Eastwood, Clint (redirected from Clint Eastwood)

Eastwood, Clint (Clinton Eastwood, Jr.), 1930–, American actor and director, b. San Francisco. Eastwood, who began his acting career in 1955, came to public attention with his role in the TV Western Rawhide and in so-called spaghetti Westerns (usually filmed in Italy), such as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). As an actor, Eastwood is best known for his starring roles in action films, in which he portrays a strong, silent, often violent hero. He has played a leading role in more than 40 movies, including Dirty Harry (1972), Magnum Force (1973), The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976), and In the Line of Fire (1993). Films in which he is both director and star include Play Misty for Me (1971), Sudden Impact (1983), the Academy Award–winning Unforgiven (1992), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), True Crime (1999), and Blood Work (2002). Eastwood scored a critical and box-office success as director of Mystic River (2003), a haunting cinematic parable of violence and revenge. The following year he directed and starred in Million Dollar Baby, the saga of a young female boxer and her grizzled trainer, which garnered Academy Awards for best director and picture. He also directed Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (both: 2006), two movies centered on the World War II battle for Iwo Jima that explore the experiences and echoes of the conflict from the American or Japanese perspective, respectively. A gifted musician who has written scores for a number of his films, he served as mayor of Carmel, Calif., from 1986 to 1988.

Bibliography

See Clint Eastwood: Interviews (1999), ed. by K. Coblentz; biographies by J. Ryder (1987), B. McCabe (1996), and R. Schickel (1996); studies by L. Pfeiffer and B. Zmijewsky (rev. ed. 1988) and P. Smith (1993).

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Eastwood, Clint(on)

(born May 31, 1930, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.) U.S. actor and director. He won attention in the television series Rawhide (1959–66) before his roles in three of Sergio Leone's “spaghetti westerns” (1964–66) made him an international star. He returned to the U.S. for the successful Dirty Harry (1971), the first of a series of action films in which he played laconic and dangerous heroes. He combined directing with acting in films such as Play Misty for Me (1971), Pale Rider (1985), Unforgiven (1992, Academy Award), A Perfect World (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Million Dollar Baby (2004, Academy Award). His interest in jazz led him to direct and produce Bird (1988), about Charlie Parker. His minimalist style of acting and direction garnered critical acclaim to accompany his long-established box-office success.

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Eastwood, Clint (1930–  ) movie actor, director; born in San Francisco. He began as a bit-player in low-budget movies, then gained a minor following for the television Western series, Rawhide. Appearing in three Italian-made "spaghetti Westerns" (1964–66), he found himself becoming an international star as a laconic if deadly gunslinger, "the man with no name." Returning to Hollywood, he made his directorial debut with Play Misty for Me (1971), but carved out another superstar role for himself in several "Dirty Harry" Callahan movies. Incredibly popular throughout the world and able to command among the highest fees for his appearances, he expanded his range of roles in later years to adventure movies, comedies, and dramas but his greatest came with another Western, Unforgiven (1992), for which he won Academy Awards for best director and best picture. As tightlipped and unorthodox in real life as in his movies, he surprised everyone by becoming mayor of Carmel, Calif. (1987–89).