He was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford on May 1, 1916, the son of a railroad executive and mill owner and nephew of Sir John MacDonald, a former prime minister of Canada and a descendant of Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States.
Ford spent his earliest years in Glenford, site of the family's paper mill, from which Ford took his professional name.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday September 02, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 3 inches; 113 words Type of Material: Correction
Glenn Ford obituary: The obituary of Glenn Ford in Thursday's California section said the actor "was found dead at his Beverly Hills home by Fire Department paramedics just before 4 p.m." According to information supplied to The Times by the family after the obituary appeared, paramedics were called to the family home by Ford's daughter-in-law, Lynda, after a caregiver had determined that Ford was having difficulty breathing. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate the 90-year-old actor. Efforts to find a representative of the family for further information on Ford's death Thursday night were unsuccessful, and initial information in the obituary should have been attributed to an official statement from the Beverly Hills Police Department.
By the time his family moved to California when he was 7, he had already developed a taste for performing. At Santa Monica High School, he ran track, played lacrosse and excelled in English and drama.
Ford worked with numerous little theater groups and California touring companies as an actor and stage manager before joining the Broadway-bound play "Soliloquy," starring film actor John Beal, in 1938.
But when the play reached Broadway, it closed after only two performances. Ford returned to Los Angeles, and 20th Century Fox hired him for a fourth-billed role in the low-budget "Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence."
It was not the most auspicious of debuts.
In a 1985 interview with The Times, Ford recalled that the film's director, Ricardo Cortez, told him he would never make it as a movie actor. But soon after, Ford was signed by Columbia. Roles in a string of B pictures followed, until World War II service intervened.
Ford enlisted in the Marine Corps in December 1942, after having been a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary for a year. After his discharge in 1945, he returned to the screen the next year in three notable pictures: "Gilda"; "A Stolen Life," in which he played opposite Bette Davis; and "Gallant Journey," a film biography of 19th century flight pioneer John Montgomery.
In "Gilda," where Rita Hayworth performs one of the steamiest dances in movie history, Ford was praised by Variety as "a far better actor than the tale permits."
In 1953, Ford had his Columbia contract rewritten so he could work for other studios. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer featured him as the doctor-husband in "Interrupted Melody," the story of opera star Marjorie Lawrence, a polio victim. That picture and others, such as "Ransom" and "Don't Go Near the Water," brought him rave notices about his "recent mature and thoughtful performances" and his "sly and adept" comedy.
Off-screen, Ford played polo -- he had learned to ride while taking care of Will Rogers' polo ponies as a teenager in the 1930s -- and was lifelong friends with William Holden and Hayworth. He also worked with Actors and Others for Animals, an animal-rights group.
