The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems.^[1] HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web.

Hypertext is a multi-linear set of objects, building a network by using logical links (the so called hyperlinks) between the nodes (e.g. text or words). HTTP is the protocol to exchange or transfer hypertext.

The standards development of HTTP was coordinated by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), culminating in the publication of a series of Requests for Comments (RFCs), most notably RFC 2616 (June 1999), which defines HTTP/1.1, the version of HTTP in common use.

Technical overview[link]

HTTP functions as a request-response protocol in the client-server computing model. A web browser, for example, may be the client and an application running on a computer hosting a web site may be the server. The client submits an HTTP request message to the server. The server, which provides resources such as HTML files and other content, or performs other functions on behalf of the client, returns a response message to the client. The response contains completion status information about the request and may also contain requested content in its message body.

A web browser is an example of a user agent (UA). Other types of user agent include the indexing software used by search providers (web crawlers), voice browsers, mobile apps and other software that accesses, consumes or displays web content.

HTTP is designed to permit intermediate network elements to improve or enable communications between clients and servers. High-traffic websites often benefit from web cache servers that deliver content on behalf of upstream servers to improve response time. Web browsers cache previously accessed web resources and reuse them when possible to reduce network traffic. HTTP proxy servers at private network boundaries can facilitate communication for clients without a globally routable address, by relaying messages with external servers.

HTTP is an application layer protocol designed within the framework of the Internet Protocol Suite. Its definition presumes an underlying and reliable transport layer protocol,^[2] and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) predominates for this purpose. However HTTP can use unreliable protocols such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), for example in Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP).

HTTP resources are identified and located on the network by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)—or, more specifically, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)—using the http or https URI schemes. URIs and hyperlinks in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) documents form webs of inter-linked hypertext documents. On the Internet the World Wide Web was established in 1990 by English computer scientist and innovator Tim Berners-Lee.

HTTP/1.1 is a revision of the original HTTP (HTTP/1.0). In HTTP/1.0 a separate connection to the same server is made for every resource request. HTTP/1.1 can reuse a connection multiple times to download images, scripts, stylesheets et cetera after the page has been delivered. HTTP/1.1 communications therefore experience less latency as the establishment of TCP connections presents considerable overhead.

History[link]

Tim Berners-Lee

The term HyperText was coined by Ted Nelson who in turn was inspired by Vannevar Bush's microfilm-based "memex". Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the "WorldWideWeb" project — now known as the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee and his team are credited with inventing the original HTTP along with HTML and the associated technology for a web server and a text-based web browser. The first version of the protocol had only one method, namely GET, which would request a page from a server.^[3] The response from the server was always an HTML page.^[4]

The first documented version of HTTP was HTTP V0.9 (1991). Dave Raggett led the HTTP Working Group (HTTP WG) in 1995 and wanted to expand the protocol with extended operations, extended negotiation, richer meta-information, tied with a security protocol which became more efficient by adding additional methods and header fields.^[5][6] RFC 1945 officially introduced and recognized HTTP V1.0 in 1996.

The HTTP WG planned to publish new standards in December 1995^[7] and the support for pre-standard HTTP/1.1 based on the then developing RFC 2068 (called HTTP-NG) was rapidly adopted by the major browser developers in early 1996. By March 1996, pre-standard HTTP/1.1 was supported in Arena,^[8] Netscape 2.0,^[8] Netscape Navigator Gold 2.01,^[8] Mosaic 2.7,^{[citation needed]} Lynx 2.5^{[citation needed]}, and in Internet Explorer 2.0^{[citation needed]}. End-user adoption of the new browsers was rapid. In March 1996, one web hosting company reported that over 40% of browsers in use on the Internet were HTTP 1.1 compliant.^{[citation needed]} That same web hosting company reported that by June 1996, 65% of all browsers accessing their servers were HTTP/1.1 compliant.^[9] The HTTP/1.1 standard as defined in RFC 2068 was officially released in January 1997. Improvements and updates to the HTTP/1.1 standard were released under RFC 2616 in June 1999.

HTTP session[link]

An HTTP session is a sequence of network request-response transactions. An HTTP client initiates a request by establishing a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to a particular port on a server (typically port 80; see List of TCP and UDP port numbers). An HTTP server listening on that port waits for a client's request message. Upon receiving the request, the server sends back a status line, such as "HTTP/1.1 200 OK", and a message of its own. The body of this message is typically the requested resource, although an error message or other information may also be returned.^[1]

Request methods[link]

An HTTP request made using telnet. The request, response headers and response body are highlighted.

HTTP defines nine methods (sometimes referred to as "verbs") indicating the desired action to be performed on the identified resource. What this resource represents, whether pre-existing data or data that is generated dynamically, depends on the implementation of the server. Often, the resource corresponds to a file or the output of an executable residing on the server.

HEAD

Asks for the response identical to the one that would correspond to a GET request, but without the response body. This is useful for retrieving meta-information written in response headers, without having to transport the entire content.

GET

Requests a representation of the specified resource. Requests using GET should only retrieve data and should have no other effect. (This is also true of some other HTTP methods.)^[1] The W3C has published guidance principles on this distinction, saying, "Web application design should be informed by the above principles, but also by the relevant limitations."^[10] See safe methods below.

POST

Submits data to be processed (e.g., from an HTML form) to the identified resource. The data is included in the body of the request. This may result in the creation of a new resource or the updates of existing resources or both.

PUT

Uploads a representation of the specified resource.

DELETE

Deletes the specified resource.

TRACE

Echoes back the received request, so that a client can see what (if any) changes or additions have been made by intermediate servers.

OPTIONS

Returns the HTTP methods that the server supports for specified URL. This can be used to check the functionality of a web server by requesting '*' instead of a specific resource.

CONNECT

Converts the request connection to a transparent TCP/IP tunnel, usually to facilitate SSL-encrypted communication (HTTPS) through an unencrypted HTTP proxy.^[11]

PATCH

Is used to apply partial modifications to a resource.^[12]

HTTP servers are required to implement at least the GET and HEAD methods^[13] and, whenever possible, also the OPTIONS method.^{[citation needed]}

Safe methods[link]

Some methods (for example, HEAD, GET, OPTIONS and TRACE) are defined as safe, which means they are intended only for information retrieval and should not change the state of the server. In other words, they should not have side effects, beyond relatively harmless effects such as logging, caching, the serving of banner advertisements or incrementing a web counter. Making arbitrary GET requests without regard to the context of the application's state should therefore be considered safe.

By contrast, methods such as POST, PUT and DELETE are intended for actions that may cause side effects either on the server, or external side effects such as financial transactions or transmission of email. Such methods are therefore not usually used by conforming web robots or web crawlers; some that do not conform tend to make requests without regard to context or consequences.

Despite the prescribed safety of GET requests, in practice their handling by the server is not technically limited in any way. Therefore, careless or deliberate programming can cause non-trivial changes on the server. This is discouraged, because it can cause problems for Web caching, search engines and other automated agents, which can make unintended changes on the server.

Idempotent methods and web applications[link]

Methods PUT and DELETE are defined to be idempotent, meaning that multiple identical requests should have the same effect as a single request (Note that idempotence refers to the state of the system after the request has completed, so while the action the server takes (e.g. deleting a record) or the response code it returns may be different on subsequent requests, the system state will be the same every time.) Methods GET, HEAD, OPTIONS and TRACE, being prescribed as safe, should also be idempotent, as HTTP is a stateless protocol.^[1]

In contrast, the POST method is not necessarily idempotent, and therefore sending an identical POST request multiple times may further affect state or cause further side effects (such as financial transactions). In some cases this may be desirable, but in other cases this could be due to an accident, such as when a user does not realize that their action will result in sending another request, or they did not receive adequate feedback that their first request was successful. While web browsers may show alert dialog boxes to warn users in some cases where reloading a page may re-submit a POST request, it is generally up to the web application to handle cases where a POST request should not be submitted more than once.

Note that whether a method is idempotent is not enforced by the protocol or web server. It is perfectly possible to write a web application in which (for example) a database insert or other non-idempotent action is triggered by a GET or other request. Ignoring this recommendation, however, may result in undesirable consequences, if a user agent assumes that repeating the same request is safe when it isn't.

