Clint Eastwood biography

Synopsis

Early Career

Actor, director, producer. Born Clinton Eastwood, Jr., on May 31, 1930, to Clinton, Sr. and Ruth Eastwood. He has one older sister, Jean. After traveling and looking for work throughout California during the Depression, the family settled in Oakland, where Eastwood graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1948.

Eastwood worked odd jobs as a hay bailer, logger, truck driver, and steel-furnace stoker. In 1950, he was called to military duty with the Army Special Services, based at Ford Ord in Monterey, California. While in the Army, Eastwood met actors David Janssen and Martin Milner, who convinced him to move to Los Angeles in 1954 after he finished his military duty. Eastwood took a screen test and signed a contract with Universal for seventy-five dollars a week. His first roles were in the science fiction films Revenge of the Creature (1955), and Tarantula (1955). Eastwood's rugged looks landed him the role of Rowdy Yates in the CBS TV series Rawhide (1959), which ran for eight seasons.

In 1964, he went to Italy to star in a trio of westerns directed by Sergio Leone. The role Eastwood took—the cool, laconic "Man with No Name"—had been turned down by James Coburn and Charles Bronson. The films included A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) (a remake of the classic Yojimbo), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Nicknamed "spaghetti westerns" due to their Italian production, these films gained worldwide popularity and Eastwood became internationally known.

Directorial Debut

Back in the United States, he directed his first film, the thriller Play Misty For Me (1971), and starred in the leading role. His next important project was a series of violent action movies portraying Harry Callahan, a contentious San Francisco cop. The Dirty Harry series proved immensely popular with the public and included five films over a period of seventeen years, including Dirty Harry (1971), Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988).

Eastwood then started directing, winning critical acclaim for the Charlie Parker biography, Bird (1988). He also earned accolades for directing and producing the 1992 Western Unforgiven, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. He directed and starred in A Perfect World (1993); The Bridges of Madison County (1994) with Meryl Streep; and Absolute Power (1997). He directed (but did not appear in) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997); and produced, directed and starred in the thriller True Crime (1999).

August of 2000 saw the release of his directorial and acting project, Space Cowboys, costarring James Garner, Donald Sutherland, and Tommy Lee Jones. In 2003, he released the haunting and award-winning directorial effort Mystic River starring Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. Eastwood