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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.
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
gained critical acclaim for directing, including the Charlie
Parker biography, Bird (1988); and 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 latest
directorial and acting project, Space Cowboys, costarring
James Garner, Donald Sutherland, and Tommy Lee Jones.
Eastwood
was elected mayor of Carmel, California, in 1986, serving
two years. He owns a pub in Carmel, the Hog's Breath, as
well as a rustic resort lodge on the outskirts of town.
In March 2003, he is slated to receive the Life Achievement
Award from the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles.
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