Clinton "
Clint"
Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series
Rawhide (1959–1965). He rose to fame for playing the
Man with No Name in
Sergio Leone's
Dollars trilogy of
spaghetti westerns (
A Fistful of Dollars,
For a Few Dollars More, and
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) during the 1960s, and as
San Francisco Police Department Inspector
Harry Callahan in the
Dirty Harry films (
Dirty Harry,
Magnum Force,
The Enforcer,
Sudden Impact, and
The Dead Pool) during the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, along with several others in which he plays tough-talking no-nonsense police officers, have made him an enduring
cultural icon of
masculinity.
Eastwood won Academy Awards for
Best Director and Producer of the
Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for
Best Actor, for his work in the films
Unforgiven (1992) and
Million Dollar Baby (2004). These films in particular, as well as others including
Play Misty for Me (1971),
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976),
Pale Rider (1985),
In the Line of Fire (1993),
The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and
Gran Torino (2008), have all received commercial success and critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been
Every Which Way but Loose (1978), its sequel
Any Which Way You Can (1980), and
Bronco Billy (1980); despite being widely panned by critics, the "Any Which Way" films are the two highest-grossing films of his career after adjusting for inflation.
Eastwood has directed most of his own
star vehicles, but he has also directed films in which he did not appear such as
Mystic River (2003) and
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations and
Changeling (2008), which received Golden Globe Award nominations. He has received considerable critical praise in France in particular, including for several of his films which were panned in the United States, and was awarded two of France's highest honors: in 1994 he received the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal and in 2007 was awarded the
Légion d'honneur medal. In 2000 he was awarded the Italian
Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.
Since 1967, Eastwood has run his own production company,
Malpaso, which has produced the vast majority of his films. He also served as the nonpartisan mayor of
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from 1986 to 1988. Eastwood has seven children by five different women, and has married twice.
In late 1963 Eastwood's co-star on
Rawhide,
Eric Fleming, rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made western called
A Fistful of Dollars; to be directed in a remote region of Spain by
Sergio Leone who was relatively unknown at the time.
Other actors, including
Charles Bronson,
Steve Reeves,
Richard Harrison, Frank Wolfe,
Henry Fonda,
James Coburn, and
Ty Hardin, were also considered for the role. Knowing that he could play a cowboy convincingly Harrison suggested Eastwood, who in turn saw the film as an opportunity to escape from
Rawhide. He signed a contract for $15,000 (US$106,211 in 2011 dollars
) in wages for eleven weeks' work with a bonus of a
Mercedes automobile upon completion and arrived in Rome in May 1964
Eastwood later spoke about the transition from a television western to
A Fistful of Dollars: "In
Rawhide I did get awfully tired of playing the conventional white hat. The hero who kisses old ladies and dogs and was kind to everybody. I decided it was time to be an anti-hero."
Eastwood was instrumental in creating the
Man with No Name character's distinctive visual style and although a non-smoker, Leone insisted he smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the "mask" he was attempting to create with the loner character.
Some interior shots for
A Fistful of Dollars were done at the
Cinecittà studio on the outskirts of Rome, before production moved to a small village in
Andalusia,
Spain.
The film became a benchmark in the development of
spaghetti westerns, with Leone depicting a more lawless and desolate world than in traditional westerns; meanwhile challenging stereotypical American notions of a western hero by replacing him with a morally ambiguous
antihero. The film's success meant Eastwood became a major star in Italy
and he was re-hired by Leone to star in
For a Few Dollars More (1965), the second film of the trilogy. Through the efforts of screenwriter
Luciano Vincenzoni, the rights to the film and the final film of the trilogy (
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) were sold to
United Artists for roughly $900,000 (US$6.26 million in 2011 dollars.
Eastwood's career reached a turning point in 1971.
Before Irving Leonard died he and Eastwood had discussed the idea of Malpaso producing
Play Misty for Me, a film that was to give Eastwood the artistic control he desired and his debut as a director.
The script was about a jazz disc jockey named Dave (Eastwood) who has a casual affair with Evelyn (
Jessica Walter), a listener who had been calling the radio station repeatedly at night asking him to play her favorite song—
Erroll Garner's "
Misty". When Dave ends their relationship the fan becomes violent and murderous.
Filming commenced in
Monterey in September 1970 and included footage of that year's
Monterey Jazz Festival.
