Police found him dead about 4 p.m., Sgt. Lincoln Hoshino said. No foul play was suspected. Mr. Ford had suffered a series of strokes in the 1990s.
Three of Mr. Ford's best films were "Gilda" (1946), "The Big Heat" (1953) and "The Blackboard Jungle" (1955). In them, he was a gambler, a police detective and a schoolteacher, respectively. As varied as the parts were, all benefited from his low-boil technique. He also was the Man of Steel's adoptive father in "Superman" (1978).
The son of a railroad executive, Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born in Quebec on May 1, 1916, and reared in Santa Monica. He once said he knew acting held promise when, at age 4, he appeared in a community production of "Tom Thumb's Wedding," and the part required him to eat chocolate ice cream.
He later earned money for theatrical training by working as a parachute jumper at state fairs and as a stage manager for actress Tallulah Bankhead.
He appeared in a film short, "Night in Manhattan" (1937), before his feature debut in "Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence" (1939) as a New York store clerk who ventures West.
That movie's director, Ricardo Cortez, doubted Mr. Ford's prospects in Hollywood, but Columbia Pictures snapped him up and groomed him for stardom alongside lifelong friend William Holden.
Mr. Ford appeared in a succession of minor dramas and began a long run in Westerns with "Go West, Young Lady" with Penny Singleton, "The Desperadoes" with Randolph Scott and "Texas" with Holden.
With U.S. entry into World War II, Mr. Ford joined the Marine Corps and participated in the Battle of Midway. Later, in the Navy Reserve, he did tours of duty in the Vietnam War.
Columbia showcased its veteran in better vehicles after World War II, on condition that he sign a long-term contract. The result was a few fine pictures, including "Gilda" and "A Stolen Life," with Bette Davis.
"Gilda" was one of the most popular films of its day — and one of the most sordid by Hollywood standards. Mr. Ford played a gambler on a long losing streak who tramps into Buenos Aires and lands a job managing a casino for a sadistic boss (George Macready). The boss is married to an old flame, played by Rita Hayworth, who performs a striptease and says at one point, "If I'd been a ranch, they would have called me the Bar Nothing."
"The Blackboard Jungle" (1955) showcased Mr. Ford as a teacher at an inner-city school trying to control delinquent, often violent students. The film, best known for its "Rock Around the Clock" theme song, was a massive hit.
A gifted horse rider who in childhood was stable boy for Will Rogers, Mr. Ford appeared in dozens of Westerns.
In the early 1960s, he was at the peak of his fame, and he starred in and helped produce "Pocketful Of Miracles" (1961), a remake of Frank Capra's old feel-good weepie "Lady for a Day."
Mr. Ford's four marriages — to tap-dancing movie star Eleanor Powell, soap-opera actress Kathryn Hays, model Cynthia Hayward and personal nurse Jeanne Baus — ended in divorce. The final marriage lasted a month; the couple had a 40-year age difference.
Survivors include son Peter.
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