|  Over
the years, Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood has uttered many memorable
lines in many memorable movies. "Go ahead, make my day," in
Sudden Impact. "You've got to ask yourself one question:
Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" in Dirty Harry. "Girlie,
tough ain't enough," in Million Dollar Baby.
But the
most revealing line Eastwood ever uttered may have been to USA Today
(January 25, 2004), when he said, "I like the libertarian view,
which is to leave everyone alone." The quote confirmed that Eastwood
is not just one of Hollywood's most honored and longest-lasting stars,
but perhaps America's highest-profile libertarian.
Eastwood has made no secret of his pro-liberty views. He first hinted
at his politics in Parade magazine (January 12, 1997) when
he wrote about government: "Abuse of power isn't limited to bad
guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant.
Those in power get jaded, deluded, and seduced by power itself."
He explicitly went on the record as a libertarian in a March 1997 Playboy
interview, when he was asked: "How would you characterize yourself
politically?" Eastwood replied: "Libertarian... Everyone leaves
everyone else alone."
He reiterated
that with his 2004 USA Today quote, and then elaborated when
asked about same-sex marriages. Eastwood replied: "From a libertarian
point of view, you would say, 'Yeah? So what?' You have to believe in
total equality. People should be able to be what they want to be and
do what they want -- as long as they're not harming people."
Then, just to confirm
that his views were neither conservative nor liberal, Eastwood was quoted
in an undated profile in the British magazine Hello as saying,
"There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me
the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I have a reverence
for individuality... I've always considered myself too individualistic
to be either right-wing or left-wing."
Eastwood's career is an example of that individualist approach. