Harrison Ford has been a mainstay of our screens for more than five decades; not just as an actor but a cultural icon, thanks to his roles in some of the world’s biggest franchises.
His on-screen alter egos have included some of the most loved characters of our times, including Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Behind the scenes, Ford has been down the aisle three times, most recently with Calista Flockhart, with each of his marriages lasting 15 years.
Not surprisingly, he recently admitted that while it is easy to fall in love, “staying in love” has been the issue.
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Harrison Ford was born in Chicago on July 13, 1942.
He tried his hand at acting during his final year of college in an attempt to get over his shyness.
Mary Marquardt
It was at college that he met Mary Marquardt, who moved with him to Los Angeles so he could try his luck as an actor.
They married in 1964 and welcomed two sons, Benjamin, who was born in 1966, and Willard, who arrived in 1969.
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His big break came when he won a role in the 1973 George Lucas film American Graffiti.
Lucas remembered Ford when he needed someone to read lines for actors auditioning for a role in his upcoming sci-fi film Star Wars.
He was won over by Ford and ended up casting him as Han Solo.
The film was released in 1977 to huge success and made Ford a star.
Carrie Fisher
It was on the Star Wars set that Ford met Carrie Fisher, who was cast in the role of Princess Leia.
The daughter of Hollywood stars Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher was 19 when filming began, while Ford was 33.
While rumours circulated for years that the two began an affair on set, Fisher denied the claims before finally admitting the truth in her 2016 memoir, The Princess Diarist.
In the book, she described falling obsessively in love with the much older and married Ford and said she had stayed quiet about the affair for four decades because “it wasn’t just my secret to keep”.
She also detailed the first time they got together, with Ford rescuing a drunk Fisher from crew members during a birthday party for George Lucas while on location in England.
After making out in Ford’s studio car, they slept together at the tiny flat she was staying in for the duration of the shoot.
She recalled the moment they got together, writing, “A tiny part of me felt like I’d won the man lottery.
“I looked over at Harrison. He was… God, he was just so handsome.”
She recalled spending the next week daydreaming about Ford leaving his wife and marrying her before they met again the following Friday night, and every week after that for the duration of the 12-week shoot.
After the shoot ended, Ford returned home to his wife, Mary, but the two divorced in 1979.
Meanwhile, Fisher said they never spoke of their affair again.
They worked together on more instalments of the franchise, sharing an on-screen kiss in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
They again reprised their roles in the 2015 film, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and shared a kiss at Comic-Con that year.
Fisher died on December 27, 2016, after suffering cardiac arrest four days earlier while on a flight to LA.
Melissa Mathison
Ford first met movie screenwriter Melissa Mathison on the set of the 1976 film Apocalypse Now.
At the time, Mathison was working as an assistant to director Francis Ford Coppola, while Ford had a role in the film.
Following his divorce, Ford and Mathison started dating.
She was visiting Ford on the set of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1980 when they started talking to director Steven Spielberg about a movie he was thinking of making about an alien that visits earth.
She rewrote the script and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial became one of the most successful films ever made.
A year after its 1982 release, Ford and Mathison married. They welcomed son Malcolm in 1987 and daughter Georgia in 1990.
The two reportedly separated and got back together before calling it quits in late 2000.
But their divorce dragged on for four years, in part because they did not have a pre-nuptial agreement and Harrison had amassed a fortune during their marriage thanks to the success of films including The Fugitive, Air Force One, and political thrillers Clear and Present Danger and The Devil’s Own.
The divorce was finalised in 2004, with Mathison reportedly receiving a settlement of between $135 million and $180 million, making it one of the largest in Hollywood history.
Mathison died of neuroendocrine cancer in 2015. She was 65.
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Calista Flockhart
Ford was still in the midst of his drawn-out divorce proceedings when he met Calista Flockhart, at the Golden Globe Awards after-party in January 2002.
It was long reported Flockhart, then 37, spilled a drink on the star, who is 22-years her senior, but she revealed in an interview with Hello! just two years ago it was the other way around.
“We were having a conversation for maybe 20 minutes before the wine spilled, and the truth is, Harrison spilled the wine!” she said.
Flockhart had adopted a baby boy named Liam one year before meeting Ford.
Neither were reportedly looking for a relationship but by September they made their first public appearance together at the Venice International Film Festival.
Far from being scared off by being around a young child again, Ford was delighted.
During a 2008 interview with Reader’s Digest, Ford said he was grateful to Flockhart for bringing a child “back into my home”.
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“It’s a wonderful opportunity to be part of a child’s growing up, which is always an endless springtime,” he said.
As well as enjoying family time, they bonded over other shared interests such as flying, with Ford a qualified pilot.
“Calista loves to fly, and I’m thrilled because it’s so important to me and it’s the kind of thing that’s so much more fun with somebody who really enjoys it,” Ford told People in 2003.
“She likes seeing me happy. I think a lot of it has to do with [the fact] that she loves to see me doing something I love.”
The two became engaged on Valentine’s Day in 2009 and wed a year later in New Mexico, with Ford adopting Liam shortly after.
At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival he thanked Flockhart for supporting his work.
“My life has been enabled by my lovely wife, who has supported my passion and my dreams, and I’m grateful,” he said.
She was by his side when he received a Career Achievement Award at last year’s Critics Choice Awards and gave an emotional speech thanking her for her support.
“I want to thank my lovely wife, Calista Flockhart, who supports me when I need a lot of support,” he said.
Then just over a week ago, he shed new light on their relationship while on the podcast Wild Card with Rachel Martin.
“You know, you think about falling in love and all of that business. You think it’s the business of youth or something, you know, and staying in love is the issue.
“Maintaining, nurturing, basically, not f—ing up.”
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