Hollywood box office star Harrison Ford (1942–) was born on this day in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, and studied English and philosophy in college.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a single one of the films I’ve been in all the way through after their first screening,” Ford said. “It makes me too uncomfortable.”

The actor taught himself carpentry to survive the lean years and almost turned down George Lucas’s offer to star in American Graffiti because the role only paid $500 a week.

In 1977, he exploded on screen as Star Wars’ Han Solo… and the rest is movie history. In 1999, Ford had starred in seven of the 30 top-grossing films of all time. “My occupation is assistant storyteller. It is not ‘icon,’” he humbly said.

In 1998, he was named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. “I never feel sexy,” Ford admitted. “I have a distant relationship with the mirror.”

In 2008, he returned as Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, again teaming with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance,” he said.

In 1993, the American Museum of Natural History honored him by naming a spider species Calponia harrisonford.

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