Clint Eastwood Biography
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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, California on May
31, 1930, as the son of a steel worker, Eastwood did a stint in the
United States Army before moving to Los Angeles to study at Los Angeles
College. He studied primarily business administration, but eventually
dropped out.
Film career
Eastwood began work as an actor, appearing
in B-films such as 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 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.
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 -- at 74 the oldest
active director to do so.
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 received Kennedy Center Honors in
2000.
Personal
life
Eastwood, who has been married twice, has
four daughters and two sons by five different women: Kimberly, 40, with
actress Roxanne Tunis; and Kyle, 36, and Alison 32, with his ex-wife
Maggie Johnson. He has an 11-year-old daughter Francesca with Frances
Fisher, his co-star in Unforgiven, and 7-year-old Morgan with his new
wife Dina Ruiz. He also has an older son, Lesly (born February 13,
1959), to Rosina Mary Glen (born September 1, 1940). He was adopted
after spending six months in a Salvation Army Home for young unmarried
mothers. Clint and his wife Maggie (Maggie was pregnant at the time)
found and introduced themselves to him in the late summer of 1967 (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,
Clint 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 Kirkaldy, 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."
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". 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 Eastwood threatened to kill the
liberal filmmaker Michael Moore if ever Moore showed up at his home with
a camera. This appeared to have been a reference to Moore's
controversial interview with Eastwood's friend, the movie star and
conservative activist Charlton Heston for the movie Bowling for
Columbine. 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.
* * * *
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URL of Original Article:
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Date Article Copied:
July 12, 2005
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