American film actor and director
Clint Eastwood (1930) rose to fame as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Westerns
Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964),
Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (1965), and
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Later in the US, he played hard edge police inspector Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films, which elevated him to superstar status, and he directed and produced such award-winning masterpieces as
Unforgiven (1992),
Mystic River (2003) and
Million Dollar Baby (2004).
![Clint Eastwood]()
Romanian postcard by Colectia Cinefilului Acin.
Towering Height And Slender Frame
Clinton ‘Clint’ Eastwood, Jr. was born in San Francisco, California in 1930. His parents were
Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker and migrant worker, and
Margaret Ruth (Runner) Eastwood, a factory worker. Clint has a younger sister, Jeanne. Because of his father's difficulty in finding steady work during the depression, Eastwood moved with his family from one Northern California town to another, attending some eight elementary schools in the process.
Later he had odd jobs as a fire-fighter and lumberjack in Oregon, as well as a steelworker in Seattle. In 1951, Eastwood was drafted into the US Army, where he was a swimming instructor during the Korean War. He briefly attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out to pursue acting.
Eastwood married
Maggie Johnson in 1953, six months after they met on a blind date. However, their matrimony would not prove altogether smooth, with Eastwood believing that he had married too early.
In 1954, the good-looking Eastwood with his towering height and slender frame got a contract at Universal. At first, he was criticized for his stiff manner, his squint, and for hissing his lines through his teeth. His first acting role was an uncredited bit part as a laboratory assistant in the Sci-Fi horror film
Revenge of the Creature (Jack Arnold, 1955).
Over the next three years, he more bit parts in such films as
Lady Godiva of Coventry (Arthur Lubin, 1955),
Tarantula (Jack Arnold, 1955), and the war drama
Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956) with
George Nader and
Lex Barker.
His first bigger roles were in the B-Western
Ambush at Cimarron Pass (Jodie Copelan, 1958), and the war film
Lafayette Escadrille (William A. Wellman, 1958), starring
Tab Hunter and
Etchika Choureau.
In 1959, he became a TV star as Rowdy Yates in the Western series
Rawhide (1959–1966). Although
Rawhide never won an Emmy, it was a ratings success for several years.
During a trial separation from
Maggie Johnson, an affair with dancer
Roxanne Tunis produced Eastwood’s first child,
Kimber Tunis (1964). An intensely private person, Clint Eastwood was rarely featured in the tabloid press. However, he had more affairs, e.g. with actresses
Catherine Deneuve,
Inger Stevens and
Jean Seberg. After a reconciliation, he had two children with Johnson:
Kyle Eastwood (1968) and
Alison Eastwood (1972), though he was not present at either birth. Johnson filed for legal separation in 1978, but the pair officially divorced in 1984.
![Clint Eastwood]()
German postcard. Photo: Constantin / Paul March.
The Man With No Name Trilogy
In late 1963, Clint Eastwood's
Rawhide co-star
Eric Fleming rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made Western. Eastwood, who in turn saw the film as an opportunity to escape from his Rawhide image, signed the contract.
The Western was called
Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), to be directed in a remote region of Spain by the then relatively unknown
Sergio Leone.
A Fistful of Dollars, also with
Gian Maria Volonté and
Marianne Koch, was a remake of
Akira Kurosawa's
Yojimbo (1961).
Eastwood played a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town, torn apart by two feuding families. Hiring himself out as a mercenary, the lone drifter plays one side against the other until nothing remains of either side. Eastwood started to develop a minimalist acting style and created the character's distinctive visual style. Although a non-smoker, Leone insisted Eastwood smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the ‘mask’ he was attempting to create for the loner character.
Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) was the first instalment of the Dollars trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the US, coined another term for it: the Man With No Name trilogy. ‘The second part was
Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965), a richer, more mythologized film that focused on two ruthless bounty hunters (Eastwood and
Lee Van Cleef) who form a tenuous partnership to hunt down a wanted bandit (
Gian Maria Volontè). Both films were a huge success in Italy. They both contain all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of
Ennio Morricone.
Eastwood also appeared in a segment of
Dino De Laurentiis’ five-part anthology production
Le Streghe/The Witches (
Vittorio De Sica a.o., 1967). But his performance opposite De Laurentiis' wife
Silvana Mangano did not please the critics.
