There are few American actors more iconic than Clint Eastwood. His iconic “Man With No Name” character is the face of the American West for a generation of men. Dirty Harry is perhaps the most recognizable fictional police officer in American history. And the man who played them? Well, he spent some time as a small-town mayor in California.
A Star Is Born
Clint Eastwood was born in San Francisco, California in 1930. The nurses quickly took to calling him “Samson” because he was over 11 pounds at birth. The Mayflower-descended family moved around California, settling first in Sacramento, then in Piedmont. The family was comfortable because Eastwood’s father was a manufacturing executive and his mother worked as clerical support at IBM.
It’s unclear if Eastwood ever graduated high school. Records are sealed, contemporary reports from friends are unclear and Eastwood has never commented on the subject. We do, however, know that he was expelled from school for obscene graffiti and burning an effigy on top of the school. He then transferred to a technical high school, which was his final formal schooling whether he graduated or not.
After leaving high school, Eastwood worked a number of odd jobs, including a stint in the United States Army during the Korean War, though he did not serve in combat. Eastwood survived a plane crash back from a rendezvous with an officer’s wife and paddled to shore on a life raft.
Clint Eastwood in Hollywood
After the Army, Eastwood bummed around some more before going to Hollywood and becoming as close to an instant star as exists. Eastwood claimed that he was discovered by an assistant and brought to meet a casting director. While they were not terribly impressed with his acting, they were very impressed by the fact that he was 6’4” tall.
So they sent him to acting class, where they hoped to break him of his wooden movements and habit of talking through his teeth. Despite the fact that these are big “no nos” in the world of acting, they soon became Eastwood’s trademark. Eastwood floundered about in small and sometimes uncredited roles before landing the role that would make him famous: playing Rowdy Yates on CBS’ Rawhide.
Eastwood was a breakout character, though he disliked the role, believing himself too old to play the character. He directed some of the trailers for the series but was never able to successfully command an entire episode. In 1958, when he started the show, he was paid $750 an episode. When the show was canceled Eastwood was given $119,000 severance pay.
Richard Harrison introduced Sergio Leone to Clint Eastwood after his Rawhide co-star Eric Fleming declined to work with the director. What would result was one of the most fruitful partnerships of Eastwood’s career, making the so-called “Dollars Trilogy”: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good The Bad and the Ugly.
The last of these is widely regarded as one of, if not the, greatest film ever made. Eastwood played “The Man With No Name,” a more morally ambiguous character than the one that he played on Rawhide. Along with John Ford’s The Searchers, it touched off a period of much more thoughtful and serious Western films known as “revisionist Westerns.” Eastwood would revisit the character in two of his own films, High Plains Drifter, a gritty, psychedelic take on the character and Pale Rider, a spiritual take on the character. Both Eastwood-directed films put the Man With No Name into the role of the grateful dead.
Eastwood continued to work primarily in the Western idiom for the balance of the 1960s. And while it might be hard to believe now, most people still didn’t know who he was, because the genre was on the decline, appealing to a smaller and smaller niche of the general action film genre. This all changed with Hang ‘Em High, which catapulted Eastwood to international stardom as the lead in United Artists’ biggest opening weekend at the time.
At the dawn of the 1970s, Eastwood starred in his other iconic role, that of Detective Harry Callahan, also known as “Dirty Harry.” The eponymous first film was released in 1971 and followed by Magnum Force in 1973, The Enforcer in 1975, Sudden Impact in 1983, and The Dead Pool in 1988, the last of which features Guns ‘N’ Roses as Jim Carrey’s band.
The character allowed Eastwood to explore his conservative political views on camera. While the leftist media tends to portray Harry as some kind of warning against “killer cops,” the character is a clear endorsement of law and order in a society gone mad.
Eastwood the Director
While virtually every American knows who Clint Eastwood is today, far fewer know that he directs his own films these days. He debuted in Play Misty For Me, an erotic thriller that remains controversial to this day among critics. While Eastwood spent the balance of the 1970s occasionally directing a film, such as High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and The Gauntlet, it was not until the 1980s that he leaped into his roles in earnest.
