Ask any Star Wars fan what actors Harrison Ford and Perry King have in common, and you'll get the easy answer: Han Solo. Ford played everyone's favorite smuggler in the Star Wars movies, and King -- who tested for the role of Han Solo in 1975 -- wound up playing Solo in the Star Wars adaptations broadcast by National Public Radio.
While working on Adventures in Hyperspace, a series of Han Solo and Chewbacca adventure stories for Scholastic, and also an illustrated history of the Star Wars phenomenon titled Star Wars: Year by Year for DK Publishing, I found myself wondering if the two actors who played Han Solo had anything else in common. Except for the videotaped Star Wars casting sessions, Ford and King have never appeared in a film together. However, they have shared the screen with a surprising number of actors on various projects. Interestingly, both have also played fictional Presidents of the United States.
The following list draws heavily from the files of the Internet Movie Database, but I'll take the blame for any errors. If you know of any actors to add to the list, by all means do.
Joss Ackland played Hermann Goering in The Man Who Lived at the Ritz (1988), which featured Perry King. Ackland played Marshal Zelentsov in K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), which starred Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson.
John Anderson and Harrison Ford appeared in Crossties, an episode of Kung Fu starring David Carradine. Anderson also appeared in a 1984 episode of Riptide, the series that starred Perry King as private investigator Cody Allen.
Xander Berkley played a taxi driver in Riptide (1984). Berkley appeared as Secret Service Agent Gibbs in Air Force One (1997), which starred Harrison Ford as President James Marshall.
Peter Brown played two different Freds with Harrison Ford and Perry King. In Dan August (1971), a detective TV series starring Burt Reynolds, Brown played Fred Bowers in an episode that also featured Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams. In an episode of Perry King's TV series Riptide (1984), Brown played Fred Cushing.
Richard Bull and Harrison Ford appeared in The Sodbusters (1972), an episode of Gunsmoke. Bull appeared with Perry King in A Different Story (1978).
Linda Carpenter played Chastity in A Different Story (1978) with Perry King. Carpenter appeared as a Playboy magazine Playmate in director Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), which featured Harrison Ford.
John Carter and Harrison Ford appeared in the TV movie Dynasty (1976) and Random Hearts (1999). Carter and Perry King appeared in the TV movie Shakedown on the Sunset Strip (1988).
Peter Cushing, who oozed menace as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977) and starred or co-starred with Christopher Lee in many horror movies for Hammer Films, played Professor Charles Copeland, an instructor in English, in the TV movie Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984), which featured Perry King as John Albert Macy, the husband of Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher.
Anthony Daniels played C-3PO to Harrison Ford's Han Solo in the Star Wars trilogy, and also performed with Perry King in NPR's dramatizations of the trilogy.
Lolita Davidovitch and Perry King appeared in the TV mini-series I'll Take Manhattan (1987). Davidovitch also appeared in Hollywood Homicide (2003) with Harrison Ford.
Robert Donner appeared in the TV movie The Intruders (1970), a western that featured Harrison Ford. Donner also played "Wounded Texan" in Captains and the Kings (1976), the TV mini-series adaptation of Taylor Caldwell's best-selling novel, which starred Perry King as Rory Armagh.
Leslie-Anne Down played English nurse Margaret Sellinger opposite Harrison Ford's American pilot in writer/director Peter Hyam's World War II drama Hanover Street (1979). She was also featured in the TV movie The Perfect Wife (2001), in which Perry King plays a doctor married to a woman who's anything but perfect.
Ann Dusenberry played Ann-Marie Armagh in Captains and the Kings, which starred Perry King. Dusenberry played Weezie Sumner in the TV movie The Possessed, a supernatural tale that also featured Harrison Ford.
Dana Elcar appeared with Harrison Ford in Edge of Evil, an episode of Petrocelli starring Barry Newman as an unconventional lawyer. Edge of Evil is especially remarkable because it features three actors well known to fans of Star Trek: William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Susan Oliver (Vina), and Glenn Corbett (Zefram Cochrane). The episode also features Morgan Paul, who appears with Harrison Ford in director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), which features a miniature skyscraper built from a scavenged model of the Millennium Falcon. Dana Elcar later appeared in Arrivederci, Baby, an episode of Riptide (1985), with Perry King.
Anne Francis, a good friend of Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet (1956), starred in the The Intruders (1970), which featured Harrison Ford. Francis played Mama Jo in three episodes of Riptide (1984) with Perry King.
