Happy Birthday to a Hollywood star
Clint Eastwood turns 78 tomorrow. Eastwood has had the greatest
commercial and critical success and longevity of any other actor in
Hollywood. His career has spanned six decades. He has directed more
than 30 movies and won two Academy awards for Best Director.
Not bad for a guy whose first role was in the 1955 B-horror
movie
”
Revenge of the Creature.
”
Happy Birthday to a Hollywood star
Clint Eastwood turns 78 tomorrow. Eastwood has had the greatest commercial and critical success and longevity of any other actor in Hollywood. His career has spanned six decades. He has directed more than 30 movies and won two Academy awards for Best Director.
Not bad for a guy whose first role was in the 1955 B-horror movie “Revenge of the Creature.”
In the 1950s Eastwood worked in movies like “Francis Joins The Navy” (1955), a film about a talking mule and “Tarantula” (1955), where he played a fighter pilot who bombs a giant spider.
He got his big break in 1959 when he was cast as Rowdy Yates in the TV series “Rawhide,” where he worked for six years.
In 1964 he traveled to Spain to work with Italian director Sergio Leone on a western called “Fistful of Dollars.” It was the first of three “spaghetti westerns” that made Eastwood an international superstar. In the films he plays “the man with no name,” a mysterious gunfighter. The sequels were “For A Few Dollars More” (1965) and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (1966).
Universal Pictures let him direct his first movie in 1971. “Play Misty For Me,” is a thriller about a radio disc jockey who is harassed by an obsessive fan. Eastwood also starred in the film and Jessica Walter played the fan. It took 21 days to film and was $50,000 under budget.
In 1971 he also starred in the police thriller “Dirty Harry,” directed by Don Siegel. The role seems tailor-made for Eastwood, but Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra and John Wayne all passed on it first. In the movie, Eastwood plays Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan, a San Francisco policeman investigating a series of murders by a killer who calls himself Scorpio.
The ’70s were a productive decade for Eastwood. He starred in two “Dirty Harry” sequels, “Magnum Force” (1973) and “The Enforcer” (1976). He directed his first western, “High Plains Drifter” (1973), and starred in his first comedy, “Every Which Way But Loose” (1978).
He started off the ’80s by directing and starring in the comedy “Bronco Billy” (1980), about a traveling Wild West show. “Any Which Way You Can,” a sequel to “Every Which Way But Loose,” was released the same year. Both films were box office smashes.
In 1982 his career took a tumble with two flops in a row – the espionage thriller “Firefox” and “Honkytonk Man,” about a country western singer. Both films were directed by Eastwood.
Eastwood brought back the beloved character of Dirty Harry in “Sudden Impact” (1983), which he also directed. It became the highest grossing Dirty Harry film and the fifth highest grossing film of the year.
He took a risk with his next role in “Tightrope” (1984), in which he plays a New Orleans detective investigating the murders of several prostitutes he is linked with. It was a dark thriller and one of the first times that he played an emotionally flawed character. The film was a huge success. That same year he teamed up with Burt Reynolds in the action comedy “City Heat,” which showed his lighter side and let him parody his Dirty Harry image.
In 1988 he directed “Bird,” a film about jazz legend Charlie Parker. It was the first movie he directed in which he did not star in since 1973. It won an academy award for Best Sound and proved that Eastwood could direct something other than action pictures.
He ended the decade with another Dirty Harry film, “The Dead Pool” (1988), and the comedy “Pink Cadillac” with Bernadette Peters.
In 1992 Eastwood directed the film many call his masterpiece, a western called “Unforgiven.” He stars as Will Munny, a retired gunfighter who takes one last job to avenge a crime committed against a prostitute. The film won the academy award for Best Picture that year; Eastwood himself was nominated for Best Actor and won for Best Director.
He had always been a commercial success, but after “Unforgiven” and almost 40 years in the business, critics started to take notice of his vast body of work.
A year later he gave what I think is one of his best performances. “In the Line of Fire” stars Eastwood as a guilt ridden secret service agent trying to prevent the assassination of the president. It was a box office smash and at 63 Eastwood proved he could still draw an audience. He ended the decade acting in and directing four more films including his first love story “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995) with Meryl Streep.
Turning 70 didn’t slow Eastwood down – in 2000 he directed and starred in “Space Cowboys” (2000), followed by “Blood Work” in 2002. While both films received good reviews, they failed to attract a big audience. Undaunted, Eastwood focused his talents on directing. His 2003 film “Mystic River” was a critical and box office success and received an Academy award nomination for Best Picture. Eastwood again received a Best Director nod and three actors from the film – Sean Penn, Timothy Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden – won acting awards for their work.
A year later he won his second Best Director Oscar for “Million Dollar Baby,” a drama about a female boxer. The film also won Best Picture, a Best Actress Oscar for Hillary Swank and Best Supporting Actor for Morgan Freeman. Eastwood was nominated for best actor, but lost.
In 2006 he directed two WWII dramas – “Flags Of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima,” which told the story of the battle from the Japanese side. Once again he was nominated for best director.
At the 2008 Cannes film festival Eastwood was honored with a lifetime achievement award, and his newest film, “Changeling,” which he directed and stars Angelina Jolie, received great audience response.
Eastwood currently has a film in pre-production that has him doing double duty as director and actor. He may turn 78 tomorrow, but at this rate, I’m betting we can get at least another decade of films from him.
