Readers and radio listeners have posed this same question to me often throughout the decades I’ve written this entertainment column.
How did the adventure film character Indiana Jones get his name?
Played by Chicago-born actor Harrison Ford in all five of the feature films, don’t expect Ford (who celebrates his 84th birthday in July) to be inducted as an honorary Hoosier anytime soon.
Much of this state-connected confusion comes from the character’s backstory and repeated narrative that has him defined as a seemingly timid campus professor of archeology. The character’s collegiate association is not with Indiana University or Ball State University.
The original 1981 film in the franchise, which debuted 45 years ago this spring, is a storyline set in 1936, but it is not set at any of our campuses in Indiana. Dr. Jones teaches at fictional Marshall College based in Connecticut, a story thread associated and reemphasized again in the third movie in the series, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” released in 1989.
Actress Karen Allen, who played the adventure hero’s love interest Marion Ravenwood in the first film and reprised the role for the fourth and fifth movies, helped me answer this Indiana identity question for the origin of Ford’s famed whip-wielding alter ego.
In 2008, I served as the media emcee at Hollywood Boulevard Cinema in Woodridge, Illinois, for an “Animal House” reunion movie screening party for the cast of the 1978 funny film about fraternity life, which starred Allen opposite John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Kevin Bacon, Martha Smith, Tom Hulce and Donald Sutherland.
While Steven Spielberg directed “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” it was George Lucas who wrote the screenplay. Lucas owned an Alaskan malamute as a pet, which came with the name “Indiana” from its breeder. Much like my own parents’ purebred Maine coon feline Tracker V, it’s not uncommon for breeders to keep the same lineage name assigned to the purebred’s multiple offspring.
In the 1989 follow-up film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” which starred the late River Phoenix in flashback scenes as a young Indiana Jones, as well as the “Young Indiana Jones” television series starring Corey Carrier in the title role, both also reference the young adventurer taking his namesake identity from the same name of his beloved dog given to him by his parents.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” holds added significance for me since it is my first recollection at age 10 of hearing a resounding musical score from the music master John Williams, 94, who composed the compelling theme sound. My parents took my older sister and me to see the film on the big screen on opening weekend. (I was only 6 years old when “Star Wars” with Williams as composer hit movie houses and therefore too young for any movie cinema escape that wasn’t Walt Disney Studios.)
This music and movie magic are once again recaptured 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, at The Auditorium, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, when The Chicago Philharmonic continues the Auditorium Philms Concert Series with “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Live in Concert,” featuring Williams’ Grammy Award-winning score performed live with a film screening. The concert will be led by conductor Thiago Tiberio. Tickets priced at $127 are available at auditoriumtheatre.org or by calling The Auditorium’s Ticket Service Center at 312-341-2300.
The Chicago Philharmonic, with nearly 200 musicians, has devoted recent seasons to re-imagining the orchestra concert experience “through culturally diverse, genre-bending programs breaking barriers of exclusion in orchestral music,” according to The Auditorium CEO Rich Regan.
The Chicago Philharmonic presents 30-plus concerts annually and year-round, featuring diverse musicians and drawing “new-to-the-symphony” audiences. The Chicago Philharmonic Society was created by Lyric Opera principal musicians in 1989 and today boasts audiences numbering more than 200,000, including community engagement programs reaching 6,000 students annually, with more details available at www.chicagophil.org.
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and radio show host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at PhilPotempa@gmail.com.