Security[link]

Implementing methods such as TRACE, TRACK and DEBUG is considered potentially insecure by some security professionals, because they can be used by attackers to gather information or bypass security controls during attacks. Security software tools such as Tenable Nessus and Microsoft URLScan report on the presence of these methods as being security issues.

Status codes[link]

In HTTP/1.0 and since, the first line of the HTTP response is called the status line and includes a numeric status code (such as "404") and a textual reason phrase (such as "Not Found"). The way the user agent handles the response primarily depends on the code and secondarily on the response headers. Custom status codes can be used since, if the user agent encounters a code it does not recognize, it can use the first digit of the code to determine the general class of the response.^[14]

Also, the standard reason phrases are only recommendations and can be replaced with "local equivalents" at the web developer's discretion. If the status code indicated a problem, the user agent might display the reason phrase to the user to provide further information about the nature of the problem. The standard also allows the user agent to attempt to interpret the reason phrase, though this might be unwise since the standard explicitly specifies that status codes are machine-readable and reason phrases are human-readable.

Persistent connections[link]

In HTTP/0.9 and 1.0, the connection is closed after a single request/response pair. In HTTP/1.1 a keep-alive-mechanism was introduced, where a connection could be reused for more than one request. Such persistent connections reduce request latency perceptibly, because the client does not need to re-negotiate the TCP connection after the first request has been sent. Another positive side effect is that in general the connection becomes faster with time due to TCP's slow-start-mechanism.

Version 1.1 of the protocol also made bandwidth optimization improvements to HTTP/1.0. For example, HTTP/1.1 introduced chunked transfer encoding to allow content on persistent connections to be streamed rather than buffered. HTTP pipelining further reduces lag time, allowing clients to send multiple requests before waiting for each response. Another improvement to the protocol was byte serving, where a server transmits just the portion of a resource explicitly requested by a client.

HTTP session state[link]

HTTP is a stateless protocol. A stateless protocol does not require the server to retain information or status about each user for the duration of multiple requests. For example, when a web server is required to customize the content of a web page for a user, the web application may have to track the user's progress from page to page. A common solution is the use of HTTP cookies. Other methods include server side sessions, hidden variables (when the current page contains a form), and URL-rewriting using URI-encoded parameters, e.g., /index.php?session_id=some_unique_session_code.

Secure HTTP[link]

There are three methods of establishing a secure HTTP connection: HTTP Secure, Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol and the HTTP/1.1 Upgrade header. Browser support for the latter two is, however, nearly non-existent,^{[citation needed]} so HTTP Secure is the dominant method of establishing a secure HTTP connection.

Request message[link]

The request message consists of the following:

• A request line, for example GET /images/logo.png HTTP/1.1, which requests a resource called /images/logo.png from the server.
• Headers, such as Accept-Language: en
• An empty line.
• An optional message body.

The request line and headers must all end with <CR><LF> (that is, a carriage return followed by a line feed). The empty line must consist of only <CR><LF> and no other whitespace.^[15] Although <CR><LF> is required <LF> alone is also accepted by most servers.^{[citation needed]} In the HTTP/1.1 protocol, all headers except Host are optional.

A request line containing only the path name is accepted by servers to maintain compatibility with HTTP clients before the HTTP/1.0 specification in RFC 1945.^[16]

Response message[link]

The response message consists of the following:

• A Status-Line (for example HTTP/1.1 200 OK, which indicates that the client's request succeeded)
• Headers, such as Content-Type: text/html
• An empty line
• An optional message body

The Status-Line and headers must all end with <CR><LF> (a carriage return followed by a line feed). The empty line must consist of only <CR><LF> and no other whitespace.^[17]

Example session[link]

Below is a sample conversation between an HTTP client and an HTTP server running on www.example.com, port 80.

Client request[link]

 GET /index.html HTTP/1.1␍␊
 Host: www.example.com␍␊
 ␍␊

A client request (consisting in this case of the request line and only one header) is followed by a blank line, so that the request ends with a double newline, each in the form of a carriage return followed by a line feed. The "Host" header distinguishes between various DNS names sharing a single IP address, allowing name-based virtual hosting. While optional in HTTP/1.0, it is mandatory in HTTP/1.1.

