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Clinton Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930)
is an American actor, film producer, composer, and Academy Award winning
film director. Eastwood is famous for his tough guy/anti-hero roles,
including Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series and
the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. Eastwood is
regarded by many as one of the greatest American movie stars of all
time. As a director, Eastwood has become known for high-quality dramas
imbued with a pessimistic tone, such as Unforgiven, Mystic River, and
Million Dollar Baby.
****
Early
life
Born at St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco,
California to Clinton Eastwood Sr. and Margaret Ruth Runner; the family is of
Scottish, Irish, Dutch, and English descent. Eastwood is a descendant of
Mayflower passenger and Plymouth Colony Governor, William Bradford. As a child,
Eastwood endured the Great Depression, which in turn left its mark on his later
films. Clint Sr., a sometime steel worker in the San Francisco Bay Area, was
forced in the 1930s to seek work over a wide area of coastal and inland
California. According to film scholar David Kehr, the Eastwoods, with only child
Clint Jr., spent much of the decade in motion, an experience that would inform
such movies as 1982's Honkytonk Man, with its migrant, "Okie" families. From his
working-class childhood and upbringing, Eastwood the artist drew upon a
perspective that was often far more archetypically middle-American than those of
other California-born actors and directors. When he needed a mid-American
backdrop from the 1950s for his 1988 film Bird, Eastwood used the elm-lined
streets of central Sacramento, a distinctly un-Hollywood setting which he
remembered from living there briefly as a child. That leafy cityscape, with its
early 20th century clapboard houses, seems worlds removed from the hilly vistas
and intellectual pretentions of the Bay Area and also from the sun-drenched
glitz of Los Angeles, where Clint Jr. would live as a young man.
While attending Oakland Technical High School in
Oakland, CA, one of his teachers assigned him a part in a play to try to get him
to be less introverted. He did not enjoy the experience.
Eastwood was drafted into the Army, apparently in
1951, during the Korean War. He was sent to Fort Ord on the Monterey Bay,
California for basic training. He was supposed to be sent to the war in Korea,
but on a trip home to Seattle to visit his parents and girlfriend, Eastwood
caught a ride aboard a Navy plane at Moffett Field. On the ride back aboard a
Navy torpedo bomber, the plane developed engine trouble and was forced to make a
water landing off San Francisco. He was forced to swim over a mile through the
tide to shore. Because of this, instead of being sent to Korea, he was assigned
a job as a swimming instructor and remained at Ft. Ord. He worked nights and
weekends as a bouncer at the NCO club. It was while on duty at Ft. Ord that
Eastwood met fellow soldiers and actors Martin Milner ("Route 66"), David
Janssen ("The Fugitive"), and Richard Long ("The Big Valley").
After his discharge in 1953, Eastwood moved to
Southern California and attended Los Angeles City College, studying drama and
business administration under the G.I. Bill.
Film
career
Eastwood began work as an actor, appearing in
B-films such as Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula and Francis in the Navy. In
1959, he got his first break with the long-running television series, Rawhide.
As Rowdy Yates, he made the show his own and became a household name across the
country. But Eastwood found lead roles as the mysterious man with no name with
Sergio Leone's loose trilogy of westerns A Fistful of Dollars / Per un pugno di
dollari (1964), For a Few Dollars More / Per qualche dollaro in più (1965), and
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966). All
three films were hits, particularly the third, and Eastwood became an instant
international star, redefining the traditional image of the American cowboy
(though his character was actually a gunslinger). Stardom brought more roles,
though still in the "tough guy" mold. In Where Eagles Dare (1968) he had second
billing to Richard Burton but was paid $800,000. However, he also began to
branch out. Paint Your Wagon (1969) was a Western, but a musical. Kelly's Heroes
(1970) combined tough-guy action with offbeat humor. In The Beguiled, he played
a villain. 1971 proved to be a big year for his career. He directed and starred
in the thriller Play Misty for Me (1971), but it was his role that year as the
hard-edged police inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry that gave Eastwood one
of his most memorable roles. The film has been credited with inventing the
"loose-cannon cop genre" that remains imitated to this day. Eastwood's portrayal
of the tough, no-nonsense cop touched a cultural nerve with many who were just
plain fed up with crime in the streets, sparking numerous imitators such as
Death Wish, and four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden
Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988).
