Who is an actor that had a rough start in their career?

Brian Overland

 

Writer, critic, actor, author of books on computers such as "C++ Without Fear"

Who is an actor that had a rough start in their career but eventually became extremely successful and had one of the biggest careers in Hollywood history?

Harrison Ford has to be one of the best examples, if not THE best example of all time.

As a young man, Ford was put on contract with Columbia Studios, but then pissed off one of the executives who critiqued the young actor by saying, “When Tony Curtis played a bellboy early in his career, you could see he was a star.”

Harrison Ford said sarcastically, “Really? I thought he was supposed to be acting like a bellboy.”

Well, that was end of his career at Columbia, but he went on to do bit parts in several movies for Universal. However, years went by and he found he wasn’t getting anything more than a line here and a line there, and it didn’t look like he was going to ever make much of a living as an actor.

That was when he decided to take up carpentry. He was good at it, and made a living at it, because, he said, “I’d rather tell people I was a working carpenter than another unemployed actor.”

But one day he ended up making the acquaintance of young filmmaker George Lucas, who liked Harrison Ford and gave him a modest supporting role in “American Graffiti.” Originally, Lucas didn’t see Ford as right for his new space opera, Star Wars, but Lucas gave Ford some work by hiring him to read opposite actors auditioning for Luke and Leia.

And then something interesting happened. Lucas decided that Ford’s reading of Han Solo was actually better than the actors being considered for the role. His reading was that good. So his “offscreen” reading of Han Solo was better than the actors who were officially being considered for the part.

The rest is history.