Clint Eastwood as Actor and Director: Career Overview

Early Life, Military Service, and Acting Beginnings

Clint Eastwood's career spans more than six decades, and he is one of Hollywood's few luminaries equally renowned for his acting and his directing. Born in 1930 in San Francisco, Eastwood's formative years were spent during the Great Depression, during which his family moved around in search of work. Eastwood has one younger sister ("Biography: Clint Eastwood" 1). He worked a series of odd jobs — mainly manual labor — until he was drafted into the army in 1950. During his time in the Army, Eastwood proudly recalls how he managed to skillfully avoid combat in the Korean War by becoming a lead swim instructor (Schickel 50). Eastwood exhibited traits of the proudly rebellious antihero that many of his films would later depict.

He was discharged from the Army three years later, after which he moved to Los Angeles and became interested in acting. His rugged good looks are what gained him access to Hollywood "despite minimal acting experience" ("Biography: Clint Eastwood" 1). After a few bit parts, Eastwood started his acting career in earnest with the television show Rawhide. Starring in Rawhide led to Eastwood being typecast into Western roles as a leading outlaw-protagonist — the quintessential loner cowboy full of toughness, courage, and frontier wisdom.

Eastwood has had a relatively tumultuous love life, which has perhaps added fuel to his depictions of masculinity on screen. In 1953, upon returning from the Army, Eastwood married his first wife, Maggie Johnson. They had two children together and, although separated for years, did not divorce until 1984. Eastwood then lived with actress Sandra Locke for ten years ("Clint Eastwood Biography" 1). After he and Locke broke up, Eastwood married television reporter Dina Ruiz in 1996; they divorced in 2014 ("Clint Eastwood Biography" 1).

Although Eastwood has been somewhat outspoken about his political views, he never used his celebrity status to wield power as a public servant — with the exception of serving as the mayor of Carmel for two years; Eastwood still lives there. He at one time aligned himself with Republican values, spoke at the 2012 Republican National Convention, and openly criticized President Obama, yet he more recently shifted his attitudes on issues like gun control and same-sex marriage, now declaring himself a libertarian ("Biography: Clint Eastwood" 1).

Rise to Stardom: Westerns and Dirty Harry

In 1964, while Rawhide was still in production, Eastwood began working with spaghetti Western specialist Sergio Leone. The first film they made together was A Fistful of Dollars, shot in Spain, which "made Eastwood an overnight star" ("Clint Eastwood Biography" 1). During the peak of the Western genre's popularity, Eastwood continued to star in European productions including For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). He then segued into crime dramas, starring in the 1971 film Dirty Harry and its sequels before stepping behind the camera.

As a director, Clint Eastwood lacks the status of a pure auteur, if only because his films span too many different genres and impart so many different tones, moods, and themes. Eastwood has directed Westerns (like The Outlaw Josey Wales), thrillers (like Play Misty for Me), romances (like The Bridges of Madison County), biopics (like Bird), dramas (like Gran Torino), sports dramas (like Million Dollar Baby), action films, war films, and crime dramas. His oeuvre is expansive, making it difficult to pinpoint elements of continuity in his style. Eastwood has earned two Academy Awards for Best Director: for Unforgiven (1993) and for Million Dollar Baby (2005).

Directorial Debut and Early Style

In 1971, Clint Eastwood made his directorial debut with the critically acclaimed film Play Misty for Me. His directorial style in that film was heavily influenced by Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, both of whom had also directed Eastwood in their own films. From Leone, Eastwood learned the art of "meticulous framing — with great attention to both foreground and background depth," whereas his "efficiency-based approach, focusing only on the base needs of each scene," was a pragmatic skill learned from working with Siegel (Kozak 1). Play Misty for Me is in many ways a quintessential 1970s-era thriller, and yet it bears the distinct stamp of Eastwood's burgeoning cinematic eye.

Eastwood never relinquished his affection for the Western genre, which is why he went on to direct several Westerns himself. The first was 1973's High Plains Drifter, described as "genre-stretching" and "tonally playful" (Kozak 1). While interjecting wry or dark humor into the Western was not necessarily novel by 1973, Eastwood's ability to envision himself in the leading role allows for a more cohesive on-screen narrative. He also uses High Plains Drifter as an opportunity to stretch his creativity by fusing elements of Mexican cinema — particularly the blend of surrealism with outlaw and drifter themes — into the traditional Western framework.

Eastwood followed High Plains Drifter with several other Westerns, most notably the classic The Outlaw Josey Wales. On the surface, the film bears most of the marks of the genre, yet as Kozak notes, it serves as a "fitting swan song for the genre," which Eastwood himself reckoned was falling out of vogue by 1976 (1). As a result, The Outlaw Josey Wales is part love song to the Western, part ironic tribute. In terms of lighting, framing, and editing, the film draws much from core genre elements, but Eastwood manages to interject a meta-textual dimension that is only present in some of his other movies. He built upon that success by returning occasionally to the Western for sentimentality and creative sustenance. In 1992, Eastwood directed Unforgiven, a much darker coda to the genre. Kozak calls it Eastwood's "crowning achievement as a director and his game-changing epilogue to an established career in the genre" (1). Eastwood's Westerns are uniquely well-developed because of his extended period acting under the tutelage of Leone and because of his intimate familiarity with the American frontier ethos — both its positive and negative components.