Eastwood’s films have always enjoyed critical acclaim and accolades, but it was not until 1992’s Unforgiven that he began to receive awards as well. It was this year that Eastwood was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director. This is when Eastwood began to be recognized as something other than simply an actor who was getting too big for his britches — he was a talented director in his own right, whose films look a bit like his acting; terse and wooden but with lots of character.
He was able to win Oscar gold again in 2004 for Billion Dollar Baby, for which he once again received the award for Best Picture and Best Director. He was also nominated for awards for Mystic River, Letters From Iwo Jima, and American Sniper.
Eastwood the Politician
Clint Eastwood is also something of a politician. He was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, but this was a largely ceremonial position coming with a “lavish” $200 a month salary, which Eastwood donated to the local youth center. Some of his accomplishments as mayor were helping to pass a new law making it legal to eat ice cream on the streets, public restrooms at the public beach, and a new annex for the city library. After his stint as mayor, he served on the California State Park and Recreation Commission at the appointment of Democratic California Governor Gray Davis.
He has been a member of both the Republican and Libertarian Parties and has been an independent, as well as voting for political candidates from both sides of the aisle.
Clint Eastwood is still around and kicking, continuing to produce films well into his 90s.
Clint Eastwood: The Spaghetti Western Star Who Defined a Generation originally appeared in The Resistance Library at Ammo.com.
Damn. Inflation really is out of control.
I caught that typo too. LOL
Maybe he was having a purple haze flashback:
I went to one of his shows with my brother in the 90s. Neither of us were more familiar with any of his work besides the “hits”, but it was one of the more entertaining shows I have seen – it was at the Chicago Riviera which helped.
Alright, I just watched as much of that as I could stand, and it was just sick. All of it was really, it just seemed more innocent way back.
Definitely one of my all time favorite actors. John Wayne was also.
What is this WAS nonsense.
The Duke LIVES!!!
I like “The Duke” possibly more than Clint if only because The Duke came across a bit more All-American.
See that belt buckle? He wore that in nine of his Westerns.
It is the RED RIVER D ranch symbol given to him by Howard Hawks, the director of Red River. The “D” stands for DUNSON — Duke’s last name in Red River. But it might as well stand for DUKE!!!
From our view, the lower left hand corner of the buckle bears the initials HWH — Howard Winchester Hawks. Hawks had a bunch of buckles made for the main cast and a few of the crew. Duke’s buckle had JW in that portion of the design. But Duke said he hated wearing anything with his own initials on it, so he traded with Hawks, who had also had one made for himself.
The date of the movie’s production is visible in the upper right hand corner of the buckles — 1946 — which is amusing considering Duke wore that buckle in a few Westerns which were supposed to take place in the mid-to-late 1800’s.
“Where Eagles Dare” or “High Plains Drifter”? Auntie is so torn regarding this.
The question answers itself.
HPD, if only because of the ass-whuppin’ of the Bridges and the Carlins.
Clint was in Westerns. Not Spaghetti Westerns.
Spaghetti Westerns were made by Italians, hence the name, and filmed in Europe.
All 3 of the “Dollar” trilogy are Spaghetti Westerns. Directed by Sergio Leone (an Italian) and filmed in Europe (Spain, mostly).
Woof.
Clint Eastwood is THE most notorious and well known of ALL the Spaghetti Western movie stars.
How the hell do you NOT know that?
(Must be under forty.)
The Good The Bad The Ugly
A fist full of Dollars
For few Dollars more
Hang him High
High Plans Drifter
Just to name a few
A brilliant actor and director (minus the lost Sandra Locke years). Unforgiven is a masterpiece.
A fella can be forgiven for having a crazy girl fetish.
As long as he eventually comes to his senses, that is.
Besides Locke was a little better looking than Clyde.
No Monkey Pox there.
Nope, just an orangutan. Right turn Clyde.
Come to think of it, she did lay it all bare in Josey Wales.
Definitely more fun to look at than Clyde.
The Gauntlet too. Also a great anti-government power film.
Clyde had more class, though.
