Clint Eastwood

The Eastwoods lived comfortably in Piedmont, California — a swimming pool, a country club, a car for each parent, a father who was a manufacturing executive at Georgia-Pacific. Piedmont High asked their son to leave anyway, after he wrote something obscene on the athletic field scoreboard and burned an effigy on the school lawn. He finished at Oakland Technical in February 1949 and worked as a lifeguard, a paper carrier, a grocery clerk, a forest firefighter and a golf caddy. He said he tried to enroll at Seattle University in 1951 and got drafted instead. Flying back from Seattle in an Army bomber that ran out of fuel, he went into the ocean near Point Reyes and made two miles to shore with the pilot and a life raft.

Universal signed him in April 1954 at 100 dollars a week. Rawhide ran from 1958 to 1965 and paid him 750 dollars an episode at the start and 119,000 at the end. Sergio Leone made him the Man with No Name for 15,000 dollars and a Mercedes. Dirty Harry and his own directing debut, Play Misty for Me, both came in 1971, and Malpaso, the company he set up in 1967, has produced all but four of his American films. He took Best Director and Best Picture twice, for Unforgiven in 1992 and Million Dollar Baby in 2004, and directed a long run of films he stayed out of: Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, Changeling, Invictus, American Sniper, Sully, Richard Jewell. Juror #2 came out in 2024. In June 2026, at 96, he said he was finished.

He has eight known children by six women and acknowledged only half of them at the time. The first, Laurie, was born in 1954 during his courtship of Maggie Johnson and was adopted by a couple in Seattle. He fathered Kimber with the stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis in 1964, while married, and Scott and Kathryn with the flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves in 1986 and 1988, both legally fatherless. He lived with Sondra Locke from 1975 and did not divorce Johnson until 1984. When he and Locke separated in 1989 she sued him for palimony and then for fraud, and both suits settled. He has never said anything publicly about her death in 2018. He will not confirm how many children he has, on the grounds that they are vulnerable and he can protect himself.

The reputation has been argued over the whole time and is not settled. Dirty Harry drew praise for the performance and was widely attacked as fascistic in the same season, and 21 years later Unforgiven took apart the Western his face had been built on. He was a Republican from 1951 and has been a registered Libertarian since 2008. He was mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea from April 1986 to April 1988. In 2012 he addressed an empty chair standing in for President Obama at the Republican convention, which he later said he regretted. France gave him the Legion of Honour in 2007, and in 2010 Obama gave him an arts award and called his films essays in individuality and hard truths.

Clint Eastwood's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Malpaso Productions company
  Has made all but four of his American films 1967
• A Fistful of Dollars film
  Sergio Leone paid him 15,000 dollars and a Mercedes-Benz 1964
• Play Misty for Me film
  His directing debut, made the same year as Dirty Harry 1971
• Unforgiven film
  Best Picture and Best Director, and the end of the Western he had been making 1992
• Million Dollar Baby film
  Best Picture and Best Director again, 12 years later 2004
• Juror #2 film
  His last film 2024

• February 2, 1949 aged 18 Graduates from Oakland Technical High School Piedmont High had asked him to leave three years earlier.
• 1951 aged ~21 Drafted into the Army and survives a bomber ditching off Point Reyes He and the pilot swam two miles with a life raft. He was discharged in February 1953.
• April 1954 aged 23 Signs with Universal at 100 dollars a week
• 1958 aged ~28 Becomes Rowdy Yates on Rawhide The show ran to 1965. His pay went from 750 dollars an episode to 119,000.
• 1971 aged ~41 Directs Play Misty for Me and stars in Dirty Harry Critics praised the performance and called the film fascistic.
• April 8, 1986 aged 55 Sworn in as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea He served one two-year term.
• 1992 aged ~62 Unforgiven wins Best Picture and Best Director
• 2012 aged ~82 Speaks to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention The chair stood in for President Obama. He said in 2016 that he regretted it.
• June 2, 2026 aged 96 Reported to have retired from acting and directing at 96

• John Wayne 1907–1979
  Western star whose screen persona became a durable symbol of American masculinity. complained to him in writing about High Plains Drifter
• John Ford 1894–1973
  Director of Westerns and Depression dramas who won four directing Academy Awards. built the Western he inherited
• Morgan Freeman b. 1937
  Academy Award-winning actor whose commanding voice and gravitas made him a beloved cultural figure. acted in Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby
• Meryl Streep b. 1949
  Most nominated actor in Oscar history, renowned for her chameleon-like ability to inhabit diverse roles. starred opposite him in The Bridges of Madison County
• Steven Spielberg b. 1946
  Director and producer whose blockbusters and dramas have defined American cinema for five decades. left American Sniper to him
• Barack Obama b. 1961
  44th President and first African American to hold the office, known for the Affordable Care Act. the empty chair