Kled Cinematic

[Ceumar Pee]

ClintonEastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.[6][7] Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Eastwood's accolades include four Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, three Csar Awards, and an AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2000, he received the Italian Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion award, honoring his lifetime achievements. Bestowed two of France's highest civilian honors, he received the Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1994, and the Legion of Honour in 2007.

Eastwood attended Piedmont Middle School,[25] where he was held back due to poor academic scores, and records indicated he also had to attend summer school.[20] From January 1945 until at least January 1946, he attended Piedmont High School, but was asked to leave for writing an obscene suggestion to a school official on the athletic field scoreboard and burning an effigy on the school lawn, on top of other school infractions.[26] He transferred to Oakland Technical High School and was scheduled to graduate mid-year in January 1949, although it is not clear if he did.[21] "Clint graduated from the airplane shop. I think that was his major", joked classmate Don Kincade.[21] Another high school friend, Don Loomis, echoed "I don't think he was spending that much time at school because he was having a pretty good time elsewhere."[21] Fritz Manes, a boyhood friend two years younger than Eastwood, said "I think what happened is he just went off and started having a good time. I just don't think he finished high school."[21] Biographer Patrick McGilligan notes that high school graduation records are a matter of strict legal confidentiality.[21] According to the author, Eastwood's school principal had to call his management first before deciding whether to be interviewed, and "whoever answered the phone at Malpaso advised him against talking to me, and he didn't".[27]

Eastwood held a number of odd jobs, including lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, forest firefighter, and golf caddy.[28] Eastwood said that he tried to enroll at Seattle University in 1951,[29] but instead was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War.[30] "He always dropped the Korean War reference, hoping everyone would conclude that he was in combat and might be some sort of hero. Actually, he'd been a lifeguard at Fort Ord in northern California for his entire stint in the military", said Eastwood's former longtime companion Sondra Locke.[22] Don Loomis recalled hearing that Eastwood was romancing one of the daughters of a Fort Ord officer, who might have been entreated to watch out for him when names came up for postings.[31] While returning from a prearranged tryst[31] in Seattle, he was a passenger on a Douglas AD bomber that ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean near Point Reyes.[32][33] Using a life raft, he and the pilot swam 2 miles (3.2 km) to safety.[34] Eastwood was discharged in February 1953.[35]

According to a CBS press release for Rawhide, Universal-International's camera crew was shooting in Fort Ord when an enterprising assistant spotted Eastwood and invited him to meet the director,[36] although this is disputed by Eastwood's unauthorized biographer, Patrick McGilligan.[37] According to Eastwood's official biography, the key figure was a man named Chuck Hill, who was stationed in Fort Ord and had contacts in Hollywood.[36] While in Los Angeles, Hill became reacquainted with Eastwood and managed to sneak him into a Universal studio, where he introduced him to cameraman Irving Glassberg.[36] Glassberg arranged for an audition under Arthur Lubin, who, although very impressed with Eastwood's appearance and stature, then 6 ft 4 in (193 cm), disapproved of his acting, remarking, "He was quite amateurish. He didn't know which way to turn or which way to go or do anything."[38] Lubin suggested that he attend drama classes and arranged for Eastwood's initial contract in April 1954, at $100 per week.[38] After signing, Eastwood was initially criticized for his stiff manner and delivering his lines through his teeth, a lifelong trademark.[39]

In May 1954, Eastwood made his first real audition for Six Bridges to Cross, but was rejected by Joseph Pevney.[40] After many unsuccessful auditions, he was eventually given a minor role by director Jack Arnold in Revenge of the Creature (1955), a sequel to the recently released Creature from the Black Lagoon.[41] In September 1954, Eastwood worked for three weeks on Arthur Lubin's Lady Godiva of Coventry, won a role in February 1955, playing "Jonesy", a sailor in Francis in the Navy and appeared uncredited in another Jack Arnold film, Tarantula, where he played a squadron pilot.[42][43] In May 1955, Eastwood put four hours' work into the film Never Say Goodbye and had a minor uncredited role as a ranch hand (his first western film) in August 1955 with Law Man, also known as Star in the Dust, starring John Agar and Mamie Van Doren.[44] Universal presented him with his first television role on July 2, 1955, on NBC's Allen in Movieland, which starred comedian Steve Allen, actor Tony Curtis, and swing musician Benny Goodman.[45] Although he continued to develop as an actor, Universal terminated his contract on October 23, 1955.[46]