Eastwood directed two important westerns during the
revisionist '70's period in American filmmaking, High Plains Drifter (1973) and
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).
In 1974, Eastwood teamed with a young actor named
Jeff Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The movie was written and directed by
Michael Cimino, who had previously written only the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum
Force (and would win an Oscar for directing The Deer Hunter four years later).
Critics and the public alike loved the chemistry between Eastwood and Bridges,
making the film one of the biggest hits of 1974. As the late '70s approached, he
found more solid work in comedies such as Every Which Way But Loose (1978).
In 1975, Eastwood brought another talent to the
screen: rock climbing. In The Eiger Sanction, in which he directed and starred,
Eastwood--a 5.9 climber--performed his own rock climbing stunts. This film has
become a cult classic in the rock climbing community. This film was done before
the advent of CGI, so everything you see is real.
It was the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact
(1983), that made Eastwood a viable star for the '80s. President Reagan even
used his famous "make my day" line in one of his speeches. Eastwood revisited
the western genre directing and starring in Pale Rider (1985), paying homage to
the western film classic Shane. His fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead
Pool (1988), was a success overall, but it did not have the box office punch his
previous films had achieved. Eastwood alternated between more mainstream comedic
films (if not particularly successful) such as Pink Cadillac (1989), and The
Rookie ([[1990and more personal projects, such as directing Bird (1988), a
biopic of Charlie "Bird" Parker, and starring in and directing White Hunter,
Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biography of John Huston, which received
some critical acclaim, although Katharine Hepburn contested the veracity of much
of the material.
Eastwood rose to prominence yet again in the early
1990s. He starred in and directed the revisionist western, Unforgiven in 1992,
taking on the role of an aging ex-gunfighter, long past his prime. The film was
nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Actor for Eastwood, and won four,
including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. The following year,
Eastwood played a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent in the thriller In the Line
of Fire (1993).
He directed and starred with Kevin Costner in A
Perfect World. He continued to expand his repertoire with the love story, The
Bridges of Madison County (1995), and took on more work as director, much of it
well received, including Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), Mystic
River (2003), and Million Dollar Baby (2004), for which he won a second Best
Director award, and at 74 the oldest director to do so.
Eastwood developed directing as a second career,
and has, indeed, generally received much greater critical acclaim for his
directing than he ever did for his acting. He has chosen a wide variety of films
to direct, some clearly commercial, others highly personal. Too often articles
about Eastwood neglect to mention that he has directed 26 films (as of 2006).
Many actors direct now and then, but Eastwood is as distinguished as many more
famous directors. Unlike many actors who also direct, Eastwood frequently
directs films in which he does not appear. Eastwood also produces many of his
movies, and is well known in the industry for his efficient, low-cost approach
to making films. Over the years, he has developed relationships with many other
filmmakers, working over and over with the same crew, production designers,
cinematographers, editors and other technical people. Similarly, he has a
long-term relationship with the Warner Bros. studio, which finances and releases
most of his films (although, in a 2004 interview appearing in The New York
Times, Eastwood noted that he still sometimes has difficulty convincing the
studio to back his films). In more recent years, Eastwood also has begun writing
music for some of his films.
Eastwood will next take the director's chair in the
World War II dramas, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Eastwood received numerous awards, including an
America Now TV Award as well as one of the 2000 Kennedy Center Honors.
Eastwood and Warner Bros. have purchased the movie
rights to James Hansen's First Man, the authorized biography of Neil Armstrong.
Personal life
Eastwood, who has been married twice, has five
daughters and two sons by five different women: Kimber (born 1964), with Roxanne
Tunis; Kyle (born in 1968) and Alison (born on May 22, 1972), with ex-wife
Maggie Johnson; Scott (born March 21, 1986) and Kathryn (born February 2, 1988),
with airline hostess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Ruth (born August 7, 1993), with
Frances Fisher, his co-star in Unforgiven; and Morgan (born December 12, 1996),
with current wife Dina Ruiz. Clint Eastwood lived with actress Sondra Locke from
1976 to 1988. The relationship produced no children.