Server response[link]

 HTTP/1.1 200 OK
 Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 22:38:34 GMT
 Server: Apache/1.3.3.7 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux)
 Last-Modified: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 23:11:55 GMT
 Etag: "3f80f-1b6-3e1cb03b"
 Accept-Ranges:  none
 Content-Length: 438
 Connection: close
 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

The ETag (entity tag) header is used to determine if a cached version of the requested resource is identical to the current version of the resource on the server. Content-Type specifies the Internet media type of the data conveyed by the HTTP message, while Content-Length indicates its length in bytes. The HTTP/1.1 webserver publishes its ability to respond to requests for certain byte ranges of the document by setting the header Accept-Ranges: bytes. This is useful, if the client needs to have only certain portions^[18] of a resource sent by the server, which is called byte serving. When Connection: close is sent in a header, it means that the web server will close the TCP connection immediately after the transfer of this response.

Most of the header lines are optional. When Content-Length is missing the length is determined in other ways. Chunked transfer encoding uses a chunk size of 0 to mark the end of the content. Identity encoding without Content-Length reads content until the socket is closed.

A Content-Encoding like gzip can be used to compress the transmitted data.

See also[link]

HTTP replacements or enhancements[link]

• Representational State Transfer (REST)
• SPDY - A HTTP enhancement proposed by Google
• Waka (protocol) - A HTTP replacement proposed by Roy Fielding
• HTTP-MPLEX - A backwards compatible enhancement to HTTP to improve page and web object retrieval time in congested networks proposed by Robert Mattson
• HTTP 2.0 - currently being worked on by the IETF's Hypertext Transfer Protocol Bis (httpbis) working group.^[19]
• Constrained Application Protocol - A semantically similar protocol to HTTP but used UDP or UDP-like messages targeted for devices with limited processing capability. Re-uses HTTP and other internet concepts like Internet media type and web linking (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5988).

Further Information[link]

• Basic access authentication
• Content negotiation
• HTTP compression
• Hxxp

Related topics and technologies[link]

• Curl-loader - HTTP/S loading/testing open-source SW
• Digest access authentication
• List of file transfer protocols
• List of HTTP headers
• List of HTTP status codes
• Web cache
• WebDAV

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• HTTP 0.9 - As Implemented in 1991

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: HTTP

• "Change History for HTTP". W3.org. http://www.w3.org/Protocols/History.html. Retrieved 2010-08-01.  A detailed technical history of HTTP.
• "Design Issues for HTTP". W3.org. http://www.w3.org/Protocols/DesignIssues.html. Retrieved 2010-08-01.  Design Issues by Berners-Lee when he was designing the protocol.
• "Classic HTTP Documents". W3.org. 1998-05-14. http://www.w3.org/Protocols/Classic.html. Retrieved 2010-08-01.  list of other classic documents recounting the early protocol history

Harrison Ford
Ford in 2010
Born	(1942-07-13) July 13, 1942 (age 69) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, producer
Years active	1966–present
Spouse	Mary Marquardt (1964–1979; divorced) Melissa Mathison (1983–2004; divorced) Calista Flockhart (2010–present)

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. His career has spanned six decades and includes roles in several Hollywood blockbusters, including Presumed Innocent, The Fugitive, Air Force One, and What Lies Beneath. At one point, four of the top six box-office hits of all time included one of his roles.^[1] Five of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry.

In 1997, Ford was ranked No. 1 in Empire's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. As of July 2008^[update], the United States domestic box office grosses of Ford's films total over US$3.5 billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $6 billion, making Ford the third highest grossing U.S. domestic box-office star.^[2] Ford is the husband of actress Calista Flockhart.

