47 Fun Facts About The Fugitive

Who plays Dr. Richard Kimble in the 1993 film The Fugitive?

Harrison Ford took the part over from Alec Baldwin, who had been cast first; a year earlier he had replaced Baldwin as Jack Ryan in Patriot Games too.

Who plays Helen Kimble, the wife whose murder puts her husband on the run, in the 1993 film The Fugitive?

Sela Ward, then a star of the TV drama Sisters, is seen mostly in fragments: the film opens on Helen's murder and returns to it in Kimble's dreams and flashbacks.

What kind of surgeon is Dr. Richard Kimble in the 1993 film The Fugitive?

Vascular surgery is his field, and the film trades on the skill: disguised as a janitor, Kimble rereads a boy's X-ray and wheels him straight to the operating room.

In The Fugitive, Kimble escapes custody when his crashed prison bus is struck by what?

The bus rolls onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train; the wreck was staged for real and in a single take, and the wrecked locomotive and bus were left beside the line as a tourist attraction.

Who directed the 1993 film The Fugitive?

Andrew Davis came straight from the Steven Seagal hit Under Siege and was hired only after the lead role changed hands; the project had earlier belonged to director Walter Hill.

The Fugitive is often said to echo the murder case of which real doctor, a link the show's creator always denied?

Sam Sheppard was convicted in 1954 of killing his wife Marilyn and blamed a bushy-haired intruder; the Supreme Court threw out the verdict and a second jury acquitted him twelve years later.

Which actor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Fugitive?

Tommy Lee Jones collected the film's only Oscar with his head shaved for his next role, as Ty Cobb, and told the audience: "I am not really bald."

Which Fugitive actor saved his own character from dying?

Joe Pantoliano's Cosmo Renfro was meant to die in the final fight until the actor asked, "What if there's a sequel?"; he was back as Renfro in U.S. Marshals five years later.

In The Fugitive, Gerard orders a hard-target search of every farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and what?

Doghouse ends the list in the speech Gerard gives at the crash site, after reckoning that a man on foot for 90 minutes at four miles an hour can be no more than six miles away.

Which 1999 film finally broke The Fugitive's record for the biggest August opening weekend?

The Sixth Sense took a record The Fugitive had set against the odds: its script was still being rewritten as it shot, and its editors had only weeks to cut it for the August opening.

Who plays the fugitive Gerard's team chases in the 1998 sequel U.S. Marshals?

Wesley Snipes plays a new man on the run: the sequel kept the hunters and dropped the hunted, bringing back Gerard's deputies and adding Robert Downey Jr. as an agent on the team.

Which Dutch actor plays Dr. Charles Nichols in The Fugitive?

Jeroen Krabbé, the Bond villain of The Living Daylights, was summoned from Holland overnight after the first actor cast as Nichols fell ill, and the character's earlier scenes had to be shot again with him.

Which actor was first cast as Dr. Nichols in The Fugitive but had to be replaced after falling ill?

Richard Jordan, known for Logan's Run and for Gettysburg, was replaced after a brain tumour was diagnosed during filming; he died on 30 August 1993, weeks after the film's release.

Which actor plays Fredrick Sykes, the one-armed man in The Fugitive?

Andreas Katsulas plays Sykes, a hired killer who came for Kimble himself; the surgeon had been called out to operate that night, so it was Helen he found at home.

In The Fugitive, which hotel hosts the medical conference where Kimble finally confronts Nichols?

The Hilton Chicago, then called the Chicago Hilton and Towers, lent its real ballroom and basement laundry: the fight starts in the middle of a speech and ends among the laundry bags.

Which future network news anchor plays a TV newscaster in The Fugitive?

Lester Holt was anchoring the evening news at Chicago's WBBM-TV when the film shot in the city, and he reads the news on screen as one of its reporters; he took over NBC Nightly News in 2015.

Though set in Illinois, The Fugitive's escape scenes outside Chicago were mostly filmed in which state?

North Carolina left a mark on the film: its star hurt himself shooting the escape there and carried the injury through the shoot, so Kimble's limp is real.

Kimble's famous leap from a dam in The Fugitive was filmed at which real dam?

Cheoah Dam, on the Little Tennessee River, supplied only the drop: the storm-drain tunnels that lead Kimble to its edge were filmed back in Chicago and cut together with it.

During which Chicago event does Kimble lose Gerard in the crowd?

Kimble slips into the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown; the scene was shot during the real March 1993 parade, with Mayor Richard M. Daley visible marching in it.

In The Fugitive, the one-armed man Fredrick Sykes lives in which historic Chicago neighbourhood?

Pullman, built in the 1880s as a company town for railcar workers, is where Kimble breaks into Sykes's house, then phones Gerard and leaves the line open so the marshals can trace it.

Kimble's defence lawyer in The Fugitive is played by the father of which Chicago-raised film star?

John Cusack's father, Dick, plays the lawyer Kimble phones for money; the marshals are taping the line, and a sound in the background tells Gerard his man is back in Chicago.

Which cinematographer earned an Oscar nomination for The Fugitive?

Michael Chapman, who shot Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, competed with himself that summer: The Fugitive knocked Rising Sun, another of his films, off the top of the US box office.

On which US network did the original Fugitive series air from 1963 to 1967?

ABC nearly let the show stop without an ending: programming executive Leonard Goldberg had to argue for a finale against colleagues who feared closure would hurt the reruns.

Which actress was cast as a love interest for Kimble in The Fugitive, only for the romance to be dropped?

