Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford was a Canadian-American actor who often portrayed ordinary men in unusual circumstances.
74 Facts About Glenn Ford
2.
Glenn Ford played a supporting role as Clark Kent's adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, in Superman.
3.
Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Glenn Ford was born on May 1,1916, in Sainte-Christine-d'Auvergne, Quebec, the son of Hannah Wood and Newton Glenn Ford, an engineer with the Canadian Pacific Railway.
4.
In 1922, when Glenn Ford was six, the family moved first to Venice, California and then to Santa Monica; Newton became a motorman for the Venice Electric Tram Company, a job he held until he died at age 50 in 1940.
5.
Glenn Ford became a naturalized citizen of the United States on November 10,1939.
6.
Glenn Ford acted in West Coast stage companies and had a role in the short Night in Manhattan before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939.
7.
Glenn Ford's first movie for Columbia was a "B", My Son Is Guilty.
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Glenn Ford went on to other "B" movies such as Convicted Woman, Men Without Souls, Babies for Sale and Blondie Plays Cupid.
9.
Glenn Ford was in the bigger budgeted The Lady in Question, which co-starred Rita Hayworth.
10.
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, where Glenn Ford delivered a poignant portrayal of a 19-year-old German exile on the run in Nazi-occupied Europe.
11.
Glenn Ford returned to Los Angeles and promptly registered as a Democrat, a fervent FDR supporter.
12.
Glenn Ford began his training in September 1941, driving three nights a week to his unit in San Pedro and spending most weekends there.
13.
Glenn Ford has appeared in movies for Columbia such as Go West, Young Lady, and The Adventures of Martin Eden.
14.
Glenn Ford was assigned in March 1943 to active duty at the Marine Corps Base in San Diego.
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Glenn Ford trained at the Marine base in San Diego, where Tyrone Power, the number-one male movie star at the time, was based.
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Power suggested Glenn Ford join him in the Marines' weekly radio show Halls of Montezuma, broadcast Sunday evenings from San Diego.
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Glenn Ford excelled in training, winning the Rifle Marksman Badge and being named "Honor Man" of the platoon and promoted to sergeant by the time he finished.
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Glenn Ford later showed this to his little boy Peter, along with his many other black-and-white battle scenes in other films.
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Frustratingly for Glenn Ford, filming battle scenes was the closest he would ever get to any action.
20.
Glenn Ford was in and out of the hospital for the next five months and finally received a medical discharge on the third anniversary of Pearl Harbor, December 7,1944.
21.
The erotic sadism and covert homoeroticism were actively encouraged on set by director Vidor, a sophisticated Budapest-born expatriate, though Glenn Ford always denied any awareness of the latter in his character's fervent loyalty to his boss, who had unwittingly married the love of Johnny's life.
22.
Glenn Ford went on to be a leading man opposite Hayworth in a total of five films.
23.
Now established as a star of "A" movies, Glenn Ford was borrowed by Warners to play Bette Davis' leading man in A Stolen Life.
24.
Glenn Ford made the mistake, which he bitterly regretted later, of turning down the lead in the brilliant comedy Born Yesterday, which Holden then snatched up.
25.
Back at Columbia Glenn Ford did Convicted with Broderick Crawford and The Flying Missile, a Cold War Movie.
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Glenn Ford went to Paramount for The Redhead and the Cowboy and Fox for Follow the Sun where he played Ben Hogan, and the Western The Secret of Convict Lake.
27.
Glenn Ford was reunited with Rita Hayworth a third time in Affair in Trinidad.
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Glenn Ford went to Britain to star in MGM's Time Bomb then to Universal for the Western The Man from the Alamo.
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Glenn Ford made Plunder of the Sun with John Farrow, then was cast in the lead of The Big Heat, Fritz Lang's classic crime melodrama with Gloria Grahame, at Columbia.
30.
Glenn Ford did two Westerns, The Americano at RKO and The Violent Men at Columbia.
31.
Glenn Ford's career went up another notch when cast in the lead of Blackboard Jungle, a landmark film of teen angst at MGM.
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Glenn Ford returned to Columbia for the Western Jubal, then back at MGM made another Western, the hugely popular The Fastest Gun Alive.
33.
Every movie Glenn Ford starred in around this time was a hit: 3:10 to Yuma, a classic Western at Columbia; Don't Go Near the Water, a service comedy at MGM; and Cowboy with Jack Lemmon at Columbia.
34.
Glenn Ford first worked with director George Marshall in The Sheepman, a popular Western at MGM.
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Glenn Ford did some comedies: Cry for Happy with Marshall and Pocketful of Miracles, with Frank Capra, neither of which was as well received as his fifties comedies.
36.
Glenn Ford was cast in the lead of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a notorious box office fiasco.
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Glenn Ford was in the drama Fate Is the Hunter and the romantic comedy Dear Heart.
38.
