Harrison Ford wants the Operation Smile award honoring his friend to
inspire others to give more
[June 04, 2025]
By GLENN GAMBOA
Harrison Ford will receive an award for his philanthropy Tuesday night
from the global surgery and training nonprofit Operation Smile. But the
star of the “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars” film franchises, as well as
this year’s “Captain America: Brave New World,” says all the attention
should go to the award’s namesake – Ford’s friend, the late humanitarian
and noted plastic surgeon Dr. Randy Sherman.
Like Ford, Sherman, who was director of the Cedars-Sinai Division of
Plastic Surgery in Los Angeles and a specialist in reconstructive
surgery who developed numerous training programs, was an avid pilot and
they bonded when they shared the same home airport. Sherman told Ford of
his volunteer work with Operation Smile, providing cleft palate surgery
to children in countries where access to such services is limited, and
Angel Flight West, which provides free medical transportation to
patients.
“The things that he contributed to my life and to my family’s lives are
beyond anybody’s wildest imagination,” Ford said of Sherman, who died in
2023 when his plane experienced engine failure and crashed in New
Mexico. “He was a very important person to me and, by the way, to all of
the people that he’s associated with in the medical community. All of
them recognize his selfless service.”
Dr. Billy Magee, Operation Smile's chief medical officer, called it a
joy to honor both men, pointing out that Sherman was a leader in cleft
palate care and “a driving force behind Operation Smile’s work to expand
access to surgical care closer to patients’ homes, even in the most
remote corners of the world.”
“This award celebrates the spirit of compassion and dedication that both
Harrison and Dr. Sherman embody,” said Magee, who recently announced
Operation 100, which will equip 100 cleft operative teams in 100
hospitals around the world. “I can’t think of a more deserving recipient
to carry that legacy forward.”
The Associated Press recently spoke with Ford about receiving the Dr.
Randy Sherman Visionary Award from Operation Smile and how he hopes it
will inspire others to give what they can. The interview was edited for
clarity and length.
Q: How did you get to know Dr. Sherman?
A: When the earthquake in Haiti struck (in 2010), I reached out to Randy
and asked if he thought there was anything that we could do with an
airplane that I had, which was particularly suited to the kind of work
that’s done in these circumstances. He very quickly organized a mission
with Operation Smile and he met me and my pilot, who was working for me
at the time, Terry Bender. We flew my Cessna Caravan to Miami and picked
up supplies and medical professionals -- doctors, nurses,
anesthesiologists -- and flew to Port-au-Prince. We flew missions to
bring supplies and medical personnel to a community called Hinche, in
the highlands of Haiti, a town that had no airport but did have a field
that we were able to land the aircraft in. We were there for about a
week, going back and forth each day to Hinche to bring in supplies.
Q: What made you want to be a part of that — a dangerous mission under
tough circumstances?
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 A: Well, I didn’t consider it to be
dangerous. I considered it to be an opportunity to be able to use
something that I had that was needed. The issue in Haiti was that
when people were injured in the urban setting, there were no
resources to treat them. They were then transported to the community
that they grew up in… It was such a (expletive) in Port-au-Prince
when we got there. Nobody knew what was going on. But we knew there
was a hospital in Hinche that was staffed by two Cuban doctors and
they had no supplies, no anesthetics. And because of the delay in
assets reaching them, there were a lot of people suffering
amputations and other very significant medical issues.
Q: What was it like to see philanthropy in action
in that moment? It’s an example of something that the government is
not going to handle. If the nonprofit doesn’t do it, it doesn’t get
done.
A: Pilots are good citizens. They’re involved. They really are aware
in many, many cases of the contributions they can make with their
resources and their skills… This is not all altruism. We do want
people to understand the positive values of general aviation and
what they bring to a community. The freedom to fly in the United
States is unequaled around the world, to my understanding. And the
preservation of that freedom is really important to me and others.
So we want to demonstrate our positive contribution to the
community.
Q: You don’t talk about your philanthropy much, especially what you
do to fight climate change. Do you feel that should get more
attention?
A: I think it gets attention when it needs to be recognized -- not
my work, but the issues I’m talking about. I’ve been working in
conservation for 35 years with an organization called Conservation
International. We work internationally, as the name suggests. The
only work we do here in the United States is fundraising. And we’re
under enormous threat now with the rise of nationalism and
isolationism and all of the (expletive) that we’re suffering.
Q: Does that make your work even more pressing? Especially with the
cuts to USAID that previously funded environmental work?
A: Of course. Yes. Members of the Republican Party and the
administration had been enthusiastic about the importance of funding
international conservation. In the last 10 years, we have had a
real, substantial contribution from USAID addressing and mitigating
issues that have suddenly disappeared from our moral flowchart. It
just (expletive) disappeared. It’s a travesty. It’s a tragedy.
Q: Will Conservation International do something differently this
year to make up for those cuts?
A: Unfortunately, we will not be able to do that because we don’t
have extra funds to distribute. We don’t have the structures of a
scientific community that have been established and nurtured and
cultured over the years. They’ve been dissolved. We can’t do it.
Q: Do you hope the Operation Smile award and the attention that
comes with it will convince some people to donate more?
A: I hope so. I hope it motivates some people to recognize they will
have to create new mechanisms of funding and support. But we’re also
disavowing science. We’re in such a fragile point of inflection
here… There will be moments when all of us will be called upon to
think about these things again and to make our individual efforts to
address the imbalance of the situation that now exists. There are
many people upset with this stuff. But will we coalesce around these
things and become a political constituency, a moral army?
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