Julianne Moore's Dr. Anne Eastman was written as a romance, but the filmmakers decided a man hunting his wife's killer could not fall for someone new; she remains as the doctor who catches him at the hospital.

Which future Glee star plays Dr. Kathy Wahlund, a colleague who helps Kimble in The Fugitive?

Jane Lynch plays Dr. Kathy Wahlund, the lab colleague who helps Kimble work out that the diseased liver samples from the drug trial had been swapped for healthy ones.

Who played Richard Kimble in the 2000 CBS television remake of The Fugitive?

Tim Daly's Kimble never reached the end of his run: CBS cancelled the remake after a single season in 2001, leaving its cliffhanger unresolved.

Who composed the score for The Fugitive?

James Newton Howard thought his score a near-failure while writing it and said he was "completely shocked" when it earned an Oscar nomination.

What is the name of the drug at the centre of the conspiracy in The Fugitive?

Provasic is the new drug Kimble had found to cause liver damage; the tissue samples he sent for review were swapped to hide the harm, and his discovery is the motive for the conspiracy.

In The Fugitive, which pharmaceutical company is behind the drug Kimble found to damage the liver?

Devlin-MacGregor, the fictional pharmaceutical giant sponsoring the drug trial, employs Sykes as a security man and stands to lose a fortune if the drug's liver toxicity comes out.

Disguised as a janitor, Kimble searches which Chicago institution's records for patients with prosthetic arms?

Cook County Hospital's prosthetics clinic records give Kimble a list of one-armed men; his detour to correct a misdiagnosed boy's chart is what tips off Dr. Eastman and security.

How does Kimble travel to the hotel to unmask Nichols, getting attacked by Sykes on the way?

Kimble travels by elevated train, Chicago's L, toward the hotel; Sykes ambushes him in the carriage and shoots a transit officer, which has the police hunting Kimble as a cop-killer.

In The Fugitive, what key piece of evidence helps convict Kimble at his trial?

His wife's 911 call sounds like an accusation on tape: Helen says "He's trying to kill me" and gasps her husband's name, when she was in fact calling to him as he reached her.

The Fugitive was the first Hollywood film released in which country on a revenue-sharing basis?

China let The Fugitive in during November 1994 as the first import under a new policy of admitting ten foreign films a year on shared revenue; it took 25.8 million yuan.

Which film beat The Fugitive to the Best Picture Oscar for 1993?

Schindler's List took the top prize; The Fugitive had reached the shortlist even though neither its director nor its leading man was nominated.

Which future Scrubs actor plays a police officer in The Fugitive?

Neil Flynn plays the officer Sykes shoots, and Scrubs later built a joke on it: J.D. spots the hospital's Janitor in the film and decides he must secretly be an actor.

Who starred as Richard Kimble in the original 1960s TV series of The Fugitive?

David Janssen spent four seasons on the run before the finale cleared Kimble, with the detective who had hunted him finally convinced he was innocent.

The Fugitive TV series was created by which writer-producer, also behind Maverick and The Rockford Files?

Roy Huggins said the idea met two years of hostility: friends warned that a hero running from the law would end his career, and he quit television for graduate school before a network backed it.

What changed when the 1960s TV series The Fugitive began its fourth and final season?

Colour photography arrived only for the last 30 episodes: the first 90 were shot in black and white, so Kimble ran in shadow for three years and was cleared in colour.

The Fugitive's 1967 finale was TV's most-watched series episode until which show beat it in 1980?

Dallas took the record on 21 November 1980, the night viewers learned who shot J.R.; The Fugitive had set it with a 72 percent share for an ending its network almost didn't make.

In the 1960s TV series The Fugitive, the one-armed man went by which name?

Fred Johnson is the name the series gives him; he was played by Bill Raisch, who had lost his right arm in the Second World War and then worked in films as a stand-in.

Which future TV detective narrated the 1960s TV series The Fugitive?

William Conrad, later TV's Cannon, narrated all four seasons and had the last word in the finale: "Tuesday, August 29th: the day the running stopped."

Lieutenant Gerard, Kimble's relentless pursuer in The Fugitive, was modelled on which literary character?

Javert, the inspector who hounds Jean Valjean, was the model: the show's own producers called it a modern Les Misérables, with a wrongly convicted doctor in place of the convict.

In The Fugitive, what does Gerard reply when Kimble, holding him at gunpoint, says he didn't kill his wife?

"I don't care." comes back in the last scene: Kimble reminds Gerard of the line, and the marshal who has just cleared him asks him not to spread it around.

Who plays the pursuing cop in Quibi's 2020 version of The Fugitive?

Kiefer Sutherland plays the Los Angeles cop on the trail of Boyd Holbrook, whose fugitive is no doctor this time but a blue-collar worker blamed for a subway bombing.

Which producer, an Oscar winner for Platoon, produced The Fugitive?

Arnold Kopelson produced The Fugitive, having won the Best Picture Oscar for 1986's Platoon; he went on to produce Seven and the 1998 sequel U.S. Marshals.

Which actor played Lieutenant Philip Gerard in the 1960s TV series The Fugitive?

Barry Morse was so convincing as the detective that he joked he was the most hated man in America: strangers scolded him in public for hounding an innocent man.

Which screenwriter wrote the early draft behind The Fugitive's screenplay, a credit shared with Jeb Stuart?

David Twohy, later the director of Pitch Black, wrote the wreck that frees Kimble, though much of his draft never reached the screen; Jeb Stuart was the writer on location, turning out new pages as scenes were shot.