Glenn Ford made two films with Burt Kennedy The Rounders, and The Money Trap.
39.
In 1976, Glenn Ford played RAdm Raymond Spruance in the epic Midway alongside Henry Fonda, who played Adm Chester Nimitz, and Charlton Heston, who played a fictional Capt.
40.
In 1978, Glenn Ford had a supporting role in Superman as Clark Kent's adoptive father Jonathan Kent.
41.
Glenn Ford continued to combine his film career with his military service, and was promoted to commander in 1963 and captain in 1968, after he went to Vietnam in 1967 for a month's tour of duty as a location scout for combat scenes in a training film entitled Global Marine.
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Glenn Ford finally retired from the Naval Reserve in the 1970s with the rank of captain.
43.
Glenn Ford was awarded the Marine Corps Reserve Ribbon, which recognizes those who spend 10 years of honorable reserve service.
44.
Glenn Ford suggested doing a Western series, instead, which resulted in the "modern-day Western" series, Cade's County.
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Glenn Ford played southwestern Sheriff Cade for one season in a mix of police mystery and western drama.
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In 1978, Glenn Ford was host, presenter and narrator of the disaster documentary series When Havoc Struck for the Mobil Showcase Network.
47.
In 1981, Glenn Ford co-starred with Melissa Sue Anderson in the slasher film Happy Birthday to Me.
48.
In 1991, Glenn Ford agreed to star in a cable network series, African Skies.
49.
Glenn Ford was forced to drop out of the series and was replaced by Robert Mitchum.
50.
In 1950, Ford played the title role in The Adventures of Christopher London, created by Erle Stanley Gardner and directed by William N Robson.
51.
Glenn Ford starred in the June 2,1947 episode of Suspense, "End of the Road".
52.
Glenn Ford did not remain on good terms with his ex-wives.
53.
Glenn Ford was a notorious womanizer who had affairs with many of his leading ladies, including Rita Hayworth, Maria Schell, Geraldine Brooks, Stella Stevens, Gloria Grahame, Gene Tierney, Eva Gabor and Barbara Stanwyck.
54.
Glenn Ford had a one-night stand with Marilyn Monroe in 1962 and a fling with Joan Crawford in the early 1940s.
55.
Glenn Ford dated Christiane Schmidtmer, Linda Christian and Vikki Dougan during the mid-1960s, and he had relationships with Judy Garland, Connie Stevens, Suzanne Pleshette, Rhonda Fleming, Roberta Collins, Susie Lund, Terry Moore, Angie Dickinson, Debbie Reynolds, Jill St John, Brigitte Bardot and Loretta Young.
56.
Glenn Ford had a long-term relationship with actress Hope Lange in the early 1960s.
57.
In 1960, Glenn Ford would move next door to Hayworth in Beverly Hills, and they continued their relationship for many years until the early 1980s.
58.
Glenn Ford ranked Ford as one of her top five best lovers.
59.
Glenn Ford documented his many relationships by taping every phone conversation he ever had with all of his celebrity lovers and friends for 40 years.
60.
Glenn Ford installed the recording system to eavesdrop on the conversations of his first wife, Eleanor Powell, fearing that she would find out about his serial cheating and leave him.
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Glenn Ford later divorced him in 1959 on the grounds of adultery and mental cruelty.
62.
Glenn Ford had been engaged to Debra Morris in the 1980s and Karen Johnson in the early 1990s.
63.
At the height of his stardom, Glenn Ford supported the Democratic Party.
64.
Glenn Ford supported Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1940s, Adlai Stevenson II in 1956, and John F Kennedy in 1960.
65.
Glenn Ford campaigned for his old friend, and fellow actor, Ronald Reagan, in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.
66.
In May 1980, Glenn Ford attempted to purchase the Atlanta Flames, of the National Hockey League, with the intention of keeping the team in the city.
67.
Glenn Ford lived in Beverly Hills, California, where he illegally raised 140 leghorn chickens until he was stopped by the Beverly Hills Police Department.
68.
Glenn Ford retired from acting in 1991, at age 75, following heart and circulatory problems.
69.
Glenn Ford suffered a series of minor strokes which left him in frail health in the years leading up to his death.
70.
Glenn Ford died in his Beverly Hills home on August 30,2006, at the age of 90.
71.
Glenn Ford was listed in Quigley's Annual List of Top Ten Box Office Champions in 1956,1958 and 1959, topping the list at number one in 1958.
72.
For 10 consecutive years, from 1955 through 1964, Glenn Ford was listed among Quigley's list of the top 25 box office stars.
73.
In 1958 Glenn Ford won the Golden Laurel Award for Top Male Comedy Performance for his role in Don't Go Near the Water.
74.
Glenn Ford was scheduled to make his first public appearance in 15 years at a 90th-birthday tribute gala in his honor hosted by the American Cinematheque at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on May 1,2006, but at the last minute, he had to bow out.