Profile
John Ford
Film Director
Male
Born
Feb 1, 1894
Hometown
Cape Elizabeth, M...
Died
Aug 31, 1973
Death Place
California
Other Names
Feeney, John Martin
John Ford was an Irish-American film director. He was famous for both his Westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath. His four Academy… Read More
Romance
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Family
Discover the family history of John Ford.
John Ford
d.1973
siblings
News + Updates
Browse recent news and stories about John Ford.
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Op Ed Columnist; Egghead And BlockheadsNYTimes - Sep 18, 2011
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Life Is A Wheel; Lessons Of A Daybreak RiderNYTimes - Sep 04, 2011
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Thomas Mc William Plays Big Role In Fords Mills History Times And TranscriptGoogle News - Aug 29, 2011
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Maureen O'hara Returns To Location Of 'The Quiet Man' Irish CentralGoogle News - Aug 27, 2011
Timeline
Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of John Ford.
CHILDHOOD
They had eleven children: Mamie (Mary Agnes), born 1876; Delia (Edith), 1878–1881; Patrick; Francis Ford, 1881–1953; Bridget, 1883–1884; Barbara, born and died 1888; Edward, born 1889; Josephine, born 1891; Hannah (Joanna), born and died 1892; John Martin, 1894–1973; and Daniel, born and died 1896 (or 1898).
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TWENTIES
Feeney attended Portland High School, Portland, Maine. He moved to California and began acting and working in film production for his older brother Francis in 1914, taking "Jack Ford" as a stage name.
1915
21 Years Old
In addition to credited roles, he appeared uncredited as a Klansman in D.W. Griffith's 1915 classic, The Birth of a Nation, as the man who lifts up one side of his hood so he can see clearly.
During his first decade as a director Ford honed his craft on dozens of features (including many westerns) but fewer than a dozen of the more than sixty silent films he made between 1917 and 1928 still exist in any form and only ten have survived in their entirety.
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He married Mary McBryde Smith, on July 3, 1920, and they had two children.
THIRTIES
1931
37 Years Old
Ford's films in 1931 were Seas Beneath, The Brat and Arrowsmith; the last-named, adapted from the Sinclair Lewis novel and starring Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes, marked Ford's first Academy Awards recognition, with five nominations including Best Picture.
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1932
38 Years Old
With film production affected by the Depression, Ford made two films each in 1932 and 1933—Airmail (made for Universal) with a young Ralph Bellamy and Flesh (for MGM) with Wallace Beery.
1933
39 Years Old
In 1933, he returned to Fox for Pilgrimage and Doctor Bull, the first of his three films with Will Rogers.
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FORTIES
Ford's first film of 1935 (made for Columbia) was the mistaken-identity comedy The Whole Town's Talking with Edward G. Robinson and Jean Arthur, released in the UK as Passport to Fame, and it drew critical praise.
1936
42 Years Old
The longer revised version of Directed by John Ford shown on Turner Classic Movies in November, 2006 features directors Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, and Martin Scorsese, who suggest that the string of classic films Ford directed during 1936 to 1941 was due in part to an intense six-month extra-marital affair with Katharine Hepburn, the star of Mary of Scotland (1936), an Elizabethan costume drama.
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1939
45 Years Old
Stagecoach marked the beginning of the most consistently successful phase of Ford's career—in just two years between 1939 and 1941 he created a string of classics films that won numerous Academy Awards.
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FIFTIES
His only completed film of that year was the second installment of his Cavalry Trilogy, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Argosy/RKO, 1949), starring John Wayne and Joanne Dru, with Victor McLaglen, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Mildred Natwick and Harry Carey Jr. Again filmed on location in Monument Valley, it was widely acclaimed for its stunning Technicolor cinematography (including the famous cavalry scene filmed in front of an oncoming storm); it won Winton Hoch the 1950 Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography and it did big business on its first release, grossing more than $5m worldwide.
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1952
58 Years Old
His daughter Barbara was married to singer and actor Ken Curtis from 1952 to 1964.
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LATE ADULTHOOD
In 1955, Ford made the lesser-known West Point drama The Long Gray Line for Columbia Pictures, the first of two Ford films to feature Tyrone Power, who had originally been slated to star as the adult Huw in How Green Was My Valley back in 1941.
1958
64 Years Old
Both of Ford's 1958 films were made for Columbia Pictures and both were significant departures from Ford's norm.
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1960
66 Years Old
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During 1960, Ford made his third TV production, The Colter Craven Story, a one-hour episode of the network TV show Wagon Train, which included footage from Ford's Wagon Master (on which the series was based).
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1962
68 Years Old
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Also in 1962, Ford directed his fourth and last TV production, Flashing Spikes, a baseball story made for the Alcoa Premiere series and starring James Stewart, Jack Warden, Patrick Wayne and Tige Andrews, with Harry Carey, Jr. and a lengthy surprise appearance by John Wayne, billed in the credits as "Michael Morris."
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1965
71 Years Old
In 1965 Ford began work on Young Cassidy (MGM), a biographical drama based upon the life of Irish playwright Seán O'Casey, but he fell ill early in the production and was replaced by Jack Cardiff.
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Ford's next project, The Miracle of Merriford, was scrapped by MGM less than a week before shooting was to have begun. His last completed work was Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend, a documentary on the most decorated U.S. Marine, General Lewis B. Puller, with narration by John Wayne, which was made in 1970 but not released until 1976, three years after Ford's death.
1972
78 Years Old
In October 1972, the Screen Directors Guild staged a tribute to Ford and in March 1973 the American Film Institute honored him with its first Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony which was telecast nationwide, with President Richard Nixon promoting Ford to full Admiral and presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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He was the first recipient of the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 1973.
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Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.