It’s like a fucking gas station burrito came to life and is terrorizing people.
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Celebrity Thread: News, gossip, and anything else that strikes a fancy
- Thread starter Deus Irae
- Start date
In 1964, Ford moved to Hollywood to become an actor.
“But I arrived on a metaphoric bus full of people who had the same ambition,” he said.
So he came up with this plan to prevail over the competition:
As Ford spent time around the other aspiring actors on that metaphoric bus, he became aware of something:
Most of them were in a hurry.
They were in a hurry to “make it” or to make lots of money or to prove something to someone.
Whatever the reason, most were on a tight timeline.
So Ford's plan was to do the opposite: to lengthen his timeline.
To do so, Ford said, "I had to have another source of income. So I became a carpenter."
“By doing carpentry," he explained, "I was able to wait it out.
And as the years went by, the attrition rate eliminated many of those people from the competition pool until finally, there were only a few of us left on the bus from that entering class.
I always saw life that way—you just have to find a way to stick it out, to prevail.”
Takeaway 1:
Ford chose carpentry for two reasons.
First...when he first moved to Hollywood, he taught himself the basic carpentry skills needed to fix up his dilapidated house. He was immediately attracted to the process of fixing things, calling it "a form of meditation."
Second...he thought—since Hollywood is an everybody-knows-everybody kind of town—a carpentry job could lead to an acting job.
Indeed.
Ford became known as the "carpenter to the stars." His roster of clients included Francis Ford Coppola, James Caan, Richard Dreyfuss, and Joan Didion.
Most famously, in the early 1970s, Ford was building "an elaborate portico entrance" at Coppola's offices where Coppola's friend, George Lucas, was leading casting meetings for Star Wars.
One day, Ford said, “I was asked by George if I would read with the other actors. There was no indication that I might be considered for a part in the film."
"I read with about 300 actors and weeks later, they asked me if I wanted to play Han Solo."
Takeaway 2:
Ford's “stick it out” strategy is a civilian version of what military strategists refer to as "winning through attrition."
In a study of the major wars that shaped the course of history, the strategist and historian B.H. Liddell Hart found that only 2% of battles were won as a result of a direct attack.
The majority of successful armies throughout history, Hart writes, all had the “power of endurance to last.”
As Ford put it, "You just have to find a way to stick it out, to prevail.”
"Lengthen your timeline...It always takes longer than you think it’s going to take. That’s Hofstadter’s law. And even when you take the law into account, you’re still surprised."
“But I arrived on a metaphoric bus full of people who had the same ambition,” he said.
So he came up with this plan to prevail over the competition:
As Ford spent time around the other aspiring actors on that metaphoric bus, he became aware of something:
Most of them were in a hurry.
They were in a hurry to “make it” or to make lots of money or to prove something to someone.
Whatever the reason, most were on a tight timeline.
So Ford's plan was to do the opposite: to lengthen his timeline.
To do so, Ford said, "I had to have another source of income. So I became a carpenter."
“By doing carpentry," he explained, "I was able to wait it out.
And as the years went by, the attrition rate eliminated many of those people from the competition pool until finally, there were only a few of us left on the bus from that entering class.
I always saw life that way—you just have to find a way to stick it out, to prevail.”
Takeaway 1:
Ford chose carpentry for two reasons.
First...when he first moved to Hollywood, he taught himself the basic carpentry skills needed to fix up his dilapidated house. He was immediately attracted to the process of fixing things, calling it "a form of meditation."
Second...he thought—since Hollywood is an everybody-knows-everybody kind of town—a carpentry job could lead to an acting job.
Indeed.
Ford became known as the "carpenter to the stars." His roster of clients included Francis Ford Coppola, James Caan, Richard Dreyfuss, and Joan Didion.
Most famously, in the early 1970s, Ford was building "an elaborate portico entrance" at Coppola's offices where Coppola's friend, George Lucas, was leading casting meetings for Star Wars.
One day, Ford said, “I was asked by George if I would read with the other actors. There was no indication that I might be considered for a part in the film."
"I read with about 300 actors and weeks later, they asked me if I wanted to play Han Solo."
Takeaway 2:
Ford's “stick it out” strategy is a civilian version of what military strategists refer to as "winning through attrition."
In a study of the major wars that shaped the course of history, the strategist and historian B.H. Liddell Hart found that only 2% of battles were won as a result of a direct attack.
The majority of successful armies throughout history, Hart writes, all had the “power of endurance to last.”
As Ford put it, "You just have to find a way to stick it out, to prevail.”
"Lengthen your timeline...It always takes longer than you think it’s going to take. That’s Hofstadter’s law. And even when you take the law into account, you’re still surprised."
When Bing Crosby's nephew asked him casually, late in Bing's life, about the most difficult moment of his career, he expected some juicy gossip about a difficult Hollywood director or the story of a struggle with a studio. But Bing instead told him it was on a USO tour in December of 1944 in an open-air field in France. He'd just made 15,000 French and American troops laugh and holler with Dinah Shore and The Andrews Sisters and now had to close the show with a quieter number: "White Christmas." He described having to maintain his composure and vocal control in front of 15,000 crying GIs as the toughest moment of his career.
He never wore his toupee on USO tours - a small thing, but he thought these occasions were above Hollywood artifice - and more importantly insisted that no officers or other top brass got front row seats. Front row seats belonged to enlisted men who were headed for the frontlines.
A few days after this performance of White Christmas his audience was sent to The Battle of the Bulge, one of the deadliest battles in the history of humanity.
He never wore his toupee on USO tours - a small thing, but he thought these occasions were above Hollywood artifice - and more importantly insisted that no officers or other top brass got front row seats. Front row seats belonged to enlisted men who were headed for the frontlines.
A few days after this performance of White Christmas his audience was sent to The Battle of the Bulge, one of the deadliest battles in the history of humanity.
