He was born
John Martin "Jack" Feeney (though he later often gave his given names as Sean Aloysius, sometimes with surname O'Feeny or O'Fearna; a
Gaelic equivalent of Feeney) in
Cape Elizabeth, Maine to John Augustine Feeney and Barbara "Abbey" Curran. John Augustine was born in
Spiddal,
County Galway,
Ireland in 1854. Barbara Curran had been born in the
Aran Islands, in the town of
Kilronan on the island of
Inishmore (Inis Mór).
John A. Feeney's grandmother, Barbara Morris, was said to be a member of a local (impoverished) gentry family, the Morrises of Spiddal, headed at present by
Lord Killanin.
John Augustine and Barbara Curran arrived in
Boston and
Portland respectively within a few days of each other in May and June 1872. They were married in 1875, and became American citizens five years later on September 11, 1880. They had eleven children: Mamie (Mary Agnes), born 1876; Delia (Edith), 1878-1881;
Patrick;
Francis Ford, 1881-1953; Bridget, 1883-1884; Barbara, born and died 1888; Edward, born 1889; Josephine, born 1891; Hannah (Joanna), born and died 1892; John Martin, 1894-1973; and Daniel, born and died 1896 (or 1898). John Augustine lived in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood of
Portland, Maine with his family, and would try farming, fishing, work for the gas company, run a saloon, and be an alderman.
Feeney attended
Portland High School in Portland, where the auditorium is named after him.
Many of his films contain direct and indirect references to his Irish and Gaelic heritage. His family referred to him as Seán and Jack.
Feeney began acting in 1914, taking "Jack Ford" as a stage name. In addition to credited roles, he appeared uncredited as a
Klansman in
D.W. Griffith's 1915 classic,
The Birth of a Nation, as the man who lifts up one side of his hood so he can see clearly.
He married Mary McBryde Smith, on
July 3,
1920 (two children). Ford never divorced his wife, but had a five-year affair with
Katharine Hepburn after they met during the filming of
Mary of Scotland (1936). The longer revised version of
Directed by John Ford shown on
Turner Classic Movies in November, 2006 features directors
Steven Spielberg,
Clint Eastwood, and
Martin Scorsese, who suggest that the string of classic films Ford directed 1936-1941 was due in part to his affair with Hepburn.
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