John Ford height - How tall is John Ford?

Honored on a US postage stamp in May 2012 (along with Frank Capra, John Huston and Billy Wilder).

In December 2011 Clint Eastwood received the first John Ford Award from John Ford Ireland Film Symposium.

Profiled in "Through a Catholic Lens: Religious Perspectives of 19 Film Directors from Around the World", ed. by Peter Malone. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007.

Was a character in "Short Letter, Long Farewell", a 1974 novel by the innovative Austrian writer and filmmaker Peter Handke.

In 1973 he was the first recipient of the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.

John Wayne usually called him by the nickname "Coach" or "Pappy" in private, but several times publicly, including during Wayne's acceptance speech for the 1970 Oscar for Best Actor, Wayne called him "Admiral John Ford", in reference to his rank at retirement from the US Naval Reserves.

The character John Dodge in Ford's movie The Wings of Eagles (1957) is a spoof of Ford.

Prior to making The Searchers (1956), Ford entered the hospital for the removal of cataracts. While recuperating after the surgery, he became impatient with the bandages covering his eyes and tore them off earlier than his doctors told him to. The result of that rash action was that Ford suffered a total loss of sight in one eye, which is how he came to wear his famous eyepatch.

He was an infamously prickly personality, having constantly mocked John Wayne as a "big idiot" and having punched an unsuspecting Henry Fonda during the shooting of Mister Roberts (1955).

Among Ford's favorite of his films are The Sun Shines Bright (1953), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and Wagon Master (1950).

Ford was disgusted by John Wayne's refusal to enlist in 1941. When Ford filmed They Were Expendable (1945) after World War II he included every actor's former military rank and branch (Ford himself was a Navy officer and combat photographer). Of course, there were no credentials behind Wayne's name, which the actor took as a real slap.

His apparently madcap affair with Katharine Hepburn, when both were married, inspired his friend Dudley Nichols to write the script for Bringing Up Baby (1938). When (after Hepburn broke off her relationship with Ford) she began her lifelong affair with Spencer Tracy, Ford was allegedly incensed and, after the two had had a fruitful collaboration early on in their careers, he neither spoke with or worked with Tracy for about 20 years.

Has won more directing Oscars than any other director: four, for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952). He also won an Oscar for Best Documentary, Short Subject for The Battle of Midway (1942) and an Oscar for Best Documentary for December 7th (1943).

Enlisted in the US Naval Reserves in 1934, commissioned as a lieutenant commander. He served on reserve and active status until 1951, retiring as a Captain with the honorary rank of Rear Admiral. While on active duty during World War II he worked with the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the CIA. While he produced a number of documentaries and training films for the OSS, perhaps one of his more notable achievements was a one-hour compilation of films which had been produced by order of Gen. (and future President) Dwight D. Eisenhower, showing liberated concentration camps. The film, Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), was entered as evidence at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials.

When his western Hell Bent (1918) for Universal was released, "Motion Picture News" praised Ford's direction, writing, "Few directors put such sustained punch in their pictures as does this Mr. Ford." It was the ninth in a series of films featuring Harry Carey as "Cheyenne Harry", who was more of a saddle tramp than a conventional western hero.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890- 1945". Pages 360-369. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1640 Vine St. on 2/8/60.