The actor who is known to millions worldwide as the uber-macho rugged adventurer Indiana Jones grew up as the butt of jokes and bullying in Des Plaines, Illinois. His high school years were no better; an unenthusiastic student, he got Cs and Ds, and headed off to tiny Ripon College in Wisconsin after graduation. He became enamored with acting while participating in summer stock theatre and headed to Los Angeles soon afterwards, when he discovered he had flunked too many classes to graduate. After a frustrating time acting in small films (in even smaller roles), he decided to put his career on hold and become a carpenter.

His choice of career was an arbitrary one - the only woodworking experience he had was reading a book on carpentry that he had gotten out of the library. But he was soon making shelves for the likes of Joan Didion and John Gregory Donne, and also built a recording studio for Brazilian composer Sergio Mendes. During his decade of carpentry, he acted in George Lucas' American Graffiti (1973) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974).

Ford finally quit carpentry for good when he got his first major role as Hans Solo in Lucas' Star Wars in 1977, but he wasn't truly a hot commodity in Hollywood until the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Roles in critically acclaimed films like Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Peter Weir's Witness, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He has played the lead in seven of the top 20 moneymaking films in history, including 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other blockbusters like Presumed Innocent, Patriot Games, and The Fugitive. Watch for Harrison, newly separated from his wife, in his latest smash, the creepy What Lies Beneath.