Harrison Ford is a Hollywood icon for his portrayals of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. But there was a time when he was just an up-and-comer. Ford had his fair share of doubters, too.
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Recently, Ford appeared on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Ford says that a Hollywood executive once told him that he would never make it.
Ford had a small part in 1966 in the film Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round.
"I played a bell boy in a movie with James Coburn," Ford remembered. "I got called into the office of the head of the new talent program, a man named Jerry Tokofsky. He was a few years older than me, so that allowed him to call me boy."
Ford continued, "'Boy,' he said, 'You're never going to make it in this business. I saw the dailies from yesterday. I'm going to tell you a story. The first time Tony Curtis ever walked on a stage, he delivered a bag of groceries. You took one look at that guy, and you said, 'That's a movie star.' "
However, even then, Ford had his infamous Snark. He didn't take the slight lying down.
Harrison Ford Vs Hollywood Exec
Ford explained, "And I leaned across the desk and said, 'I thought you were supposed to think it was a grocery delivery boy.' " Tokofsky told him to "get the f--- out of here."
"He did not like me. I did not like him," he said.
The Hollywood executive eventually had to eat his own words. Later, he admitted to Ford that he was wrong about him.
Ford explained, "Years later, I'm sitting in the commissary at... 20th Century Fox. I'm sitting there in the executive dining room, having lunch," he remembered. "A man comes over with a little tray, and there's a card on it, just like in the movies."
"And I pick up the card, and it says Jerry Tokofsky," Ford said. "And I turn it over, and on the back it said, 'I missed my bet.' " When Ford looked around the room, "Everybody looked like Jerry Tokofsky to me. I did not disturb anybody's lunch. I just went on with my life."
