May 18, 2005. Copyright 2005, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Macho man who won Hollywood respect
By Elisabeth Ribbans

LONDON, May 18, Graphic News:  It was as the Man With No Name in Sergio LeoneÕs legendary spaghetti westerns of the mid-1960s that Clint Eastwood made his own name as an international movie star. But since dispensing his cold-eyed brand of summary justice in A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, the former lumberjack, GI and college dropout has added a fistful of other names to his remarkable resume: Oscar-winning director, producer, composer, politician and respected jazz aficionado.

Born in San Francisco, California on May 31, 1930, Clinton Eastwood JrÕs childhood was spent on the move as his father, a steelworker, searched for work during the Great Depression. His first big break in acting came at the age of 29 when he was cast as Rowdy Yates in the television western series Rawhide -- a role he played for the next seven years. After the Leone trilogy, filmed in Italy and Spain, Eastwood returned to the U.S., where in 1971 his emotionally and verbally concise cowboy transferred to the streets of San Francisco in the guise of ruthless cop Harry Callaghan, in the first of five Dirty Harry movies. It was in the fourth of these, Sudden Impact, in 1983, that the man of few words delivered what would become one of the most famous movie lines of all time: ÒGo ahead, make my day.Ó

Although EastwoodÕs screen persona will always be most readily associated with the tough, uncompromising loner -- with the trademark squint and a grimace as thin as the brim of his hat -- he has revealed impressive versatility among his 60-plus movies, taking on a musical role with Lee Marvin in Paint Your Wagon back in 1969, playing for laughs against an orangutan co-star, Clyde, in the comedy Every Which Way But Loose and breaking hearts opposite Meryl Streep in the romance, The Bridges of Madison County, a movie for which he also wrote the theme tune.

But it is for his abilities as a director -- starting with the thriller Play Misty for Me in 1971 -- that he has attracted greatest critical acclaim. His 1992 film Unforgiven -- in which he also starred -- was nominated for nine Oscars, eventually winning four, including the coveted pair of best director and best picture. In all, he has sat behind the camera, operating in his famously fast but meticulous style, for 25 movies -- the most recent, Million Dollar Baby, knocking out the opposition at this yearÕs Academy Awards to give Eastwood his second pair of Oscars and make him the oldest director to scoop the award.

While the tone of his works has tended towards the dark and the difficult, the owner of the jazz label Malpaso Records has also pulled up his directorÕs chair to celebrate two of his heroes: the great saxophonist Charlie Parker in the 1998 biopic Bird, and pianist Theolonius Monk in Straight, No Chaser, which was made the following year. Eastwood attributes his staying power to having Òconstantly movedÓ his movie career. ÒIf IÕd stayed a cowboy on the plains of Spain theyÕd have retired me long ago,Ó he says.

For eight years from 1986 Eastwood served as the Republican mayor of Carmel, California -- elected by a huge majority largely on the campaign promise of lifting the ban on eating ice-creams on the townÕs main street. He still lives in the town with his second wife, television journalist Dina Ruiz, and their eight-year-old daughter Morgan, who appeared briefly in Million Dollar Baby. He also has two children from his first marriage to Maggie Johnson, and four more by three other women.
/ENDS