, although most of these parts, including one in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, were uncredited. By the early ‘70s, he found his place in some more prominent films, including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation with Gene Hackman and Lucas’ American Graffiti. 

Still, these uncredited roles before he met with Coppola or Lucas were vital in giving Ford experience as a budding actor, with his first known role being a minor part in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, playing a bellhop. Bernard Girard directed the 1966 movie, and while the movie won Camilla Sparv a Golden Globe, it has since faded into relative obscurity.

11 years later, his role as Han Solo in Star Wars would allow him to break through into Hollywood, preparing him for a major leading part in the Indiana Jones series. Before that, though, he cameoed in Apocalypse Now as Colonel G. Lucas, a nod to the filmmaker who helped put him on the map. Reprising his role as Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, the following year then saw Harrison reunite with Lucas yet again for the first instalment in the Indiana Jones franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark, directed by Steven Spielberg.

Since then, Ford has appeared in many successful movies, including Blade Runner and its sequel, Blade Runner 2049 (released 35 years later), Witness, Working Girl, The Fugitive, Air Force One, and Sabrina. It’s hard to imagine Ford, with his classical Hollywood looks, as anything other than an acting icon, but he certainly worked some more normal jobs before he stepped into the limelight.

When did Harrison Ford work as a carpenter?

While Ford was trying to establish himself in Hollywood, he found that job offers weren’t easy to come by. He wasn’t satisfied with the small parts he was offered and was even told by an executive at Columbia Pictures to give up. Ford wasn’t sure what to do, so he decided to learn a valuable skill in the meantime that could guarantee him a stable job.

In the 1970s, Ford could thus be found working as a carpenter, teaching himself the trade. During a Reddit AMA, Ford discussed the fact that Lucas wasn’t initially set on casting him as Han Solo, rather the filmmaker was more interested in his carpentry. “I had helped George Lucas audition other actors for the principle parts, and with no expectation or indication that I might be considered for the part of Han, I was quite surprised when I was offered the part. My principle job at the time was carpentry, I had been under contract as an actor at Columbia and Universal.”

Since then, Ford has continued to work as a carpenter in between acting jobs.

Harrison Ford’s first on-screen appearance with Gunsmoke

When he wasn’t working as a carpenter during the early stages of his career, Ford could be seen on various television episodes. Like many budding actors, he secured bit parts in different series, including Ironside, Dan August, and, most famously, Gunsmoke. 

The western series saw Ford star in two episodes – ‘The Sodbusters’ as Print and ‘Whelan’s Men’ as Hobey, which aired in 1972 and 1973, respectively. The show began as a radio series before receiving a television adaptation in 1955 and featured actors like James Arness and Milburn Stone. Gunsmoke was a massive American show, and while Ford only had two small parts in it, the experience certainly prepared him for future jobs as an actor on a much larger scale.

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