Today the movie legend Clint Eastwood will be 80 years old and he can look back on an epic journey that has lasted for almost 60 years in the movie industry, and it is far from over, actually!
His story begins in San Francisco, on May 31, 1930 when Clint Sr., a steelworker, and Ruth, a factory received a baby boy, which they named Clinton Eastwood Jr.
His first trembling steps in the movie business begun as he left college, trying to pursue a business career, and suddenly found himself in an uncredited role, as a lab assistant, in the horror movie “Revenge of the Creature” in 1955.
Clint must have liked that experience, since he continued to appear various B-movies, until he got a small breakthrough with the TV-series “Rawhide” in 1965. Then he moved on with spaghetti Westerns, an era for which he would become really notable.
The spaghetti era started with a “Fistful of Dollars” and a “Few Dollars More”, but it wasn’t until the third movie “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”, people really started to notice him and he began to receive bigger starring roles like in, “Where Eagles Dare” and “Paint Your Wagon”.
Clint’s second landmark came in 1971, when he first played the character, Harry Callahan in “Dirty Harry”, a role which would turn out to be almost legendary. The “Dirty Harry” series has a lot of great movies, with “Magnum Force” as my personal favorite. The thrilling saga of Harry Callahan ended with “The Dead Pool”, in 1988.
Despite the success with “Dirty Harry”, he continued doing Westerns as well, throughout the 70’s, with memorable titles like, “High Plains Drifter”and “Hang ‘Em High”. With “The Outlaw Josie Whales” as a personal favorite, because of its outstanding script.
At the end of the 70’s Clint also appeared in a few comedies like, “Every Which Way but Loose” and “Any Which Way You Can”, where he also sang the soundtrack “Beers To You” together with Ray Charles.
In 1988 he directed “Bird”, a movie about Charlie Bird Parker. After that he directed and starred in “White Hunter, Black Heart”, which is loosely based on the life of John Huston.
Another big milestone in his life came 1993, when he received two Oscars, Best Director and Best Picture, for “Unforgiven”, where he also starred in and received a nomination for Best Actor, which he lost to Al Pacino (“Scent of a Woman”).
Since then he has continued to both directing and starring in a variety of movies. However, what makes Clint Eastwood into a wonderful storyteller, is that his movies conveys amazing stories and fascinating fates, in which we can relate and identify us within.
As I wrote in the beginning of this post, the saga of Clint Eastwood is far from over! It actually continues this year with “Hereafter”, a thriller with supernatural elements, starring Matt Damon. This will be followed by a biopic about J. Edgar Hoover, in which we might get to see Leonardo DiCaprio, as the first FBI director.
To celebrate his birthday, many of his movies will turn up on DVD/Blu-ray this week. Nevertheless, if you just going to buy one Clint Eastwood movie, then I would recommend you to buy, “Clint Eastwood Collection” available on Blu-ray, which includes:
- “Absolute Power”
- “Dirty Harry”
- “Gran Torino”
- “Kelly’s Heroes”
- “Letters from Iwo Jima”
- “Million Dollar Baby”
- “Mystic River”
- “The Rookie”
- “Unforgiven”
- “Where Eagles Dare”.
This great collection of Clint Eastwood movies will keep you chained to your couch, for a very long time, I guarantee you that! The collection will be available tomorrow (June 1) and you can buy it at Amazon, by follow this link.
Photo: © Warner Bros. Pictures
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