Ford Austin is an American stage and motion picture actor born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas. He is a descendant of oil baron J. Steve Anderson, who founded Anderson-Prichard Oil Corporation (APCO). Austin's early career involved stage appearances in Philadelphia and New York City, including the Philadelphia premiere of The Grapes of Wrath, Homecoming, Death of a Salesman, Macbeth, and Lawyers at Westport Country Playhouse.
He made his feature film debut in the war film Pearl Harbor and gained recognition for playing Darwin in Vicky Jenson's Family Tree. The movie premiered at Sundance, won the jury prize at SXSW, and became an Academy Awards qualifier. Austin then landed a national tour of his one-man show, MaleIntellect: An Oxymoron, and wrote and directed the comedy series The Wright Stuff.
Austin wrote and directed another Academy-qualifying film, Tiny Dancer, and was tapped by Stephen Chao and Mike Goedecke to launch the internet company WobderHowTo.com. As one of the first five hires, he became a shareholder, Vice President of Original Production, and wrote, produced, and starred in over 300 pieces of content.
After WobderHowTo.com, Austin returned to directing motion pictures under his own shingle, The Ford Austin Company, directing over a dozen low-budget horror features, including The Curse of Lizzie Borden and Dahmer vs Gacy.
On March 9th, 2011, Austin suffered a life-changing car accident, which brought his work to a halt. Despite the odds, he stayed in process and worked from his hospital bed, producing the feature documentary The Right to Love: An American Family. When he arrived home, he found a copy of Variety with a full-page ad for another motion picture he was producing, The Ghostmaker.
Austin relocated to New York City and, during his recovery, created, produced, and pitched a clip show to Time Warner Cable, The Angry Baby Monkey Short Film Showcase, which aired for a year. In 2012, Austin fully recovered from his injuries and returned to work in Los Angeles, joining The Actors Studio as a Lifetime Member.