Early life[link]

Ford was born July 13, 1942, at Chicago, Illinois' Swedish Covenant Hospital.^[3] His mother, Dorothy (née Dora Nidelman), was a homemaker and former radio actress, and his father, Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), was an advertising executive and a former actor.^[4][5] A younger brother, Terence, was born in 1945. Ford's paternal grandparents, John Fitzgerald Ford and Florence Veronica Niehaus, were of Irish Catholic and German descent, respectively.^[4] Ford's maternal grandparents, Harry Nidelman and Anna Lifschutz, were Jewish immigrants from Minsk, Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire).^[4] When asked in which religion he and his brother were raised, Ford has jokingly responded, "Democrat,"^[6] "to be liberals of every stripe".^[7] In a television interview shown in August 2000, when asked about what influence his Irish Catholic and Russian Jewish ancestry may have had on his life as a person and as an artist, Ford humorously stated "As a man I've always felt Irish, as an actor I've always felt Jewish."^[8][9]

Ford was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and achieved its second-highest rank, Life Scout. He worked at Napowan Adventure Base Scout camp as a counselor for the Reptile Study merit badge. Because of this, he and Eagle Scout director Steven Spielberg later decided to depict the young Indiana Jones as a Life Scout in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They also jokingly reversed Ford's knowledge of reptiles into Jones' fear of snakes.

In 1960, Ford graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. His was the first student voice broadcast on his high school's new radio station, WMTH,^[8] and he was its first sportscaster during his senior year (1959–1960). He attended Ripon College in Wisconsin,^[8] where he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He took a drama class in the final quarter of his senior year to get over his shyness.^[10] Ford, a self-described "late bloomer,"^{[citation needed]} became fascinated with acting.

Early career[link]

In 1964, Ford traveled to Los Angeles, California to apply for a job in radio voice-overs. He did not get it, but stayed in California and eventually signed a $150 a week contract with Columbia Pictures' New Talent program, playing bit roles in films. His first known part was an uncredited role as a bellhop in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). There is little record of his non-speaking roles (or "extra" work) in film. Ford was at the bottom of the hiring list, having offended producer Jerry Tokovsky after he played a bellboy in the feature. He was told by Tokovsky that when actor Tony Curtis delivered a bag of groceries, he did it like a movie star; Ford felt his job was to act like a bellboy.^[11] Ford managed to secure other roles in movies, such as A Time for Killing (The Long Ride Home), starring Glenn Ford, George Hamilton and Inger Stevens.

His speaking roles continued next with Luv (1967), though he was still uncredited. He was finally credited as "Harrison J. Ford" in the 1967 Western film, A Time for Killing, but the "J" did not stand for anything, since he has no middle name. It was added to avoid confusion with a silent film actor named Harrison Ford, who appeared in more than 80 films between 1915 and 1932, and died in 1957. Ford later said that he was unaware of the existence of the earlier Harrison Ford until he came upon a star with his own name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ford soon dropped the "J" and worked for Universal Studios, playing minor roles in many television series throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Gunsmoke, Ironside, The Virginian, The F.B.I., Love, American Style, and Kung Fu. He appeared in the western Journey to Shiloh (1968) and had an uncredited, non-speaking role in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film Zabriskie Point, as an arrested student protester. Not happy with the roles being offered to him, Ford became a self-taught professional carpenter^[8] to support his then-wife and two small sons. While working as a carpenter, he became a stagehand for the popular rock band The Doors. He also built a sun deck for actress Sally Kellerman and a recording studio for Brazilian band leader Sérgio Mendes.

He was then hired to build cabinets at the home of director George Lucas, who subsequently cast him in a pivotal supporting role for his film American Graffiti (1973).^[8] Ford's relationship with Lucas affected his career later on. After director Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather was a success, he hired Ford to expand his office and gave him small roles in his next two films, The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979); in the latter film he played a smarmy officer named "G. Lucas."

Milestone franchises[link]

[edit] Star Wars

Ford's carpentry work eventually landed him his first starring film role. In 1975, George Lucas hired him to read lines for actors auditioning for parts in his Star Wars (1977). Lucas was eventually won over by Ford's portrayal, and cast him as Han Solo.^[12] Star Wars became one of the most successful movies of all time worldwide, and established Ford as a superstar.^[8] He went on to star in the similarly-successful Star Wars sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), as well as The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). Ford wanted Lucas to kill off Han Solo at the end of either sequel, saying, "That would have given the whole film a bottom," but Lucas refused.^[13]

[edit] Indiana Jones

The type of fedora worn by Ford in the Indiana Jones films

Ford's status as a leading actor was solidified when he starred as Indiana Jones in the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg collaboration Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).^[8] Though Spielberg was interested in casting Ford in the lead role from the start, Lucas was not, due to having already worked with the actor in American Graffiti and Star Wars, but he eventually relented after Tom Selleck was unable to accept.^[14][8] Ford reprised the role for the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).^[8] He later returned to his role as Indiana Jones again for a 1993 episode of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and for the fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).

