Facts about Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood Biography
Clint Eastwood is the Oscar-winning director of Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, and an iconic actor best known for his films as tough cop “Dirty Harry” Callahan and as the western anti-hero known as The Man With No Name.
Clint Eastwood first came to fame between 1959 and 1966, when he was a regular on the TV western Rawhide.
In 1964 he went to Spain to work on A Fistful of Dollars, a western feature film with director Sergio Leone. The movie and his subsequent outings with Leone — films dubbed “spaghetti westerns,” with Eastwood as a nameless, taciturn loner — made him a star.
In the 1970s Eastwood became a superstar with his series of Dirty Harry movies, with the actor as a tough, taciturn cop with a vigilante streak.
He then began directing and producing his own films, beginning with Play Misty For Me (1971). Since then he has earned a reputation as a successful and efficient producer/director/actor, and qualifies as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history.
As an actor, Eastwood’s films include Hang ‘Em High (1968); Where Eagles Dare (1968); Paint Your Wagon (1969, with Lee Marvin); Kelly’s Heroes (1970, with Donald Sutherland); The Beguiled (1971); Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974, with Jeff Bridges); The Eiger Sanction (1975); Escape From Alcatraz (1979); Tightrope (1984); White Hunter Black Heart (1990); and In the Line of Fire (1993, with John Malkovich).
As a director and actor, his films include: The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976); Bronco Billy (1980); Pale Rider (1985); Unforgiven (1992, co-starring Gene Hackman); The Bridges of Madison County (1995); Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997); Mystic River (2003, starring Sean Penn), Million Dollar Baby (2004, with Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) and Changeling (2008, starring Angelina Jolie).
He was given the Oscar as best director for both Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, and both films also won Academy Awards as the best picture of the year.
He was nominated for a directing Oscar for Letters from Iwo Jima. In 2012 he was back onscreen as a crusty old baseball scout in Trouble With the Curve; his movies as director include J. Edgar (2011), American Sniper (2014) and Sully (2016, starring Tom Hanks as Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger).
He has remained active into his 90s, directing and starring as an elderly drug runner in the 2018 film The Mule and the 2021 film Cry Macho.
Extra credit
Clint Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in 1986… “Clint Eastwood” was the name of a hit 2001 single by the hip-hop group Gorillaz… Eastwood’s character in his films with Leone is often referred to as “The Man With No Name.”