Eastwood then played in the third and best Dollars film,
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966). Again he played the mysterious Man with No Name, wearing the same trademark poncho (reportedly without ever having washed it).
Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with
Eli Wallach portrayed the cunning Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez.
Yuri German at
AllMovie: “Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by
Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive 'spaghetti western,' rivaled only by Leone's own
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).”
The Dollars trilogy was not released in the United States until 1967, when
A Fistful of Dollars opened in January, followed by
For a Few Dollars More in May, and
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in December. Eastwood redubbed his own dialogue for the American releases. All the films were commercially successful, particularly
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which turned Eastwood into a major film star. All three films received bad reviews, and marked the beginning of a battle for Eastwood to win American film critics' respect.
According to
IMDb, Sergio Leone asked Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef to appear again in
C'era una volta il West/Once Upon A Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968), but they all declined when they heard that their characters were going to be killed off in the first five minutes.
![Clint Eastwood]()
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
Coogan's Bluff
Stardom brought more roles for Clint Eastwood. He signed to star in the American revisionist western
Hang 'Em High (Ted Post, 1968), playing a man who takes up a Marshal's badge and seeks revenge as a lawman after being lynched by vigilantes and left for dead.
Using money earned from the Dollars trilogy, accountant and Eastwood advisor
Irving Leonard helped establish Eastwood's own production company, Malpaso Productions, named after Malpaso Creek on Eastwood's property in Monterey County, California. Leonard arranged for
Hang 'Em High to be a joint production with United Artists.
Hang 'Em High was widely praised by critics, and when it opened in July 1968, it had an unprecedented opening weekend in United Artists' history.
His following film was
Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968), about an Arizona deputy sheriff tracking a wanted psychopathic criminal (
Don Stroud) through the streets of New York City.
Don Siegel was a Universal contract director who later became Eastwood's close friend, forming a partnership that would last more than ten years and produce five films.
Coogan’s Bluff was controversial for its portrayal of violence, Eastwood's role creating the prototype for the macho cop of the Dirty Harry film series.
Coogan's Bluff also became the first collaboration with Argentine composer
Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the jazzy score to several Eastwood films in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Dirty Harry films.
Eastwood played the right-hand man of squad's commander
Richard Burton in the war epic
Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968), about a World War II squad parachuting into a Gestapo stronghold in the alpine mountains. Eastwood then branched out to star in the only musical of his career,
Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969).
Then, Eastwood starred in the Western
Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Sigel, 1970), with
Shirley MacLaine, and as one of a group of Americans who steal a fortune in gold from the Nazis, in the World War II film
Kelly's Heroes (Brian G. Hutton, 1970)).
Kelly's Heroes was the last film in which Eastwood appeared, that was not produced by his own Malpaso Productions.
![Clint Eastwood]()
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
Dirty Harry
Clint Eastwood’s next film,
The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1970), was a tale of a wounded Union soldier, held captive by the sexually repressed matron of a southern girl's school. Upon release the film received major recognition in France but in the US it was a box office flop.
Eastwood's career reached a turning point with
Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), The film centres around a hard-edged San Francisco police inspector named Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means. Dirty Harry achieved huge success after its release in December 1971. It was Siegel's highest-grossing film to date and the start of a series of films featuring the character Harry Callahan.
He next starred in the loner Western
Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972). In 1973, Eastwood directed his first western,
High Plains Drifter, in which he starred alongside
Verna Bloom. The revisionist film received a mixed reception, but was a major box office success.
Eastwood next turned his attention towards
Breezy (Clint Eastwood, 1973), a film about love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. During casting for the film Eastwood met actress
Sondra Locke, who would become an important figure in his life.
He reprised his role as Detective Harry Callahan in
Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973). This sequel to
Dirty Harry was about a group of rogue young officers (including
David Soul and
Robert Urich) in the San Francisco Police Force who systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals.
Eastwood teamed up with
Jeff Bridges in the buddy action caper
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974). Eastwood's acting was noted by critics, but was overshadowed by Bridges who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
His next film
The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood, 1975), based on
Trevanian's spy novel, was a commercial and critical failure. His next film
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) was widely acclaimed, with many critics and viewers seeing Eastwood's role as an iconic one that related to America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War.
