Clint Eastwood

Perhaps the icon of macho movie stars, Clint Eastwood has become a standard in international cinema. He was born in 1930 in San Francisco, to Margaret Ruth (Runner), a factory worker, and Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker. Eastwood briefly attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out to pursue acting. He found bit work in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) until he got his first breakthrough in the long-running TV series Rawhide (1959). As Rowdy Yates, he made the show his own and became a household name around the country. Eastwood found bigger and better things in Italy with the spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965), but it was the third installment in the trilogy where he found one of his signature roles: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movie was a big hit and brought him instant international recognition. He followed it up with his first American-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the unusual musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood combined tough-guy action with offbeat humor.1971 proved to be one of his best years in film, if not the best. He starred in The Beguiled (1971) and the cult classic Play Misty for Me (1971). But it was his role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971) that elevated Eastwood to superstar status and invented the loose-cannon cop genre that has been imitated even to this day. Eastwood had constant quality films over the following years with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) opposite Jeff Bridges, the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), and the fact-based thriller Escape from Alcatraz (1979). In 1978 Eastwood branched out into the comedy genre with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time. Taking inflation into account, it still is. Eastwood kicked off the eighties with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way But Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned Eastwood's trademark catchphrase, "Make my day". Eastwood also starred in Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984) (with Burt Reynolds), Pale Rider (1985), and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), which were all big hits. In 1988 Eastwood did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch his previous films had. Shortly thereafter, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it became apparent that Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on more personal projects, such as directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston. But Eastwood bounced back, first with his western, Unforgiven (1992), which garnered him an Oscar for Best Director, and a nomination for Best Actor. Then he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), which was a big hit, followed by the interesting but poorly received drama, A Perfect World (1993), with Kevin Costner. Next up was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), which was yet again a success. Eastwood's subsequent films were solid but nothing really stuck out. Among them were the well-received Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000), and the badly received True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002). Then in 2004, Eastwood surprised yet again when he produced, directed and starred in Million Dollar Baby (2004). The movie earned Eastwood an Oscar for Best Director and a Best Actor nomination for the second time. He had other successes directing the multi-award-winning films Mystic River (2003), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), and Changeling (2008) which starred Angelina Jolie. After a four-year hiatus from acting, Eastwood's return to the screen in Gran Torino (2008) gave him a $30 million opening weekend, proving his box office appeal has not waned. Eastwood has managed to keep his extremely complicated personal life private and has rarely been featured in the tabloids. He had a long time relationship with frequent co-star Sondra Locke and has eight children by six other women, only two of whom he married. Eastwood divides his time between Carmel and Los Angeles.