Other film work[link]

Ford has been in numerous other films, including Heroes (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), and Hanover Street (1979). Ford also co-starred alongside Gene Wilder in the buddy-Western The Frisco Kid (1979), playing a bank robber with a heart of gold. He then starred as Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's cult sci-fi classic Blade Runner (1982), and in a number of dramatic-action films: Peter Weir's Witness (1985) and The Mosquito Coast (1986), and Roman Polanski's Frantic (1988).^[8]

The 1990s brought Ford the role of Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as well as leading roles in Alan Pakula's Presumed Innocent (1990) and The Devil's Own (1997), Andrew Davis' The Fugitive (1993), Sydney Pollack's remake of Sabrina (1995), and Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One (1997). Ford also played straight dramatic roles, including an adulterous husband in both Presumed Innocent (1990) and What Lies Beneath (2000), and a recovering amnesiac in Mike Nichols' Regarding Henry (1991).^[8]

Many of Ford's major film roles came to him by default through unusual circumstances: he won the role of Han Solo while reading lines for other actors, was cast as Indiana Jones because Tom Selleck was not available, and took the role of Jack Ryan supposedly due to Alec Baldwin's fee demands, although Baldwin disputes this (Baldwin had previously played the role in The Hunt for Red October).

Recent roles[link]

Ford in 2007

Starting in the late 1990s, Ford appeared in several critically derided and commercially disappointing movies, including Six Days Seven Nights (1998), Random Hearts (1999), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), Hollywood Homicide (2003), Firewall (2006), and Extraordinary Measures (2010). One exception was 2000's What Lies Beneath, which grossed over $155 million in the United States and $291 million worldwide.^[15]

In 2004, Ford declined a chance to star in the thriller Syriana, later commenting that "I didn't feel strongly enough about the truth of the material and I think I made a mistake."^[16] The role eventually went to George Clooney, who won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his work. Prior to that, he had passed on a role in another Stephen Gaghan-written role, Robert Wakefield in Traffic. That role went to Michael Douglas.

In 2008, Ford enjoyed success with the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, another collaboration between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The film received generally positive reviews and was the second highest-grossing film worldwide in 2008.^[17] He later said he would like to star in another sequel, "...if it didn't take another 20 years to digest."^[18]

Other 2008 work included Crossing Over, directed by Wayne Kramer. In the film, he plays an immigrations officer, working alongside Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta.^[19][20] He also narrated a feature documentary film about the Dalai Lama entitled Dalai Lama Renaissance.^[21]

Ford at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival

Ford filmed the medical drama Extraordinary Measures^[22] in 2009 in Portland, Oregon. Released January 22, 2010, the film also starred Brendan Fraser and Alan Ruck. Also in 2010, he co-starred in the film Morning Glory, along with Patrick Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Diane Keaton.^[23]

He has expressed interest in returning to the Jack Ryan franchise.^[24]

In July 2011, Ford starred alongside Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde in the science fiction Western film Cowboys & Aliens. Ford portrays Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde, a character who rules the town of Absolution with an iron fist.^[25] Ford and executive producer Steven Spielberg did not want to have the character wear a cowboy hat because they were worried that it would remind audiences of the Indiana Jones films.^[26] Ford described his character as a "grumpy old man."^[27] To promote the film, Ford made his first appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con International, being led onstage in handcuffs by two security guards, giving the audience the impression that he was being dragged to Comic-Con against his will. However, the actor's arrival involuntarily referred to an actual assault that occurred shortly before the presentation of the film, after which the alleged assailant was taken away in handcuffs. Ford received a long standing ovation as he joined his co-stars, and, apparently surprised by the warm welcome, told the audience, "I just wanted to make a living as an actor. I didn't know about this."^{[28][29][30][31][32]}

