Harrison Ford was an American stage and film actor. He was a leading Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 performer and a star of the silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 era.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Ford began his acting career on the stage. He made his Broadway debut in 1904 in Richard Harding Davis

Richard Harding Davis

Richard Harding Davis was a journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and the First World War. His writing greatly assisted the political career of Theodore Roosevelt and he also played...

's Ranson's Folly. He went on to appear in productions of William C. deMille

William C. DeMille

Willam C. deMille was an American screenwriter and film director from the silent movie era through the early 1930s. He was also a noted playwright prior to moving into film. Once he was established in film he specialized in adapting Broadway plays into silent films...

's Strongheart; Glorious Betsy

Glorious Betsy

Glorious Betsy is a 1928 mostly-silent film with talking sequences, based on a play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young and starring Dolores Costello. It was produced by Warner Brothers and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adaptation in 1929. The film was directed by Alan...

by Rida Johnson Young

Rida Johnson Young

Rida Johnson Young was an American playwright, songwriter and librettist. In her career, Young wrote over thirty plays and musicals, and over 500 songs. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970...

 (the production lasted only 24 performances but the play was later adapted for an Oscar-nominated

Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay

The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

 film of the same name); Bayard Veiller

Bayard Veiller

Bayard Veiller was an American screenwriter, producer and film director. He wrote for 32 films between 1915 and 1941...

's The Fight (which quickly closed); Edgar Wallace

Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was an English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and numerous articles in newspapers and journals....

's The Switchboard; Edward Locke's The Bubble; and Edgar Selwyn

Edgar Selwyn

Edgar Selwyn was a prominent figure in American theater and film in the first half of the 20th Century.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Selwyn flourished in the Broadway theater as an actor, playwright, director, and producer from 1899 to 1942...

's Rolling Stones.

Ford turned to film beginning in 1915 and moved to Hollywood.