Eastwood joined the Marsh Agency, and although Lubin landed him his biggest role to date in The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) and later hired him for Escapade in Japan (1957), without a formal contract, Eastwood was struggling.[47] On his financial advisor Irving Leonard's advice, he switched to the Kumin-Olenick Agency in 1956 and Mitchell Gertz in 1957. He landed several small roles in 1956 as a temperamental army officer for a segment of ABC's Reader's Digest series, and as a motorcycle gang member on a Highway Patrol episode.[47] In 1957, Eastwood played a cadet in West Point series and a suicidal gold prospector on Death Valley Days.[48]

In 1958, he played a Navy lieutenant in a segment of Navy Log and in early 1959 made a notable guest appearance as Red Hardigan on Maverick opposite James Garner as a cowardly villain intent on marrying a rich girl for money.[48] Eastwood had a small part as an aviator in Lafayette Escadrille (1958) and played a major role as an ex-renegade of the Confederacy in Ambush at Cimarron Pass (also 1958): a film that Eastwood considers the low point of his career.[49][50][51]

In late 1963, Eastwood's Rawhide co-star Eric Fleming rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made western called A Fistful of Dollars (1964), filmed in a remote region of Spain by a relatively unknown director, Sergio Leone.[61] Richard Harrison suggested Eastwood to Leone because Harrison knew that Eastwood could play a cowboy convincingly. Eastwood thought the film would be an opportunity to escape from his Rawhide image. He signed a contract for $15,000 in wages for eleven weeks' work, with a bonus of a Mercedes-Benz automobile upon completion.[62][63] Eastwood later said of the transition from a TV western to A Fistful of Dollars: "In Rawhide I did get awfully tired of playing the conventional white hat. The hero who kisses old ladies and dogs and was kind to everybody. I decided it was time to be an antihero."[64] Eastwood was instrumental in creating the Man with No Name character's distinctive visual style and, although a non-smoker, Leone insisted Eastwood smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the "mask" he was attempting to create for the character.[65]

A Fistful of Dollars proved a landmark in the development of spaghetti Westerns, with Leone depicting a more lawless and desolate world than traditional westerns, and challenging American stereotypes of a western hero with a morally ambiguous antihero. The film's success made Eastwood a major star in Italy[66] and he was rehired to star in For a Few Dollars More (1965), the second of the trilogy. Through the efforts of screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni, the rights to For a Few Dollars More and the trilogy's final film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), were sold to United Artists for about $900,000.[67]

In January 1966, Eastwood met producer Dino De Laurentiis in New York City and agreed to star in a non-Western five-part anthology production, The Witches (Le Streghe, 1967), opposite De Laurentiis's wife, Silvana Mangano.[68] Eastwood's 19-minute installment took only a few days to shoot, but his performance did not please critics; one wrote, "no other performance of his is quite so 'un-Clintlike'".[69]

Two months later Eastwood began work on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, again playing the mysterious Man with No Name. Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with Eli Wallach portraying the Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez. The storyline involved the search for a cache of Confederate gold buried in a cemetery. During the filming of a scene in which a bridge was blown up, Eastwood urged Wallach to retreat to a hilltop. "I know about these things", he said. "Stay as far away from special effects and explosives as you can."[70] Minutes later, confusion among the crew over the word "Vaya!" resulted in a premature explosion that could have killed Wallach.[70]

I wanted to play it with an economy of words and create this whole feeling through attitude and movement. It was just the kind of character I had envisioned for a long time, keep to the mystery and allude to what happened in the past. It came about after the frustration of doing Rawhide for so long. I felt the less he said, the stronger he became and the more he grew in the imagination of the audience.

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