In 2011, Ford starred in Japanese commercials advertising the video game Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception for the PlayStation 3. In it, he can be seen playing the game whilst appearing amazed and praising it.^[33]

As of April 2012, he was said to be in late-stage negotiations to join the corporate espionage thriller Paranoia. The movie already has Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth confirmed as the lead while Gary Oldman is also in final talks to star in a supporting role. Directed by Robert Luketic, Paranoia takes place in the fast-paced world of business and involves a duel between telecom giants. Production is scheduled to begin this summer.^[34]

Personal life[link]

Marriages and family[link]

Ford with wife Calista Flockhart at the 2009 Deauville American Film Festival

Ford is one of Hollywood's most private actors,^[8] guarding his personal life. He has two sons (Benjamin and Willard) with his first wife, Mary Marquardt, as well as two children (Malcolm and Georgia) with his second wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison.

Ford began dating actress Calista Flockhart after meeting at the 2002 Golden Globes, and together they are parents to her adopted son, Liam. Ford proposed to Flockhart over Valentine's Day weekend in 2009.^[35] They married on June 15, 2010, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Ford was filming Cowboys and Aliens.^[36]

Ford has three grandchildren: Eliel (born 1993), Giuliana (born 1997), and Ethan (born 2000).^[37] Son Benjamin owns Ford's Filling Station, a gastro pub in Culver City, California.^{[38][39][40][41]} Son Willard is co-owner of Ford & Ching showroom, as well as Ludwig Clothing company.^[42]

Chin and back injury[link]

Ford injured his chin at the age of 20 when his car, a Volvo 544, hit a telephone pole in Northern California;^{[citation needed]} the scar is visible in his films. An explanation for it on film is offered in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when a young Indiana Jones cuts his chin while attempting to crack a whip to ward off a lion. In Working Girl, Ford's character explains that it happened when he passed out and hit his chin on the toilet when a college girlfriend was piercing his ear. In June 1983, at age 40, during the filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in London, he herniated a disc in his back, forcing him to fly back to Los Angeles for an operation. He returned six weeks later.^[43]

Aviation[link]

Ford is a private pilot of both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters,^[8] and owns an 800-acre (3.2 km²) ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, approximately half of which he has donated as a nature reserve. On several occasions, Ford has personally provided emergency helicopter services at the behest of local authorities, in one instance rescuing a hiker overcome by dehydration.^[44]

Ford began flight training in the 1960s at Wild Rose Idlewild Airport in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, flying in a Piper PA-22 Tri-Pacer, but at $15 an hour he was unable to continue the training.^[45] In the mid-1990s, he bought a used Gulfstream II and asked one of his pilots, Terry Bender, to give him flying lessons. They started flying a Cessna 182 out of Jackson, Wyoming, later switching to Teterboro, New Jersey, flying a Cessna 206, the aircraft he soloed in.^[46]

On October 23, 1999, Harrison Ford was involved in the crash of a Bell 206L4 LongRanger helicopter (N36R). The NTSB accident report states that Ford was piloting the aircraft over the Lake Piru riverbed near Santa Clarita, California, on a routine training flight. While making his second attempt at an autorotation with powered recovery Ford allowed the aircraft's altitude to drop to 150–200 feet before beginning power up. As a result the aircraft was unable to recover power before hitting the ground. The aircraft landed hard and began skidding forward in the loose gravel before one of its skids struck a partially embedded log and flipped onto its side. Neither Ford nor the instructor pilot suffered any injuries, though the helicopter was seriously damaged. When asked about the incident by fellow pilot James Lipton in an interview on the TV show Inside the Actor's Studio Ford replied, "I broke it."^[47]

Ford keeps his aircraft at Santa Monica Airport,^[48] though the Bell 407 is often kept and flown in Jackson, Wyoming, and has been used by the actor in two mountain rescues during the actor's assigned duty time assisting the Teton County Search and Rescue. On one of the rescues Ford recovered a hiker who had become lost and disoriented. She boarded Ford's Bell 407 and promptly vomited into one of the rescuers' caps, unaware of who the pilot was until much later; "I can't believe I barfed in Harrison Ford's helicopter!" she said later.^[49]

