HE WAS a star of the silver screen for 53 years and appeared in more than 100 films, but few people know one of Hollywood’s greatest legends had roots here in Bolton.

Actor Glenn Ford, famous for his Westerns, including 3:10 to Yuma, Cowboy, Texas, and The Fastest Gun Alive, still has relatives in the town, where his grandparents once lived.

The star, who was rumoured to turn out a film every five days at the start of his career, visited his relatives in Horwich and kept in contact with them until he died, aged 90, in 2006.

His other film credits included Superman, Gilda, The Big Heat, The Gazebo, Pocketful of Miracles and Don’t Go Near the Water.

He was also famous for being a ladies’ man, was married four times.

Since researching his family tree, Glenn’s only son, Peter Ford, aged 68, has found out more about the Hollywood legend’s roots and says “it all started in Bolton”.

Glenn’s grandfather James Wood was born and brought up on Back Boscow Road in Little Lever, and his wife, Isabella Barlow (known as Jessie), was from Preston.

The couple travelled from Bolton to Canada in 1889 where their daughter Hannah Wood, Glenn’s mother, was born in 1893.

But five years later, the couple returned to Horwich with their younger son Samuel, leaving their daughter Hannah behind in the care of friends.

Glenn’s son Peter said: “It is a very intriguing story about which I am still learning. I am pretty certain my grandmother was conceived out of wedlock and James and Jessie were without a great deal of means, they might have left her behind for financial reasons.”

Hannah later married Newton Wood in Canada, and the pair had a son, who would become the movie legend Glenn Ford.

Back in Bolton, Jessie and James moved to Horwich.

In 1919, three years after Glenn was born, James, a paper maker, died after falling into a vat at the Horwich Paper Mill.

His widow Jessie died in June, 1928 at the Bolton Royal Infirmary, and is buried at Horwich Parish Church.

Hannah met her siblings for the first time in 1951 and visited them with Glenn several times, including in 1969, when the family had a reunion at the BBC studios.

Glenn’s niece and Peter’s elderly cousin Doreen Wood still lives in Lostock and Peter is in regular contact with her.