The film was highly acclaimed with critics such as
Jay Cocks in
Time,
Andrew Sarris in the
Village Voice, and Archer Winsten in the
New York Post all praising the film, as well as Eastwood's directorial skills and performance.
Walter was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Actress Award (Drama) for her performance in the film.
The script for
Dirty Harry (1971) was written by
Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink. It is a story about a hard-edged New York City (later changed to San Francisco) police inspector named
Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means.
Dirty Harry is arguably Eastwood's most memorable character and has been credited with inventing the "loose-cannon cop genre", which is still imitated to this day.
Author Eric Lichtenfeld argues that Eastwood's role as Dirty Harry established the "first true archetype" of the action film genre.
His lines (quoted at left) have been cited as among the most memorable in cinematic history and are regarded by firearms historians, such as Garry James and Richard Venola, as the force which catapulted the ownership of
.44 Magnum pistols to unprecedented heights in the United States; specifically the
Smith & Wesson Model 29 carried by Harry Callahan.
Dirty Harry proved a phenomenal success after its release in December 1971, earning some $22 million (US$119 million in 2011 dollars
) in the United States and Canada alone.
It was Siegel's highest-grossing film and the start of a series of films featuring the character of Harry Callahan. Although a number of critics praised his performance as Dirty Harry, such as
Jay Cocks of
Time magazine who described him as "giving his best performance so far, tense, tough, full of implicit identification with his character",
the film was widely criticized and accused of
fascism.
Following
Sean Connery's announcement that he would not play
James Bond again Eastwood was offered the role but turned it down because he believed the character should be played by an English actor
He next starred in the loner Western
Joe Kidd (1972), based on a character inspired by
Reies Lopez Tijerina who stormed a courthouse in
Tierra Amarilla,
New Mexico, in June 1967. Filming began in
Old Tucson in November 1971 under director
John Sturges. During the filming, Eastwood suffered symptoms of a bronchial infection and several panic attacks.
[114] Joe Kidd received a mixed reception, with
Roger Greenspun of
The New York Times writing that the film was unremarkable, with foolish symbolism and sloppy editing, although he praised Eastwood's performance.
In 1973 Eastwood directed his first western,
High Plains Drifter, in which he starred alongside
Verna Bloom,
Marianna Hill,
Billy Curtis,
Rawhide's
Paul Brinegar and
Geoffrey Lewis. The film had a moral and supernatural theme, later emulated in
Pale Rider. The plot follows a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) who arrives in a brooding Western town where the people hire him to defend the town against three felons who are soon to be released. There remains confusion during the film as to whether the stranger is the brother of the deputy, whom the felons lynched and murdered, or his ghost. Holes in the plot were filled with black humor and
allegory, influenced by Leone.
The revisionist film received a mixed reception from critics, but was a major box office success. A number of critics thought Eastwood's directing was "as derivative as it was expressive", with
Arthur Knight of the
Saturday Review remarking that Eastwood had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of society".
John Wayne, who had declined a role in the film, sent a letter of disapproval to Eastwood some weeks after the film's release saying that "the townspeople did not represent the true spirit of the American pioneer, the spirit that made America great".
Eastwood was then offered the role of
Benjamin L. Willard in
Francis Coppola's
Apocalypse Now, but declined as he did not want to spend weeks on location in the
Philippines.
He also refused the part of a platoon leader in
Ted Post's
Vietnam War film
Go Tell the Spartans and instead decided to make a third
Dirty Harry film
The Enforcer. The film had Harry partnered with a new female officer (
Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay area group resembling the
Symbionese Liberation Army. The film, culminating in a shootout on
Alcatraz island, was considerably shorter than the previous
Dirty Harry films at 95 minutes,
but was a major commercial success grossing $100 million (US$386 million in 2011 dollars
) worldwide to become Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date.
In 1977 he directed and starred in
The Gauntlet opposite Locke,
Pat Hingle,
William Prince,
Bill McKinney, and
Mara Corday. He portrays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute that he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix, to testify against the mob. Although a moderate hit with the viewing public critics had mixed feelings about the film, with many believing it was overly violent. Eastwood's longtime nemesis
Pauline Kael called it "a tale varnished with foul language and garnished with violence". Roger Ebert, on the other hand, gave it three stars and called it "...classic Clint Eastwood: fast, furious, and funny."