Ford flies his de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver (N28S) more than any of his other aircraft, and although he dislikes showing favoritism, he has repeatedly stated that he likes this aircraft and the sound of its Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engine.^[50] Ford first encountered the Beaver while filming Six Days Seven Nights, and soon purchased one.^{[citation needed]} Kenmore Air in Kenmore, Washington, restored Ford's yellow and green Beaver — a junked former U.S. military aircraft — with updated avionics and an upgraded engine. According to Ford, it had been flown in the CIA's Air America operations, and was riddled with bullet holes that had to be patched up.^[51] He uses it regularly for impromptu fly-ins at remote airports and bush strips, as well as gatherings with other Beaver owners and pilots.^{[citation needed]}

In March 2004, Ford officially became chairman of the Young Eagles program of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). Ford was asked to take the position by Greg Anderson, Senior Vice President of the EAA at the time, to replace General Charles "Chuck" Yeager who was vacating the post that he had held for many years. Ford at first was hesitant, but later accepted the offer and has made appearances with the Young Eagles at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh gathering at Oshkosh, Wisconsin for two years. In July 2005, at the gathering in Oshkosh Ford agreed to accept the position for another two years. Ford has flown over 280 children as part of the Young Eagles program, usually in his DHC-2 Beaver, which can seat the actor and five children. Ford is involved with the EAA chapter in Driggs, Idaho, just over the mountains from Jackson, Wyoming.

As of 2009, Ford appears in Web advertisements for General Aviation Serves America, a campaign by advocacy group AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association).^[52]

Ford is an Honorary Board Member of the humanitarian aviation organization Wings of Hope.^[53]

He has also flown as an invited VIP with the Blue Angels.^[54]

Aircraft owned

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Activism[link]

Environmental causes[link]

Ford sits on the board of directors of Conservation International.^{[citation needed]} He received the Jules Verne Spirit of Nature Award for his ongoing work in preservation of the planet.^[55]

In 1993, the arachnologist Norman Platnick named a new species of spider Calponia harrisonfordi, and in 2002, the entomologist Edward O. Wilson named a new ant species Pheidole harrisonfordi (in recognition of Harrison's work as Vice Chairman of Conservation International).^[56]

Since 1992, Ford has lent his voice to a series of public service messages promoting environmental involvement for EarthShare, an American federation of environmental and conservation charities.^{[citation needed]}

Political views[link]

Like his parents, Ford is a lifelong Democrat,^[57] and a close friend of former President Bill Clinton.^[19]

On September 7, 1995, Ford testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of the Dalai Lama and an independent Tibet, and was banned thereafter by the Chinese government from entering Tibet and China.^[58][59] In 2008, he narrated the documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003, he publicly condemned the Iraq War and called for "regime change" in the United States. He also criticized Hollywood for making violent movies, and called for more gun control in the United States.^[60] He opposed the recall of Californian Governor Gray Davis, and stated in an interview that replacing Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger would be a mistake.^[61]

Archaeology[link]

Following on his success portraying the archaeologist Indiana Jones, Ford also plays a part in supporting the work of professional archaeologists. He serves as a General Trustee^[62] on the Governing Board of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), North America's oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. Ford assists them in their mission of increasing public awareness of archaeology and preventing looting and the illegal antiquities trade.

Community work[link]

Ford volunteered as a food server. On November 21, 2007, Ford and other celebrities, including Kirk Douglas, Nia Long and Calista Flockhart, helped serve hot meals to the homeless at the annual Thanksgiving feast at the Los Angeles Mission.^[63]

Awards[link]

Ford's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Ford received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Witness, for which he also received "Best Actor" BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. He received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards and on June 2, 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has received three additional "Best Actor" Golden Globe nominations for The Mosquito Coast, The Fugitive and Sabrina.

In 2006, Ford was awarded the Jules Verne Spirit of Nature Award for his work in nature and wildlife preservation. The ceremony took place at the historic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.^[55]

He received the first ever Hero Award for his many iconic roles, including Han Solo and Indiana Jones, at the 2007 Scream Awards, and in 2008, the Spike TV's Guy's Choice Award for Brass Balls.^[64][65]

Harrison Ford received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2000.^[66]

Filmography[link]

See also[link]

References[link]