The third Dirty Harry film,
The Enforcer (James Fargo, 1976) had Harry partnered with a new female officer (
Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay terrorist organization. The film, culminating in a shootout on Alcatraz island, was a major commercial success grossing $100 million worldwide.
In 1977, he directed and starred in
The Gauntlet opposite
Sondra Locke. Eastwood portrays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix, to testify against the mafia. In 1978 Eastwood starred with Locke and an orang-utan called Clyde in
Every Which Way but Loose. Panned by critics, the film proved a surprising success and became the second-highest grossing film of 1978.
Eastwood then starred in the thriller
Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the last of his films to be directed by
Don Siegel. The film was a major success, and marked the beginning of a critically acclaimed period for Eastwood. Eastwood's relationship with Sondra Locke had begun in 1975 during production of
The Outlaw Josey Wales. They lived together for almost fourteen years, during which Locke remained married (in name only) to her gay husband,
Gordon Anderson. Eastwood befriended Locke's husband and purchased a house in Crescent Heights for Anderson and his male lover.
American trailer
Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Source: OldHollywoodTrailers (YouTube).
Go Ahead, Make My Day
In 1980, Clint Eastwood’s nonstop success was broken by
Bronco Billy, which he directed and played the lead role in. The film was liked by critics, but a rare commercial disappointment in Eastwood's career. Later that year, he starred in
Any Which Way You Can (Buddy Van Horn, 1980), which ranked among the top five highest-grossing films of the year.
In 1982, Eastwood directed and starred in
Honkytonk Man, as a struggling Western singer who, accompanied by his young nephew (played by real-life son
Kyle) goes to Nashville, Tennessee. In the same year Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed
Firefox alongside
Freddie Jones.
Then, Eastwood directed and starred in the fourth Dirty Harry film,
Sudden Impact (1983), the darkest and most violent of the series. ‘Go ahead, make my day’, uttered by Eastwood in the film, became one of cinema's immortal lines.
Sudden Impact was the last film which he starred in with Locke. The film was the most commercially successful of the Dirty Harry films, earning $70 million and received very positive reviews.
In the provocative thriller
Tightrope (Richard Tuggle, 1984), Eastwood starred opposite
Geneviève Bujold. His real-life daughter
Alison, then eleven, also appeared in the film. It was another critical and commercial hit. Eastwood next starred in the period comedy
City Heat (Richard Benjamin, 1984) alongside
Burt Reynolds.
Eastwood revisited the Western genre when he directed and starred in
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985), based on the classic Western
Shane (George Stevens, 1953). It became one of Eastwood's most successful films to date, and was hailed as one of the best films of 1985 and the best Western to appear for a considerable period.
He co-starred with
Marsha Mason in the military drama
Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986), about the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. Then followed the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series The Dead Pool (Buddy Van Horn, 1988), with
Patricia Clarkson,
Liam Neeson, and a young
Jim Carrey. It is generally viewed as the weakest film of the series.
Eastwood began working on smaller, more personal projects and experienced a lull in his career between 1988 and 1992. Always interested in jazz, he directed
Bird (Clint Eastwood, 1988), a biopic starring
Forest Whitaker as jazz musician
Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Eastman himself is a prolific jazz pianist who occasionally shows up to play piano at his Carmel, CA restaurant, The Hog's Breath Inn. He received two Golden Globes for Bird, but the film was a commercial failure.
Jim Carrey would again appear with Eastwood in the poorly received comedy
Pink Cadillac (Buddy Van Horn, 1989) alongside
Bernadette Peters.
In 1989, while his partner
Sondra Locke was away directing the film
Impulse (1990), Eastwood had the locks changed on their Bel-Air home and ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage. During the last three years of his cohabitation with Locke, Eastwood fathered two children in secrecy with flight attendant
Jacelyn Reeves,
Scott Reeves (1986), and
Kathryn Reeves (1988). Eastwood finally presented both children to the public in 2002.
American trailer
Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (1965). Source: OldHollywoodTrailers (YouTube).
Unforgiven
In 1990, Clint Eastwood began living with actress
Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of
Pink Cadillac in 1988. They had a daughter,
Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (1993). Eastwood and Fisher ended their relationship in early 1995.
