As a teen, Clint Eastwood acted in a school play, but was so struck with such stage fright he vowed never to act again. Luckily for fans of Westerns, he eventually changed his mind.
After graduation, he worked as a haybailer, lumberjack, and truck driver, and briefly did clerical work at a Boeing factory in Seattle. Clint then went into the Army, where he became buddies with two other soldiers who had an interest in acting, David Janssen and Martin Milner. After they were discharged, the three of them shared an apartment in LA. Janssen went on to become TV's The Fugitive, while Milner became a beat cop on Adam-12. Eastwood, of course, became one of the movies' all-time toughest tough guys, and an Oscar-winning director.
Clint's career making moment came when he went to the CBS studio to pick up a friend. He was spotted by an executive who thought he had the right rough-and-tumble look for an upcoming western. "Are you an actor?," he asked, and for the next seven years Eastwood was Rowdy Yates on Rawhide, which spawned the catch phrase "Head 'em up, move 'em out."
The show made him a TV star, but the character bored Eastwood silly. He yearned to be a movie actor, not a TV star, but Hollywood moviemakers had little interest in a familiar face from TV. Frustrated, Eastwood accepted an offer from Italian movie maverick Sergio Leone, and began making low-budget westerns in Italy.
Eastwood's all-eyes acting was a perfect match with Leone's sparse but riveting dialogue, easy-to-translate plots, rich widescreen visuals, rousing music by Ennio Morricone, and intense close-ups that let audiences almost feel the sweat glistening on Eastwood's brow. His trio of films for Leone, A Fistful of Dollars (based on Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo), For a Few Dollars More with Lee Van Cleef, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, were dismissed by snooty American critics as "spaghetti westerns," but these popcorn-muncher flicks made Eastwood one of the biggest movie stars in the world. And they're still popular rentals today.
After Leone's death in 1989 and Siegel's in 1991, Eastwood dedicated 1992's Unforgiven to "Sergio and Don." The film, starring Eastwood with Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Richard Harris, won four Oscars. Eastwood won two, for Best Director and Best Picture.
Here's some Clint Eastwood trivia you may not have known:
- Eastwood wore the same poncho, without ever having washed it, in all three of his man with no name western movies.
- It's somewhat ironic, given his penchant towards directing or starring in westerns, that his name, Clint Eastwood, is an anagram for 'old west action.'
- Until it was displaced by the discovery of a larger version of the same tree in 2002, Eastwood used to be proud owner of the tree believed to be the nation's largest known hardwood--a bluegum eucalyptus.
- In Back To The Future Part III (1990), when Doc and Marty are at the drive-in preparing the DeLorean for the trip to 1885, Marty mentions Clint Eastwood and Doc replies that he's never heard of him. In this shot there is a movie poster on the drive-in's wall showcasing the movie Revenge Of The Creature (1955) which features an appearance by a young Clint Eastwood.
- His role in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was first offered to Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson.
- Saul Rubinek asks Eastwood how he chose the order in which to shoot six deputies in Unforgiven (1992). Eastwood replies that he got lucky. This is a sly reference to Eastwood's earlier film The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), in which Chief Dan George asks Eastwood how he chose the order in which to shoot four Union soldiers, and Eastwood responds with a lengthy explanation about their various holsters and the looks in their eyes.
- He was considered for the role of Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). The roll was eventually played by Charles Bronson.
- He's allergic to horses
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