Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:28 am EDT
NEW YORK CITY (Reuters)
Indiana Jones is alive and well.
Indiana Jones will be celebrating his 109th birthday this coming July 1st. The party starts just five weeks
after the May release of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cyrstal Skull", which is George Lucas' and
Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the legendary professor's last, great adventure in 1957.
After decades of dodging booby-traps and overcoming evil to save the world, Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr.
now resides at the Baywood Anna Erika Assisted Living retirement home in Staten Island, New York.
Exploits of the intrepid archaeologist are well-known. Over the years, they have been made into
three feature films and a T.V. series but the declining mental state of Dr. Jones and his need
for chronic care brought a change to his domestic situation fourteen years ago. When asked about
Indy (as he likes to be called) and the drastic shift in his life, one family member said,
"As amazing and loveable as he is, he ended up being completely unmanageable and often embarrassing
at times. You couldn?t control him! Imagine trying to have a normal conversation and then every
five minutes there would be someone there to tell you what things were really like in their day and
always trying and teach you a lesson. The stories would go on for hours.?
?After awhile, it became pretty unbearable so we all decided that he?d be better off somewhere else
and Baywood was the perfect place. You can see New Jersey from the window.?
"The past few years we didn't make much of a fuss over his birthday but this time we decided to
make something of it since he may not be with us for much longer."
In the new film, Harrison Ford, resumes his role as Indiana Jones for the 5th time. Ford is synonymous
with the the part but is not the only actor to have portrayed the seemingly invincible adventurer.
Others include Sean Patrick Flanery, Corey Carrier and George Hall.
The birthday event will be a private affair, limited to family and friends and will not be open to the public.