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At a 2002 film premiere with wife Dina and daugthers Morgan (left) and Franny (right)
Picture Courtesy of LEE CELANO/AFP/Getty Images
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The Long Ride
The classic Eastwood character is a blend of dependable professional and intractable wanderer. That mix has roots in Eastwood’s own life.
During the Depression, his father, a bond broker, travelled California and Washington State pursuing jobs that never lasted. Clint attended at least six schools and excelled at none of them. (Had he been a kid today, he’s said, he might have been diagnosed with ADD.) He wore a leather jacket, tinkered with cars and ran with a tough crowd. Still, he learned to value hard work as a source of pride and self-sufficiency.
He was drafted during the Korean War and his fellow soldiers suggested that with his looks he ought to try films. His chiselled cheekbones and six-foot-four frame won him a few bit parts then in 1959 he landed the part of Rowdy Yates, sidekick to the trail boss, in a new TV western series called Rawhide. He held on to the role for seven years.
But Eastwood’s ambitious side grew frustrated with the show’s constraints. In 1964, during a break in production, he found an escape route: the lead role in a low-budget film, made in Spain by iconoclastic Italian Sergio Leone.
A Fistful of Dollars was a smash and he quickly shot two sequels with Leone. A new genre was born—the spaghetti western. The success of the films allowed Eastwood to leave his day job.
But he was not about to trade one trap for another. After a few more turns as an actor (Hang ’Em High, Coogan’s Bluff), he moved into the director’s chair. His debut, 1971’s Play Misty for Me, was a radical departure from his earlier films—the complex story of a womanising DJ stalked by a psychopathic female fan. He alternated such experimental work with crowd-pleasing fare, including the comedy Every Which Way But Loose, in which he starred with an orang-utan called Clyde. Aiming High
The longer Eastwood has worked, the more thoughtful and daring his projects have become. “Every movie I make teaches me something,” he has said. “That’s why I keep making them.” Since becoming a pensioner, he has made such must-see (and Academy Award-laden) films as Unforgiven, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, the latter about a struggling female boxer and the broken-down trainer who takes her on. Eastwood declines to be pigeonholed as an actor, director or man. After liberal critics denounced Dirty Harry as a “fascist”, Eastwood came out with Magnum Force, in which Harry battles a cabal of vigilante cops. Though a registered Republican, Eastwood makes no secret of his support for reproductive choice and his opposition to the Iraq war. The best political label for him, he says, is libertarian, with a small l.
When he’s directing a film, Eastwood is like the teacher who’s on top of everything and brings out the best in everyone. His film sets are legendary for orderliness and efficiency. “One of the first things he told me was, ‘No great work can be done amidst chaos,’ ” says Emmy Rossum, whose performance as a troubled teenager in Mystic River helped launch her career.
“So many directors run around, trying to show off their authority,” says Gene Hackman. “Clint’s not like that. He’s a great listener and approaches everything in a practical way.”
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