Harrison returns to his wife

by IVOR KEY, Daily Mail

Harrison Ford was said last night to be back with his wife of 17 years, Melissa Mathison, following a trial separation.

Friends said he had come to his senses after a mid-life crisis.

'They're definitely back together,' one told the U.S. magazine People. 'He seems happier.'

Last November the actor and his 50-year-old wife, who wrote the script for ET, stunned friends by announcing that they were separating 'to work out our differences'.

He moved out of their Manhattan flat and into the nearby Trump International Hotel, and was seen at nightclubs with a variety of women, including Jack Nicholson's ex, actress Lara Flynn Boyle.

His behaviour baffled those who had known him as a homebody, shunning the celebrity scene and saying the most important things a man and woman could share were devotion and commitment.

'This is a guy who wears a hat with earflaps around town,' said Tucker Smith, a musician friend who lives near Ford's ranch in Wyoming.

Now the film industry's highest-paid star - he commands £18million a film - is back in a role he knows well: The stay-at-home husband.

Even after moving out of the flat he shared with Mathison and their two children, Malcolm, 14, and Georgia, ten, Ford never strayed far. He joined them for Thanksgiving last November, then stayed with the children when she travelled to LA on business in December.

'When she came back, that's when they talked,' said a relative. The family spent Christmas together and when he began shooting the thriller K-19: The Widow-maker in Canada in February, he started spending his time off with them in New York.

'I was always under the impression it was just a trial separation,' another family friend told the magazine.

'He was probably having some doubts about his marriage as he was getting older, but he missed his kids, missed being with the family.'

Most watched News videos