Eastwood directed and starred in
White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an adaptation of
Peter Viertel's roman à clef, about
John Huston and the making of the classic film
The African Queen (1951).
Later in 1990, he directed and co-starred with
Charlie Sheen in
The Rookie, a buddy cop action film. Eastwood revisited the Western genre in the self-directed film
Unforgiven (1992), in which he played an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime.
Unforgiven was a major commercial and critical success; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood.
Eastwood played Frank Horrigan in the Secret Service thriller
In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993) co-starring
John Malkovich. The film was among the top 10 box office performers that year, earning a reported $200 million. Later in 1993, Eastwood directed and co-starred with
Kevin Costner in
A Perfect World.
At the 1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, and in 1995, he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awards. Opposite Meryl Streep he starred in the romantic picture
The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995), another commercial and critical success. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture and won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film.
In early 1995, Eastwood began dating
Dina Ruiz, a television news anchor 35 years his junior, whom he had first met when she interviewed him in 1993. They married in 1996. The couple has one daughter,
Morgan Eastwood (1996).
In 1997, Eastwood directed and starred in the political thriller
Absolute Power, alongside Gene Hackman. Later in 1997, Eastwood directed
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, starring
John Cusack,
Kevin Spacey, and
Jude Law. He directed and starred in
True Crime (1999), as a journalist and recovering alcoholic, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (
Isaiah Washington).
In 2000, he directed and starred in
Space Cowboys alongside
Tommy Lee Jones as veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.
American trailer
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Source: OldHollywoodTrailers (YouTube).
Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (
Jeff Daniels) in the thriller
Blood Work (2002). He directed and scored the crime drama
Mystic River (2003), dealing with themes of murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse. The film starred
Sean Penn,
Kevin Bacon, and
Tim Robbins and won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins – with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture.
The following year Eastwood found further critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored, and starred in the boxing drama
Million Dollar Baby, (2004). He played a cantankerous trainer who forms a bond with female boxer (
Hilary Swank). The film won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (
Morgan Freeman).
At age 74 Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners. In 2006, he directed two films about World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima. The first,
Flags of Our Fathers, focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and featured the film debut of Eastwood's son
Scott. This was followed by
Letters from Iwo Jima, which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members.
Eastwood next directed
Changeling (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s.
Angelina Jolie stars as a woman reunited with her missing son only to realize he is an impostor.
Eastwood ended a four-year self-imposed acting hiatus by appearing in
Gran Torino (2008), which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son
Kyle and
Jamie Cullum.
Gran Torino eventually grossed over $268 million in theatres worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far.
Eastwood's 30th directorial outing came with
Invictus, a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with
Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. In 2010, Eastwood directed the drama
Hereafter, with
Matt Damon as a psychic, and in 2011,
J. Edgar, a biopic of FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover, with
Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role.
Eastwood starred in the baseball drama
Trouble with the Curve (Robert Lorenz, 2012), as a veteran baseball scout who travels with his daughter for a final scouting trip. Director Lorenz worked with Eastwood as an assistant director on several films.
Clint Eastwood is also politically active and served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California from 1986 to 1988.
Shawn Dwyer at
TCM: “Although a registered Republican since the early-1950s, Eastwood's politics, like the man himself, were that of a true iconoclast. Over the years he had voted for candidates from both parties and publicly denounced the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. And while he had initially wished President
Barack Obama well during the start of his first term in office, Eastwood, became a vocal booster for Republican candidate
Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, dissatisfied with what he viewed as Obama's inability to govern.”
But the cinema is Eastwood’s major career. He has contributed to over 50 films as actor, director, producer, and composer. According to the box office-revenue tracking website,
Box Office Mojo, films featuring Eastwood have grossed a total of more than US $1.68 billion domestically, with an average of $37 million per film.
Trailer for
Gran Torino (2008). Source: The Movie Planet (YouTube).
This was the tenth and final episode of 'Imported from the USA'. Earlier episodes were dedicated to Jayne Mansfield, Josephine Baker, Lex Barker, Anna May Wong, Carroll Baker, Farley Granger, Louise Brooks,Orson Welles and George Nader.Sources:
Shawn Dwyer (TCM),
Yuri German (AllMovie),
Bruce Eder (AllMovie),
Wikipedia and
IMDb.
