One of six children of John William and Ermine Ford, Ford graduated from Jesuit High School in New Orleans where he played football and became a boxer and football player at Notre Dame (his roommate was Johnny Lujack, a Heisman Trophy winner), before transferring to midshipman school at Columbia University as part of his service with the United States Navy during World War II.
His wife, then Eileen Otte, was studying at Barnard College and was, herself, briefly a model.
[1] In 1945, after completing his Naval service aboard a supply ship based in the Pacific Theater of Operations, Ford returned to his home and wife in New York.
He resumed his studies in accounting at Columbia University, while Mrs. Ford worked as a secretary for several of her friends, also models, and eventually became their informal agent.
[1] Prior to Ford's innovations, models generally handled their own bookings and billing individually.