Clint Eastwood Biography

Actor / Filmmaker

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Name at birth: Clint Eastwood, Jr.

Between 1959 and 1966, Clint Eastwood was a regular on the TV western Rawhide. In 1964 he went to Spain to work on A Fistful of Dollars, a western feature film with director Sergio Leone. The movie and his subsequent outings with Leone -- films dubbed "spaghetti westerns," with Eastwood as a nameless, taciturn loner -- made him a star. In the 1970s Eastwood became a superstar with his series of Dirty Harry movies, with the actor as a tough, taciturn cop with a vigilante streak. He then began directing and producing his own films, beginning with Play Misty For Me (1971). Since then he has earned a reputation as a successful and efficient producer/director/actor, and qualifies as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history. As an actor, his films include The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976, based on the novel by Forrest Carter), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), and Gran Torino (2008). As a director, his films include: Unforgiven (1992, co-starring Gene Hackman), Mystic River (2003, starring Sean Penn), Million Dollar Baby (2004, with Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) and Changeling (2008, starring Angelina Jolie). He was given the Oscar as best director for both Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, and both films also won Academy Awards as the best picture of the year. He was nominated for a directing Oscar for Letters from Iwo Jima.

Extra credit: In 1986 Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California... "Clint Eastwood" was the name of a hit 2001 single by the hip-hop group Gorillaz... Eastwood's character in his films with Leone is often referred to as "The Man With No Name."

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