Gilda star Glenn Ford dies at 90
Leading man ... Glenn Ford. Photograph: Getty
The Hollywood actor Glenn Ford, whose career spanned five decades and 100 movies, has died at the age of 90. Paramedics discovered Ford's body at his Beverly Hills home yesterday afternoon. He had recently suffered a series of strokes and was believed to have been in ill health for several years.
Ford was one of the mainstays of American cinema throughout the 40s and 50s. He starred alongside Rita Hayworth as an ambitious gangster in Gilda, played a hard-bitten cop in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat and cropped up as an idealistic teacher in the teen rebel classic The Blackboard Jungle.
Away from the cameras, he served in the second world war and later took a brief tour of Vietnam as a commander in the Naval Reserve. Returning from Saigon in 1967, he described the struggle as "a vicious war, a unique war, with no simple answer".
When Ford's movie career floundered he turned to television, playing a sheriff in Cade's County and an impoverished preacher in The Family Holvak. His last notable big screen role was as Clark Kent's adoptive father in the 1978 blockbuster Superman.
Ford was given the French Legion of Honour medal in 1992. He made his last public appearance on his 90th birthday in May, taking the stage at the Egyptian theatre in Hollywood to receive a lifetime achievement award from the American Cinematheque.
Thursday August 31, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
Obituary: Glenn Ford
In more than 100 film appearances and several television series, Glenn Ford's talent lay in bringing his innate nobility to a vast range of characters, from the gun-toting outlaw of 3:10 to Yuma, to the far more complex hero of Gilda.
Although his performance in Gilda propelled Ford to Hollywood's A-list, his debut film appearance came in 1939's Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence, and he always said his favourite films were Westerns.
They came easily to a man who himself raised cattle, horses and claimed descent from a Native American chief.
The Hollywood star got his stage name from the town of Glenford in his native Canada. The son of a railroad executive, young Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford moved to Santa Monica with his family, aged eight.
Catching the acting bug in high school, Ford toured with several stage companies before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939.
Churning out a new film every five days from the studios' B-unit gave the fledgling actor the opportunity to hone his craft.
Tormented hero
Wartime called a temporary halt to Ford's film career but, an action man on and off the screen, he spent the time serving with the Marines.
Strong chemistry with co-star Rita Hayworth
Back in Hollywood, his career flourished and he was paired with such leading ladies as Bette Davis in A Stolen Life (1946), and the same year with Rita Hayworth in Gilda, Ford's own favourite film.
Although married by then to actress Eleanor Powell, Ford later admitted his love for Hayworth had authenticated their on-screen chemistry.
His performance as the twisted misogynist with the yearning eyes was to herald a six-film partnership with Hayworth and bring Ford his own taste of Hollywood stardom.
During the next few years, this likeable actor proved he was able to repeat the role of tormented hero in such films as The Big Heat (1953) and Human Desire (1954).
But unlike some of his Hollywood contemporaries, Ford dared to extend his range, both to such comedy as Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and The Gazebo (1959), and the romance of The Loves of Carmen (1948) and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962).
Courage on and off the screen
Despite his enormous talent, Ford never failed to return to his original genre.
Ford's nobility shone through on screen
More than half his films were Westerns, and in films such as The Desperadoes (1943), The Fastest Gun Alive (1956) and Cowboy (1958), he showed his mastery of the introspective, tough hero.
By 1958, he was Hollywood's number one male box-office attraction.
Ford's great strength lay in staying strong, silent and believable. And in The Blackboard Jungle and Ransom (both 1955), audiences saw a well-meaning young man, facing threatening situations and showing courage under pressure.
These performances were borne out by Ford's life off screen. A captain of the US naval reserve, he saw service in Vietnam, overcame many health problems, and took up hang-gliding at the age of 64.
Aged 76, he married his young nurse, only to divorce her two months later. This, his fourth marriage, he took in his stride. He once said, "I don't look back. I only think about the next day, the next dinner and the next film."
