This landmark birthday for our sole remaining great movie star reminds me that he seems to have been an octogenarian for decades now
Wednesday is Harrison Ford’s 80th birthday. It’s a strange occasion for a couple of reasons. The first is that Ford is our sole remaining great movie star. Nicholson is a recluse. Pacino and De Niro dissolved into self-parody long ago. Everyone else is too young to qualify. But Ford still has it. Often when movie stars hit a peak, all the characters they play have a habit of becoming extensions of their own persona. Not Ford, though. He’s Han Solo. He’s Indiana Jones. He’s Richard Kimble, Jack Ryan, Rick Deckard. To call it an incredible career would be a gross understatement.
The other reason this birthday is weird, and I promise I mean this with affection, is that it seems as if he’s been 80 years old for decades. Because, in an industry where everyone aged 25 and over is possessed by a freakish desperation to cling to their youth for dear life, warping their faces with unnecessary surgeries to try to trick the world into thinking that they’ve somehow become frozen in time, Ford has embraced the role of grizzled elder statesman like no other.
