Profile of Clint Eastwood on Famous Like Me

This article is about the actor and director. For the Gorillaz song, see Clint Eastwood (song).

Clinton Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor, Academy Award winning film director, film producer and composer. Eastwood is famous for his "tough guy" roles, including Dirty Harry and the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. 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 in San Francisco, CA on May 31, 1930 of Scottish, Irish, Dutch, and English descent, Eastwood was shaped in childhood by 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.

After high school, Eastwood was drafted into the United States Army. It was following his discharge that he moved to Southern California to enroll at Los Angeles City College. He studied primarily business administration, but eventually dropped out.

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 bigger roles with Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) in 1964, and soon followed it with For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più) (1965). In these and his third film with Leone, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo) (1966) he found one of his trademark roles, the mysterious "man with no name". All three films were hits, particularly the third, and Eastwood became an instant international star, redefining the traditional image of the American cowboy.

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. 1971 proved to be one of his best years in films. He directed and starred in the thriller Play Misty for Me (1971), and The Beguiled (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. Many have said that Eastwood's portrayal of the tough, no-nonsense cop touched a nerve with many who were just plain fed up with crime in the streets.

Eastwood continued to take cop, western and thriller roles, including sequels to Dirty Harry: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) was an important contribution to the western genre. As the late '70s approached, he found more solid work in comedies such as Every Which Way But Loose (1978).

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. 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. After much less successful films such as Pink Cadillac (1989), and The Rookie (1990), Eastwood started taking on 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 stardom yet again in the 1990s. He starred in and directed the gritty, cynical 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 gave a fine performance as a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent in the thriller In the Line of Fire. He expanded his repertoire again 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 rare second Best Director award, and at 74 the oldest active director to do so, by beating out Martin Scorcese, who still has never won an Oscar despite his long career.

Eastwood developed directing as a second career, and has, indeed, generally received greater critical acclaim for his directing than for his acting. He has chosen a wide variety of films to direct, some clearly commercial, others highly personal. Unlike many actors who also direct, Eastwood frequently directs films in which he does not appear. Eastwood has become a highly respected American director. 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 Warner Bros. studio, which finances and releases most of his films. In more recent years, Eastwood also has started to write music for some of his films.

Eastwood will next take the director's chair in the World War II film, Flags of our Fathers .

Eastwood received Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.

Personal life

Eastwood, who has been married twice, has five daughters and four sons by five different women: Kimberly (born 1964), with actress Roxanne Tunis; and Kyle (born in 1968), and Alison (born on May 22, 1972, with his ex-wife, the former Maggie Johnson. His two children with airline hostess Jacelyn Reeves are Scott (born March 21 1986) and Kathryn (born February 2 1988). He has a daughter Francesca Ruth (born August 7 1993) with Frances Fisher, his co-star in Unforgiven, and Morgan (born December 12 1996) with his new wife Dina Ruiz. He also has an older son, Lesly (born February 13, 1959), to 18 year old Rosina Mary Glen. Lesly was adopted after spending six months in a Salvation Army home for young unmarried mothers. Clint and his pregnant wife Maggie found and introduced themselves to him in the late summer of 1967 when he was 8. He was living in a small village in Fife, Scotland, called Kinghorn. Although they never made contact with him in any way again, Eastwood would regularly vacation at the secluded Kingswood Hotel on the road between Kinghorn and Burntisland. He was seen on many occasions, playing golf at Burntisland golf course. His autographed picture still hangs in the Penny Farthing Bar in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, which he donated personally.

"I like to joke that since my children weren't giving me any grandchildren, I had two of my own. It's 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 disregards his grandchildren Clinton (born 1984) and Graylen (born 1994) by Kimber and Kyle, respectively.

The 'Stan Laurel' myth

One recurrent rumour has it that Eastwood is the son (legitimate or otherwise) of 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 .

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, 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.

Neither especially conservative nor liberal, Eastwood usually describes his political beliefs as "libertarian", although he has admitted to voting twice for Dwight D. Eisenhower, and 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 alleged that his decision to make Million Dollar Baby may have been motivated by this earlier experience.

In 2005 at National Board of Review awards dinner in New York City, Eastwood threatened to 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." Publicly, Eastwood has not commented further.

Filmography

For more details on this topic, see List of Clint Eastwood films.

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)

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: "Go ahead, make my day."

From Bronco Billy: Bronco Billy: "Dyin's too good for ya."

From Million Dollar Baby: Frankie Dunn: "Girlie, tough ain't enough."

From The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: The Man With No Name: "It's not a joke, it's a rope, Tuco."

From The Outlaw Josey Wales: Josey Wales: "Are you gonna pull those pistols, or whistle Dixie?"

From The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: The Man with No Name: "There are two kinds of people in this world my friend: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig."

From Unforgiven: Bill Munny: "It's a hell of a thing killin' a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have."

From Unforgiven: Bill Munny: "Deserve's 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 III.

Also, some have noted a passing resemblance between Clint Eastwood's "tough guy" demeanor in many of his films and the character Auron from the RPG Final Fantasy X.

Stephen King has also publicly stated in interviews, as well as some forewards and afterwords for the respective books, that his inspiration 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 Eastwoods The Man With No Name persona from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly movie.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Clint Eastwood