Clint Eastwood Biography
Biography
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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. Clint 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 pretensions 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 Skyline Senior High School in Oakland, CA, one
of Clint Eastwood's teachers assigned him a part in a play to
try to get him to be less introverted. He did not enjoy the
experience.
Clint 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. Clint Eastwood 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. Clint Eastwood 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 Clint Eastwood's discharge in 1953, Eastwood moved to
Southern California and attended Los Angeles City College,
studying drama and business administration under the G.I. Bill.
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Clint began work as an actor, appearing in B-films such as
Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula and Francis in the Navy. In
1959, Clint Eastwood 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 pił) (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 (Despite the fact that he was a gunslinger).
(Ironically, Eastwood is allergic to horses.)
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, Clint Eastwood
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 films in
years. He directed and starred in the thriller Play Misty for Me
(1971), and starred as a semi-villain in the Don Siegel film The
Beguiled (1971), one of his few box-office flops. 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.
Clint 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 , along with his own High
Plains Drifter (1973). As the late '70s approached, he found
more solid work in comedies such as Every Which Way But Loose
(1978).
In 1975, Clintbrought 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 Clint 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. 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.
Clint 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, Clint gave a fine performance
as 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 Clint Eastwood
won a second Best Director award, and at 74 the oldest director
to do so.
Clint 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. 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, Clint frequently directs
films in which he does not appear. Clint 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 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.
Clint will next take the director's chair in the World War II
film, Flags of our Fathers.
Clint Eastwood received one of the 2000 Kennedy Center Honors.
Clint Eastwood and Warner Bros. have purchased the movie rights
to James Hansen's "First Man", the authorized biography of Neil
Armstrong.
Clint, 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.
Clint remains a sex symbol for many women, and the years have
not made him any less virile. Clint Eastwood once said, "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 seems to ignore his grandchildren, Clinton
(born 1984) and Graylen (born 1994) of Kimberly and Kyle,
respectively.
One recurrent rumor 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.
In addition to his career as an actor, Clint 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). Clint Eastwood
served a two-year term before declining to run for re-election.
Neither especially conservative nor liberal, Clint usually
describes his political beliefs as "libertarian", although Clint
Eastwood 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. Most of the films that Clint Eastwood 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, Clint 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
Clint 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.
Trivia for Clint Eastwood
- Eastwood was 6'4" as a young man, but due to his age and recent back problems he is closer to 6'1" nowadays (as of 2006).
- In 2002 he sued a biographer for publishing allegations that he physically abused Sondra Locke during their relationship, and forced her to have an abortion.
Quotations for Clint Eastwood
- 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 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": - "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have."
This Clint Eastwood Biography Page is Copyright The Planets © 2004 - 2006 Chuck Ayoub