Melanie Griffith was featured in the TV movie Golden Gate (1981), which starred Perry King. Griffith co-starred with Harrison Ford in Working Girl (1988), which also featured Alec Baldwin. Coincidentally, Baldwin played the reluctant hero Jack Ryan in the film adaptation of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October (1990), and Ford resumed the role of Jack Ryan in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994).
Mark Hamill, like Anthony Daniels, co-starred with Harrison Ford in the Star Wars trilogy, and performed with Perry King in the NPR dramatizations of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
Bo Hopkins played Joe Young, a member of the Pharaohs gang in American Graffiti (1973), in which Harrison Ford played hot-rodder Bob Falfa. Hopkins and Ford also appeared in the TV movie Judgment: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley (1975). Hopkins was also featured in the TV miniseries Aspen (1977), a thriller set in the Colorado mountains, which starred Perry King.
Martin Landeau and Perry King appeared in the TV movie Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story (1992). Landeau appeared with Harrison Ford in Hollywood Homicide (2003). Coincidentally, Landeau starred in the science fiction TV series Space: 1999 (1976), which featured the Eagle Transporter, a spacecraft so similar to the initial design for Han Solo's pirate ship that George Lucas instructed the Star Wars concept artists and model-making team to create an entirely new model for the Millennium Falcon.
Donald Moffat appeared in the TV movie Kaleidoscope, which was based on Danielle Steel's novel and starred Perry King as a private investigator. Moffat appeared with Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry (1991) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), in which Moffat played President Bennett.
Julianne Moore and Perry King appeared in the TV mini-series I'll Take Manhattan (1987), an adaptation of Judith Krantz's novel. Moore played Dr. Anne Eastman opposite Harrison Ford in The Fugitive (1993).
Christopher Plummer played a British officer in Hanover Street (1979) with Harrison Ford. Plummer also starred with Perry King in A Stranger in the Mirror (1993), a TV movie based on the novel by Sidney Sheldon.
Sydney Pollack directed Harrison Ford in Sabrina (199) and Random Hearts (1999). Pollack and Perry King were guest stars on an episode of Will and Grace titled "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, He's Kept Me in the Closet and I'm So Sad" (2000).
John Rhys-Davies co-starred with Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), in which he played Indiana Jones' friend Sallah. In between Indiana Jones movies, he appeared in the TV series The Quest (1982) with Perry King. Rhys-Davies is also well known to audiences for his role as Gimli in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (2001-2003).
Michael Sacks played Billy Pilgrim, the man unstuck in time, and Perry King made his feature film debut as Pilgrim's son Robert in George Roy Hill's film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr's novel Slaughterhouse Five (1972). In Hanover Street (1979), Sacks appeared as 2nd Lieut. Martin Hyer, a fellow flyer with Harrison Ford's pilot character.
John Saxon, who co-starred with Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973), appeared in the TV movie The Intruders (1970), which also featured Harrison Ford. Saxon also appeared in Golden Gate (1981) with Perry King.
Jenny Sullivan appeared with Harrison Ford in the segment "Love and the Former Marriage" in the TV anthology series Love American Style (1969), and both also appeared in Getting Straight (1970). Sullivan played Honora Houlihan Armagh in Captains and the Kings, starring Perry King.
Ken Swoffard and Harrison Ford appeared in The Intruders (1970). Swoffard and Perry King appeared in Captains and the Kings (1976) and Riptide (1985).
M. Emmett Walsh appeared in the TV movie City of Fear (1980), which featured Perry King. Walsh played Bryant in Blade Runner (1982), which starred Harrison Ford. Walsh also appeared in an uncredited role in director Sydney Pollack's Random Hearts (1999), which also stars Ford.
Sela Ward played the ill-fated wife of Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) in The Fugitive (1993). In The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Ward played Dr. Lucy Hall, and Perry King was President Blake.
Henry Winkler co-starred with Perry King in the 1957 period piece The Lords of Flatbush (1974), which was released less than four months after his debut on the premiere of the TV series Happy Days, which made him forever famous as Fonzie. Winkler's next theatrical appearance was the starring role in Heroes (1977), in which he and Harrison Ford played Vietnam veterans.
Billy Dee Williams appeared on the same aforementioned episode of Dan August as Harrison Ford before co-starring with Ford in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Williams resumed his role as Lando Calrissian in the NPR dramatization of Empire, which featured Perry King as Han Solo.
Sean Young co-starred with Harrison Ford in Blade Runner (1982). Young co-starred with Perry King in two TV movies, The Cowboy and the Movie Star (1998) and Home for the Holidays (2005).
Thanks to Harrison Ford and Perry King for giving us a lot of great movies to watch, to Pete Vilmur for encouraging this sort of behavior on my part, and to the Internet Movie Database for being there.
