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Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that lasted more than 50 years. Despite his versatility, Ford was best known for playing ordinary men in unusual circumstances. ==Early life and career== Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born at Jeffrey Hale Hospital in Quebec City.〔("Photos from the Glenn Ford Library." ) ''Ford family.'' Retrieved: October 30, 2008.〕 He was the son of the Québécois Hannah Wood Mitchell and Newton Ford, a railway man.〔"Marriage Certificate of Newton Ford and Hannah Wood Mitchell." ''Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967'' (Portneuf (Church of England), 1914.〕 Through his father, Ford was a great-nephew of Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.〔Severo, Richard. ("Glenn Ford, Leading Man in Films and TV, Dies at 90." ) ''The New York Times'', August 31, 2006. Retrieved: May 3, 2010.〕 and also related to U.S. President Martin Van Buren. Ford moved to Santa Monica, California, with his family at the age of eight. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939. After Ford graduated from Santa Monica High School, he began working in small theatre groups. While in high school, he took odd jobs, including working for Will Rogers, who taught him horsemanship.〔 Ford later commented that his railroad executive father had no objection to his growing interest in acting, but told him, "It's all right for you to try to act, if you learn something else first. Be able to take a car apart and put it together. Be able to build a house, every bit of it. Then you'll always have something."〔Severo, Richard. "Glenn Ford, Actor 1916-2006". ''The Globe and Mail'', September 1, 2006, p. S10.〕 Ford heeded the advice and during the 1950s, when he was one of Hollywood's most popular actors, he regularly worked on plumbing, wiring and air conditioning at home.〔 At times, he worked as a roofer and installer of plate-glass windows. Ford acted in West Coast stage companies before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939. His stage name came from his father's hometown of Glenford, Alberta.〔(" 'Blackboard Jungle' Actor Glenn Ford Dies at 90." ) ''Fox News'', August 31, 2006.〕 His first major movie part was in the 1939 film, ''Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence''. Top Hollywood director John Cromwell was impressed enough with his work to borrow him from Columbia for the independently-produced drama, So Ends Our Night (1941), where Ford delivered a poignant portrayal of a 19-year-old German exile on the run in Nazi-occupied Europe. Working with Academy-award-winning Fredric March and wooing (onscreen) 30-year-old Margaret Sullavan, recently nominated for an Oscar, Ford's shy, ardent young refugee riveted attention even in such stellar company. "Glenn Ford, a most promising newcomer," wrote The New York Times' Bosley Crowther in his Feb. 28, 1941 review, "draws more substance and appealing simplicity from his role of the boy than any one else in the cast."〔http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E05EEDC133DE33BBC4051DFB466838A659EDE〕 After a highly publicized premiere in Los Angeles and a gala fundraiser in Miami, the White House hosted a private screening of So Ends Our Night for President Franklin Roosevelt, who admired the film greatly. The starstruck youngster was invited to Roosevelt's annual Birthday Ball. He returned to Los Angeles and promptly registered as a Democrat, a fervent FDR supporter. "I was so impressed when I met Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt," recalled Glenn Ford to his son decades later, "I was thrilled when I got back to Los Angeles and found a beautifully photograph personally autographed to me. It always held a place of high honor in my home."〔Glenn Ford - A Life (Wis. 2011) by Peter Ford, p. 35〕 After 35 interviews and glowing reviews for him personally, Glenn Ford had young female fans begging for his autograph, too. However, the young man was disappointed when Columbia Pictures did nothing with this prestige and new visibility and instead kept plugging him into conventional films for the rest of his 7-year contract. His very next picture, Texas, was his first Western, a genre with which he would be associated for the rest of his life. Set in the Civil War, it paired him with another young male star under contract, Bill Holden, who became a lifelong friend. More routine films followed, none of them memorable, but lucrative enough to allow Ford to buy himself and his mother a beautiful new home in the Pacific Palisades. So Ends Our Night also affected the young star in another way: in the summer of 1941, while the United States was still technically neutral, he enlisted in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, even though he had a Class 3 deferment (for being his mother's sole support). He began his training in September, 1941, driving three nights a week to his unit in San Pedro and spending most weekends there. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Glenn Ford」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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