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Clint Eastwood (born May 31, 1930) is an American movie actor and director, famous for his 'tough guy' roles. These include Dirty Harry and "The Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "Spaghetti Westerns".
Born in San Francisco, the son of a steel worker, Eastwood started a business related degree at Los Angeles College, but dropped out. Before acting, he was a member of the United States Army. He began work as an actor, appearing in such B-films as Tarantula, and Francis in the Navy. In 1959 he got his first breakthrough with the long-running Television series, Rawhide. As Rowdy Yates, he made the show his own and became a household name around the country. But Eastwood found even bigger and better things with Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) in 1964, and soon followed it with For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in pi๙) (1965). In the third "Dollars" film, he found one of his trademark roles, in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo) (1966). The movie was a big hit and he became an instant international star. As the mysterious "man with no name", Eastwood really redefined the traditional image of the American cowboy.
Stardom brought more roles, though still in the 'tough guy' mold.
In Where Eagles Dare (1968) he had second billing to Richard Burton but was paid $800,000 (rather more than a fistful). However he also began to branch out. Paint Your Wagon (1969) was still a Western, but a musical. Kelly's Heroes (1970) combined tough guy action with offbeat humor. His talents proved equal to all these tasks. 1971 proved to be one of his best years in films. He starred in the thriller Play Misty for Me (1971), and The Beguiled (1971). But it was his role that year as the hard edged police inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry that gave Eastwood one of his most memorable roles. The film has been credited with inventing the 'loose-cannon cop genre' that has been imitated even to this day. Many have said that Eastwood's portrayal of the tough, no-nonsense cop touched a nerve with many who were just plain fed up with crime in the streets.
Eastwood continued to take cop, western and thriller roles, including sequels to Dirty Harry: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) was an important contribution to the western genre. As the late seventies approached he found more solid work in comedies like Every Which Way But Loose (1978). However his career appeared to be on the wane.
It was the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983) that made Eastwood a viable star for the eighties. President Reagan even used his famous "make my day" line in one of his speeches. But the passing of time made it harder for him to be a believable tough guy. He did make his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall it did not have the box office punch his previous films had. After much less successful films like Pink Cadillac (1989), and The Rookie (1990), it was fairly obvious Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on more personal projects such as directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie 'Bird' Parker, and starring in and directing White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biography of John Huston.
But Eastwood rose surprisingly to stardom yet again in the 1990s. He starred in and directed the gritty, cynical western, Unforgiven in 1992, taking on the role of an aging ex-gunfighter, long past his prime. The film was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Actor for Eastwood, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. The following year, Eastwood gave a fine performance as a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent in the thriller In The Line Of Fire. He expanded his repertoire again with the love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and took on more work as director, much of it well received, including Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) and Mystic River (2003).
Despite the critical acclaim he has received for Oscar-winning epics in the latter part of his career, Eastwood remains the quintessential cowboy with mannerisms to match in all his movies. With a drawl most people call 'Western', he is cool, conceited and distant on screen. With his towering personality in literal and virtual terms, he is probably the only American actor who looks 'lonely in a crowd'.
Eastwood received Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.
Political career
In addition to his career as an actor, Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on April 8, 1986, receiving 72% of the vote (voter turnout was also doubled over the previous mayoral election). He served a two-year term before declining to run for re-election.
Discography
- "Unknown Girl" (single, 1961)
- "Rowdy" (single)
- "For You, For Me, For Evermore" (single)
- "Rawhide's Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites" (LP)
- "Kelly's Heroes" (soundtrack)
- "Cowboy in a Three Piece Suit" (single, 1981)
Quotations
Some of Eastwood's lines are among the best-known movie quotations of all time.
From Dirty Harry:
- Harry Callahan: "I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?"
From Sudden Impact:
- Harry Callahan: "Go ahead, make my day."
From Bronco Billy:
- Bronco Billy: "Dyin's too good for ya."
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