In 1978 Eastwood starred in
Every Which Way but Loose alongside Locke, Geoffrey Lewis,
Ruth Gordon and
John Quade. In an uncharacteristic offbeat comedy role, Eastwood played Philo Beddoe, a trucker and brawler who roams the American West searching for a lost love accompanied by his brother and an
orangutan called Clyde. The film proved a surprising success upon its release and became Eastwood's most commercially successful film at the time. Panned by the critics it ranked high amongst the box office successes of his career and was the second-highest grossing film of 1978.
Eastwood starred in the atmospheric thriller
Escape from Alcatraz in 1979, the last of his films to be directed by Don Siegel. It was based on the true story of
Frank Lee Morris who, along with
John and
Clarence Anglin, escaped from the notorious
Alcatraz prison in 1962. The film was a major success and marked the beginning of a period of praise for Eastwood from the critics;
Stanley Kauffmann of
The New Republic lauding it as "crystalline cinema"
and
Frank Rich of
Time describing it as "cool, cinematic grace"
Eastwood directed and scored the crime drama
Mystic River (2003), a film about murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse, set in
Boston. Starring
Sean Penn,
Kevin Bacon, and
Tim Robbins,
Mystic River was lauded by critics and viewers alike. The film won two Academy Awards,
Best Actor for Penn and
Best Supporting Actor for Robbins, with Eastwood garnering nominations for
Best Director and
Best Picture.
Eastwood was named Best Director of the Year by the
London Film Critics Circle and the
National Society of Film Critics. The film grossed $90 million (US$107 million in 2011 dollars
) domestically on a budget of $30 million (US$35.8 million in 2011 dollars
).
The following year Eastwood found further critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored, and starred in the boxing drama
Million Dollar Baby, playing a cantankerous trainer who forms a bond with female boxer (
Hilary Swank) who he is persuaded to train by his lifelong friend (
Morgan Freeman). The film won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Freeman).
At age 74 Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners.
[216][217] He also received a nomination for Best Actor and a
Grammy nomination for his score.
A. O. Scott of
The New York Times lauded the film as a "masterpiece" and the best film of the year.
In 2006 Eastwood 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 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.
Letters from Iwo Jima was the first American film to depict a war issue completely from the view of an American enemy.
Both films received praise from critics and garnered several nominations at the
79th Academy Awards, including
Best Director,
Best Picture, and
Best Original Screenplay for
Letters from Iwo Jima. At the
64th Golden Globe Awards Eastwood received nominations for
Best Director in both films.
Letters from Iwo Jima won the award for
Best Foreign Language Film.
Eastwood next directed
Changeling (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s.
Angelina Jolie stars as a woman who is reunited with her missing son only to realize that he is an impostor.
After its release at several film festivals the film grossed over $110 million (US$112 million in 2011 dollars
), the majority of which came from foreign markets.
The film was highly acclaimed, with Damon Wise of
Empire describing
Changeling as "flawless".
Todd McCarthy of
Variety described it as "emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed" and stated that
Changeling was a more complex and wide-ranging work than Eastwood's
Mystic River, saying the characters and social commentary were brought into the story with an "almost breathtaking deliberation".
Film critic Prairie Miller said that, in its portrayal of female courage, the film was "about as feminist as Hollywood can get" whilst
David Denby argued that, like Eastwood's
Million Dollar Baby, the film was "less an expression of feminist awareness than a case of awed respect for a woman who was strong and enduring."
Eastwood received nominations for
Best Original Score at the
66th Golden Globe Awards,
Best Direction at the
62nd British Academy Film Awards and director of the year from the London Film Critics' Circle.
After four years away from acting Eastwood ended his "self-imposed acting hiatus"
with
Gran Torino, which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle and
Jamie Cullum. Biographer Marc Eliot called Eastwood's role "an amalgam of the Man with No Name, Dirty Harry, and William Munny, here aged and cynical but willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose."
Eastwood has said that the role will most likely be the last time he acts in a film
It grossed close to $30 million (US$30.6 million in 2011 dollars
) during its wide release opening weekend in January 2009, the highest of his career as an actor or director.
Gran Torino eventually grossed over $268 million (US$274 million in 2011 dollars
) in theaters worldwide becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far, without adjustment for
inflation.
His 29th 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 and
Matt Damon as rugby team captain
François Pienaar. Freeman had bought the film rights to John Carlin's book on which the film is based.
The film met with generally positive reviews; Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars and described it as a "very good film... with moments evoking great emotion",
while
Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote, "Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion."
Eastwood was nominated for
Best Director at the
67th Golden Globe Awards.
