With his future wife, Mary Marquardt, he made his way to Hollywood in the mid-1960s. Ford first landed a deal with Columbia Pictures as a contract player, earning $150 a week. He then ended up at Universal. In 1966, Ford made his film debut in a bit part in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round. Studio executives were less than impressed. One studio official said, “You’ll never make it in this business,” Ford told The Hollywood Reporter.

Breakthrough Films: ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’

Frustrated with his lack of success as an actor, Harrison Ford autographs became a carpenter to supplement his income. George Lucas gave him his first important film role in his 1973 drama American Graffiti, but his career failed to progress much afterward. He worked for Francis Ford Coppola as both a carpenter and an actor with small roles in The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979).

In 1977, Ford collaborated with Lucas again for his breakthrough role as Han Solo in Star Wars. His portrayal of the brash but likable rogue in this science-fiction classic raised his profile in Hollywood. The film’s two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), helped make him a star.

Around this time, Ford brought another of his legendary film characters to the big screen. He played resourceful, swashbuckling archaeologist Indiana Jones in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, directed by Steven Spielberg. The action-adventure tale, written in part by Lucas, proved to be a huge hit. It spawned several sequels, including Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Around the time of the first Indiana Jones installment, Harrison Ford autographs also starred as the title character in Blade Runner (1982), a shadowy science-fiction outing directed by Ridley Scott that would become a cult classic.