Eastwood remains a sex symbol for many. He once
said, "I like to joke that since my children weren't giving me any
grandchildren, I had two of my own. It is a terrific feeling being a dad again
at my age. I am very fortunate. I realize how unfair a thing it is that men can
have children at a much older age than women." This remark seems to ignore his
grandchildren, Clinton (born 1984) and Graylen (born 1994) of Kimberly and Kyle,
respectively.
Eastwood owns the exclusive Tehama Golf Club
located in Carmel Valley within Monterey County. The invitation only club
reportedly has around 300 members and a joining price of $500,000.
The
'Stan Laurel' myth
One recurrent rumour has it that Eastwood is the
son (legitimate or otherwise) of British comic actor Stan Laurel. This is
untrue, although a passing facial resemblance to the comedian (plus the fact
that Eastwood was born on the same day as one of Laurel's children) has ensured
that the legend often resurfaces [1].
Political career
In addition to his career as an actor, Eastwood was
elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on April 8, 1986. Running as a
Republican against local business man Paul Laub, he received 72% of the vote
(voter turnout was also doubled over the previous mayoral election). He served a
two-year term before declining to run for re-election. In June 2002 Eastwood was
appointed Vice Chair of the California State Park and Recreation Commission. His
term expires in 2008.
Eastwood usually describes his political beliefs as
libertarian, although he has admitted voting twice for Dwight D. Eisenhower and
Richard Nixon. In his early career, he was generally considered a Republican,
having openly supported Nixon in the 1968 and 1972 elections and attending
Nixon's landslide re-election celebration in Los Angeles alongside John Wayne,
Charlton Heston and Glenn Ford. However in 1992 he broke away from the
Republican Party, not only declining an offer from President George Bush to
campaign for him in that year's presidential election, but also voting for third
party candidate Ross Perot. Since then he has directed several movies which are
unpopular among his conservative fans, such as Midnight in the Garden of Good
and Evil (1997) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). Indeed, most of the films that
he has directed have clear libertarian themes in them. He has become one of the
most prominent opponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
disability rights movement, after his restaurant in Carmel was hit with an ADA
enforcement lawsuit. In May 2000, he testified before Congress in support of a
bill that would have added procedural protections for small-business owners. A
few disability rights activists have suggested that his decision to make Million
Dollar Baby may have been motivated by this earlier experience.
In January 2005 at National Board of Review awards
dinner in New York City, Eastwood stated that he would kill the liberal
filmmaker Michael Moore if ever Moore showed up at his home with a camera,
probably a reference to Moore's controversial interview with Eastwood's friend,
the movie star and Second Amendment advocate Charlton Heston for the movie
Bowling for Columbine. After the crowd laughed, Eastwood said, "I mean it."
Moore's spokesman said "Michael laughed along with everyone else, and took Mr.
Eastwood's comments in the lighthearted spirit in which they were given."
Eastwood has not commented further publicly.
****
Discography
"Unknown Girl" (single, 1961)
"Rowdy" (single)
"For You, For Me, For Evermore" (single)
"Rawhide's Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites"
(LP)
"Paint Your Wagon" (soundtrack)
"Kelly's Heroes" (soundtrack)
"Cowboy in a Three Piece Suit" (single, 1981)
"Make My Day" (single, 1984) with T.G. Sheppard
Trivia
Eastwood was 6'4" (193 cm) as a young man, but due
to his age and recent back problems he is now (as of 2006) closer to 6'1"(185
cm).
In 2002 he sued a biographer for publishing
allegations that he physically abused Sondra Locke during their relationship,
and forced her to have several abortions.
Clint Eastwood's name is an anagram for Old West
Action.
He strongly denied accusations of physical and
sexual abuse made in Sondra Locke's autobiography.
He is a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage.
Two actors (Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman) have
each won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in consecutive years for
playing characters in Eastwood's movies. Robbins won in 2003 for Mystic River
while Freeman won in 2004 for his role in Million Dollar Baby.
Eastwood is registered as a Republican in
California. Despite this he hosted a fundraiser for Gray Davis in the 2003
recall, and offered to make a commercial for the unpopular Democratic Governor.
Claims to have "Developed his distinctive manner of
speech by studying the breathy whisper of Marilyn Monroe."