THE AUTHOR FORGOT TO MENTION KELLY’S HEROES, GREAT MOVIE, WITH TELLY SAVALAS, DONALD SOUTHERLAND, DON RICKLES AND OTHERS. SAW IT IN THE THEATER IN WESTERN NY BACK IN THE LATE 70’S. ALSO “WHERE EAGLES DARE”, WITH RICHARD BURTON . OH AND “FIRE FOX” WHERE EASTWOOD STOLE A SOVIET SUPER FIGHTER.
What? Talk louder.
Some of his best work!
Pale Rider is another great one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb2zdwOs5qc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyjrUAimzZg
“Nuthin’ like a good piece of hickory.”
I just saw Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Michael Ciminos debut as director. I have to say as a movie junkie that although there may be better actors and directors few appeal to me personally as much as Mr Eastwood. Maybe because he, like his Gran Turismo character, has unwavering principles based on Goodness. And he just doesn’t give a F.
Heartbreak Ridge was great I thought but Outlaw Josey Wales is my favorite of his.
Useless Factoid Of The Day:
The Outlaw Josey Wales is the source of our modern term ASS HAT.
From the movie: Get back in line or I’ll kick you so hard you’ll be wearing your ASS for a HAT!!!
Now you know.
That was back when we had real heroes and there was hope for America.
Clint is on his way out and those days are long gone.
Lucky to have been born when I was.
Yes, Clint, John Wayne, Glen Ford and James Arness. My favorite western actors and all real American men.
Don’t forget Randolph Scott.
Would that be Clint ‘I love Mike Bloomberg’ Eastwood by any chance? I have all his films on dvd, and I will only watch any of them again after the slime-ball is dead… perhaps.
He’s got a few significant strikes against him, to be sure.
John Wayne wanted nothing to do with him, but that was mainly owing to the Revisionist Western concepts Eastwood always starred in. John Wayne hated the fact that Eastwood’s characters always blurred the line between good and evil — the “good guy” being fatally stained by darkness and wickedness in all of Eastwood’s portrayals. Eastwood contacted Wayne and suggested they work together on a project, but Clint was immediately and utterly rejected by Duke.
Duke had clarity of vision and battled creeping darkness wherever he found it.
I am so glad it is just a tribute and not an obituary. Rowdy Yates was my first crush, on television just before my older siblings got home.
I was five and I loved him until Mother told me that babies come when a man and a woman love each other and out of fear of an unwanted pregnancy, I abstained.
I wish I’d done so when seventeen.
The Outlaw Jose Wales is a role model.
Tightrope was one of my favorites. It inspired my girlfriend to recreate some of the scenes in our bedroom. I think she may have been fantasizing about Clint, though.
I think he had an uncredited bit part in “Away All Boats” with Jeff Chandler in 1956.
I love the Monkey Movies. “Right turn Clyde.”
He also had a bit part in the 2nd Creature From The Black Lagoon film, Revenge of the Creature (1955).
I liked all of Clint’s films. But my favorite of all was Gran Torino. Today that film would’ve been boycotted and banned by the wokesters for the representing reality in modern American culture. Clint represents America at its finest. The last of of the great Hollywood actors.
There are 3 actors who never, imho, made a bad movie; Clint, Denzel, and Meryl.
Maybe Abbot and Costello also.
I never get tired of the Spaghetti Westerns.
Nor the music.
And he pumps his own fuel.
An old friend, Hippy Bob, was picked up Hitchhiking by Clint going to Homer Alaska. He said Clint was 100% for real, easy to talk to, and an all-around good person.
“Absolute Power” where Clint actually grins, in the scene in the Senate dining hall with Ed Harris, or the final scene where the killer asks for “mercy”, and Clint says, “I’m fresh out”..
How disappointing that no one has mentioned Paint Your Wagon. Surely I’m not the only person who knows that Clint Eastwood could sing – and that Lee Marvin could not. Granted, to my knowledge, it’s his only musical, but what a great movie.
I watched that movie about a month ago for the first time in more than 20 years … it held up quite well … just a tad long on some of the music, though …