As Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny swashbucklers onto cinema screens.

 The 80-year-old actor may have been reduced to atypical tears at a press conference at this year’s Cannes Film Festival by the warmth of his red carpet reception.

At a time when most superstars – especially those who have been in the business for decades – seem desperate not to offend or upset anyone.

Here are just a few of the ways in which Ford has earned that stellar reputation. 

Ford made his screen debut in 1966’s crime picture Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, in which he had a brief appearance as a bellhop. 

After he had finished his role, he was summoned to meet the head of new talent at Columbia Pictures, who was uncomplimentary about the actor’s potential.

As Ford later recalled, “He called me into his office and said, ‘I want to tell you a story, kid… he said, ‘First time Tony Curtis was ever in a movie, he delivered a bag of groceries, a bag of groceries, kid. And you took one look at that guy, and you knew that was a movie star.” 

An understandably irritated Ford replied: “Well I thought that I was supposed to be a delivery boy!” The executive grandly told the young man to go off and learn how to act, something that Ford said led to “the final harsh words on parting from Columbia.” 

At the same press conference, one journalist asked Ford if he intended to keep Indiana’s trademark fedora. The actor replied “I do have a hat, but I am not nostalgic about that. It is the experience that stays with you. The stuff is great, but it does not matter to me afterwards.” He went rather further in another chat show interview: “I never keep anything from set,” he said. “I don’t want all that crap around my house. I don’t need all that. I’m a very rich man.” 

In Piers Paul Read’s biography of Ford’s Star Wars co-star, amongst general grouching about the film’s “rubbish dialogue”, it was revealed that Guinness had great difficulty remembering the then-unknown actor’s name. As he wrote to a friend: “I must off to studio and work with a dwarf (very sweet – and he has to wash in a bidet) and your fellow countrymen Mark Hamill and Tennyson (that can’t be right) Ford. Ellison (? – No!) – well, a rangy, languid young man who is probably intelligent and amusing. But Oh, God, God, they make me feel 90 – and treat me as if I was 106. Oh, Harrison Ford – ever heard of him?”

It’s a well-known fact that Ford and the original Blade Runner director Ridley Scott never got on, with much of the tension between the two lying in their differing beliefs as to whether Deckard was a replicant (Scott says yes, Ford disagrees.) However, what is less commonly known is that in the film’s sequel, Blade Runner 2049, Ford had an altogether different kind of fight with his co-star Ryan Gosling. In an interview on This Morning, Ford said: “I found the stunts extremely difficult. Which is how I hit [Gosling] this one time…the story is, I missed him 99 times and hit him once.” The younger actor, at least, took it in good part, quipping: “They say don’t meet your heroes. I say don’t get punched by them. Turns out, it doesn’t matter who you’re getting punched by, you’re still getting punched.” 

Ford always believed that Han Solo should die heroically at the end of Return of the Jedi, saying: “I thought he ought to sacrifice himself for [Luke and Leia…He’s got no mama. He’s got no papa. He’s got no future. He has no story responsibilities at this point. So let’s allow him to commit self-sacrifice.” 

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