Quotations
Some of Eastwood's lines are among the best-known
movie quotations of all time. (Remembering, of course, that Eastwood himself did
not write any of these lines. Eastwood has never taken a writing credit on a
film.)
From Dirty Harry: Harry Callahan: - "I know what
you're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the
truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is a
.44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head
clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do
ya, punk?"
From Sudden Impact: Harry Callahan:
- "Nah, this stuff isn't getting to me — the
shootings, the knifings, the beatings... old ladies being bashed in the head for
their social security checks[.] [...] Nah, that doesn't bother me. But you know
what does bother me? You know what makes me really sick to my stomach? It's
watching you stuff your face with those hot dogs. Nobody... I mean nobody puts
ketchup on a hot dog."
From Dead Pool: Harry Callahan talking to superior
officer: - "It's my opinion Callahan that you would be best serving the
department at this time by getting off the streets." "Well, sir, opinions are
like assholes, everybody's got one."
From Sudden Impact: Harry Callahan talking to a
hoodlum: - "Well, we're not just going to let you walk out of here like that."
"Who's we sucker?" "Smith, Wesson, and me."
From Sudden Impact: Harry Callahan talking to a
robber in the diner: -"Go ahead, make my day..."
From The Enforcer: Harry Callahan talking to
Captain McKay: - "May I make a statement McKay?" "Yes." "Your mouthwash ain't
makin it."
From The Enforcer: Harry Callahan: - "Personnel?
That's for assholes."
From The Enforcer: Harry Callahan: - "Here's my
opinion on gun control. If there's a gun around, I'd better be in control."
From The Outlaw Josey Wales: Josey Wales: - "Dyin'
ain't much of a living, boy."
From The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Blondie (Joe
in the script): - "You see, in this world, there are two kinds of people, my
friend: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig."
From High Plains Drifter: The Stranger: - "You're
going to look pretty silly with that knife sticking out of your ass."
From High Plains Drifter: The Stranger: - "It's
what people know about themselves inside that makes them afraid."
From Unforgiven: Will Munny: - "It's a hell of a
thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have."
From Unforgiven: Will Munny: "Deserves got nothing
to do with it"
Other
references
Clint Eastwood is the name used by the character
Marty McFly in the movie Back to the Future Part III (1990), which parodies a
Western. Marty also used a piece of metal as a bulletproof vest in a duel with
Buford (as foreshadowed in Part II while Biff is watching A Fistful of Dollars
in his hot tub).
In the movie, Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey wishes
that he was Clint Eastwood, after which he does a remarkable impression of Clint
Eastwood as Dirty Harry. Jim Carrey for his part plays a rock singer Johnny
Squares in the Dirty Harry movie The Dead Pool and a comedian in Pink Cadillac.
Stephen King has also publicly stated in
interviews, as well as some forewards and afterwords for the respective books,
that one of his inspirations for Roland Deschain, A.K.A Roland of Gilead, the
Gunslinger in his popular The Dark Tower opus, comes from Clint Eastwood. He
also says that Roland is meant to embody a gritty, melancholy version of
Eastwood's "The Man With No Name" persona from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Reggae/dub legend Lee Perry recorded a song entited
"Clint Eastwood" in 1969.
"Clint Eastwood" is also the name of a song by
virtual band Gorillaz.
"Dirty Harry" is the name of another song by
virtual band Gorillaz.
In the Ramones song "It's not my place (in the 9 to
5 world)" from the albums Pleasant Dreams (1981) and Ramones Anthology Disc 2
(1999): "Uncle Floyd shows on the T.V./Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, 10cc"
The song "The Unknown Stuntman", which was the
theme song to television show The Fall Guy, references Eastwood with the line
"I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine."
Reportedly, it was upon seeing comedian Jim
Carrey's impression of Eastwood during a stand-up performance that Eastwood
asked Carrey to appear in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool.
Clint Eastwood, although in cybernetic form, is the
main character/driver in the game Nitro for Commodore Amiga computer, by
Psygnosis (1990).
A Swedish metal band is named after him: The Clint
Eastwood Experiences. The band features members of Dismember.
In the game Command and conquer Red Alert 2 Yuris
Revenge a character in the first allied mission was Clint Westwood an obvious
reference to the games company and Clint Eastwood
* * * *
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