The many different lives of Clint Eastwood, from actor to director to mayor

Clint Eastwood It just doesn’t stop. His latest film as a director, Jurado #2, hits theaters this week and has been widely It is reported to be his last film.. But even at 94 years of age and with a 70-year Hollywood career behind him, only a fool would bet against the great gunslinger having another bullet or two in his cinematic chamber.

Like all of Hollywood’s most iconic stars, Eastwood has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reinvent himself to stay at the top of the industry. He made his name as a man without a name in some of the best Westerns of all time before becoming an awards season fixture as a pleasingly old-fashioned director with a reputation for making movies with the same ruthless efficiency as a fast cowboy.

So, with Eastwood possibly leaving Hollywood for good and riding off into the sunset, it’s worth taking a look at his eclectic career and enviable legacy on the big screen.

Nameless man

Eastwood made his big screen debut in the 1955 monster film Revenge of the Creature, appearing in a brief, uncredited role as a laboratory technician. The same year, he landed his first credited role in the comedy film Francis in the Navy. The following year, the Eastwood we would come to know appeared in a handful of western films, and in 1958, he played a key supporting role in Ambush at Cimarron Pass.

Read more: Clint Eastwood pulls out his iconic Fistful of Dollars poncho (Yahoo Entertainment)

After this, there is a gap of six years in his filmography on the big screen. Eastwood, at the time, made a mark on the small screen as one of the breakout stars of the Western television series Rawhide, in which he played the brilliantly named Rowdy Yates for eight seasons, the only cast member to appear in all 217 episodes. After his interlude on the small screen, Hollywood star Clint Eastwood appeared in earnest. In 1964, Sergio Leone’s iconic spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars, introduced the world to The Man with No Name.

Inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s samurai film Yojimbo, the film stars Eastwood as an unnamed gunfighter and mercenary who takes advantage of warring families in a town on the Mexican border to make some money. The film was largely panned by critics at the time, but its satirical feel and Eastwood’s sixties effortlessness have become iconic in the years since.

No doubt part of this is due to Leone’s sequels, A Few Dollars More and the epic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which were released quickly within a year of each other. The latter film was a financial success despite general critical antipathy toward spaghetti westerns and established Eastwood as a star. He would spend the rest of the ’60s and much of the ’70s starring in epic action films and westerns, capitalizing on his status thanks to the “Dollars” trilogy.

Read more: How ‘Dirty Harry’ Paved the Way for 50 Years of Complicated Crime Movies (Variety, 8 min read)

Around this time, Eastwood found his second truly iconic role as the titular morally compromised cop in Don Siegel’s thriller, Dirty Harry. He would eventually reprise the character in four sequels, including one that he was able to direct himself. And it was as a director that Eastwood would find his next level of professional identity.

behind the camera

In the early 1970s, Eastwood wanted greater creative control. He finally got his wish in 1971 when he made his directorial debut with the psychological thriller Play Misty For Me, in which he played a radio DJ harassed by a fanatical listener. The film’s release received critical acclaim and modest financial success.

In the book American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood, the star explained why he was ready to direct. He said, “I saved all the mistakes I made and I saved all the good things I learned, and now I know enough to control my own projects and get what I want from actors.”

Read more: Kiefer Sutherland sent a letter to Clint Eastwood to get a role in a new movie (Digital spy, 2 minute read)

Over the next few decades, Eastwood directed a whole series of films, many of which also saw him take on the lead role. During this time, some of Eastwood’s biggest critical and commercial successes appeared, including High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales. It was a big moment for his film career, but Eastwood was, as always, ready for a change.

Mr. Mayor

Dissatisfied with simply being one of the biggest names in Hollywood, Eastwood turned to politics in the 1980s. He had always been a political voice, expressing libertarian views and speaking out against American involvement in numerous wars, including Korea and Vietnam. In 1986, he was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He served a two-year term in office.

Eastwood subsequently spent several terms as part of the California State Parks and Recreation Commission, including during Arnold SchwarzeneggerIt is his time as governor of the state. Since then, his political involvement has taken strange directions, including his infamous speech to an empty chair representing Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention in 2012. In 2020, he endorsed Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg for president.

Oscar darling

Curiously, Clint Eastwood was completely ignored by the Academy until the early 1990s. But, just as The Return of the King was showered with oscar awards in recognition of all the lord of the rings franchise, it seemed as if the Academy was holding its breath only to praise one Eastwood film above all others. That movie was the 1992 thriller. unforgivable – the closest Eastwood will ever get to a revisionist Western.

Self-referentially, the film saw Eastwood play an aging outlaw taking on one last job. Eastwood said at the time that he would never make a traditional Western again, and this seems like a final, declarative statement about the genre. It’s a fantastic film, taking aim at some of the western’s hollowest clichés and depicting bracing, brutal violence stripped of all Hollywood glamour. Eastwood celebrated and criticized his own past to tremendous effect.

Read more: Dolph Lundgren calls Clint Eastwood a “huge inspiration” (BANG Showbiz, 2 minute read)

Unforgiven earned nine Oscar nominations and won four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He narrowly missed out on the Best Actor award in favor of Pacino – another Hollywood icon rewarded after decades for his work. This was the film that established Eastwood as a star worthy of recognition at the highest level. In 2005, he again won Best Picture and Best Director for Million Dollar Baby.

The definitive third act

Since Unforgiven, Eastwood has rarely stopped to breathe. He has become prolific behind the camera, making dozens of films, eight of them in the last decade alone. Some of those films have become late-career star vehicles for Eastwood, including Cry Macho and The Mule, while others have brought other stars to the forefront. Many of the films in the latter category have received Oscar recognition, including the one starring Bradley Cooper. american sniper and Richard Joyawhich catapulted Paul Walter Hauser to the A list.

Read more: Has Clint Eastwood’s new, and possibly last, film just entered the 2024 Oscar race? (Digital Trends, 2 minute read)

Eastwood moves on, with Juror No. 2 in his latest (and perhaps final) foray behind the camera. The film also sounds fascinating, following nicolas hoult as a murder trial juror at the center of a devastating moral conundrum. Interestingly, the film will have a very limited release in American theaters. It is an unusual way to approach the final farewell of a true cinema great.

Juror #2 will be in UK cinemas from November 1st.