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/08/31 02:52:07 GMT
© BBC MMVI
Leading man ... Glenn Ford. Photograph: Getty
The Hollywood actor Glenn Ford, whose career spanned five decades and 100 movies, has died at the age of 90. Paramedics discovered Ford's body at his Beverly Hills home yesterday afternoon. He had recently suffered a series of strokes and was believed to have been in ill health for several years.
Ford was one of the mainstays of American cinema throughout the 40s and 50s. He starred alongside Rita Hayworth as an ambitious gangster in Gilda, played a hard-bitten cop in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat and cropped up as an idealistic teacher in the teen rebel classic The Blackboard Jungle.
Away from the cameras, he served in the second world war and later took a brief tour of Vietnam as a commander in the Naval Reserve. Returning from Saigon in 1967, he described the struggle as "a vicious war, a unique war, with no simple answer".
When Ford's movie career floundered he turned to television, playing a sheriff in Cade's County and an impoverished preacher in The Family Holvak. His last notable big screen role was as Clark Kent's adoptive father in the 1978 blockbuster Superman.
Ford was given the French Legion of Honour medal in 1992. He made his last public appearance on his 90th birthday in May, taking the stage at the Egyptian theatre in Hollywood to receive a lifetime achievement award from the American Cinematheque.
Thursday August 31, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
Obituary: Glenn Ford
In more than 100 film appearances and several television series, Glenn Ford's talent lay in bringing his innate nobility to a vast range of characters, from the gun-toting outlaw of 3:10 to Yuma, to the far more complex hero of Gilda.
Although his performance in Gilda propelled Ford to Hollywood's A-list, his debut film appearance came in 1939's Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence, and he always said his favourite films were Westerns.
They came easily to a man who himself raised cattle, horses and claimed descent from a Native American chief.
The Hollywood star got his stage name from the town of Glenford in his native Canada. The son of a railroad executive, young Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford moved to Santa Monica with his family, aged eight.
Catching the acting bug in high school, Ford toured with several stage companies before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939.
Churning out a new film every five days from the studios' B-unit gave the fledgling actor the opportunity to hone his craft.
Tormented hero
Wartime called a temporary halt to Ford's film career but, an action man on and off the screen, he spent the time serving with the Marines.
Strong chemistry with co-star Rita Hayworth
Back in Hollywood, his career flourished and he was paired with such leading ladies as Bette Davis in A Stolen Life (1946), and the same year with Rita Hayworth in Gilda, Ford's own favourite film.
Although married by then to actress Eleanor Powell, Ford later admitted his love for Hayworth had authenticated their on-screen chemistry.
His performance as the twisted misogynist with the yearning eyes was to herald a six-film partnership with Hayworth and bring Ford his own taste of Hollywood stardom.
During the next few years, this likeable actor proved he was able to repeat the role of tormented hero in such films as The Big Heat (1953) and Human Desire (1954).
But unlike some of his Hollywood contemporaries, Ford dared to extend his range, both to such comedy as Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and The Gazebo (1959), and the romance of The Loves of Carmen (1948) and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962).
Courage on and off the screen
Despite his enormous talent, Ford never failed to return to his original genre.
Ford's nobility shone through on screen
More than half his films were Westerns, and in films such as The Desperadoes (1943), The Fastest Gun Alive (1956) and Cowboy (1958), he showed his mastery of the introspective, tough hero.
By 1958, he was Hollywood's number one male box-office attraction.
Ford's great strength lay in staying strong, silent and believable. And in The Blackboard Jungle and Ransom (both 1955), audiences saw a well-meaning young man, facing threatening situations and showing courage under pressure.
These performances were borne out by Ford's life off screen. A captain of the US naval reserve, he saw service in Vietnam, overcame many health problems, and took up hang-gliding at the age of 64.
Aged 76, he married his young nurse, only to divorce her two months later. This, his fourth marriage, he took in his stride. He once said, "I don't look back. I only think about the next day, the next dinner and the next film."
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/08/31 02:52:07 GMT
© BBC MMVI
Last edited:
