Who Is The Real Indy?
Generations of cinemagoers know him as a rugged archaelogist happy to swap his tweeds for a leather jacket and dodge a rolling boulder. We all know he cracks a mean whip, wears a crumpled fedora. is terrified of snakes and isn't much of a fan of the Third Reich. But who is the real Indiana Jones? Where does he come from? Who was he based on?Indiana Jones is synomous with swashbuckling mayhem across continents.
Yet director Steven Spielberg originally envisaged him as as a James Bond type. It was only when his buddy, Star Wars director George Lucas, said he had something better in mind that Indy was born.
The character was originally named Indiana Smith - but Spielberg disliked the name and Jones was selected as an alternative.
The alleged inspiration for the character ranges from paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews to Yale University historian Hiram Bingham III, who excavated the lost city of Machu Picchu.
"Indiana Jones is not a perfect hero, and his imperfections, I think, make the audience feel that, with a little more exercise and a little more courage, they could be just like him," says Spielberg.
Equipping him was the next consideration: Lucas suggested the flight jacket, the fedora (by way of Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and the Zorro-style whip. Comic book artist Jim Steranko added the Sam Browne belt.
With the clothes selected, it was a matter of finding the right man for the job. Lucas resisted Spielberg's suggestion of Harrison Ford because the actor had already been in three of his films.
Finally, the little-known Tom Selleck was chosen...but the studio of the Magnum PI star refused to release him from his contract despite coming just three weeks before principal photography. Ford was given the gig.
The fully-formed Jones was first introduced to cinema audiences in the 1936-set film Raiders of the Lost Ark although the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom takes place in India the year before.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the setting is 1938 although the film's introduction, set in 1912, provides some backdrop to his fear of snakes and the scar on his chin.
The fourth film - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - is set in 1957 and is notable for the return of Karen Allen as Indy's feisty old flame Marion Ravenwood.
It's been more than a quarter of a century since Henry Walton Jones Jr took the first steps in what was to become one of cinema's most successful film franchises. But, despite, the legions of admirers, some people still aren't happy.
"Indiana Jones is adventurous and brave and problem-solving," says professor of archaeologoy Winifred Creamer. "He has all these great characteristics.
"But you could say he is the worst thing to happen to archaeology, because Indiana Jones has no respect for anybody and anything. Indiana Jones walks a fine line between what's an archaeologist and what's a professional looter."
Well, the hero's mantra is, "Fortune and Glory" after all.
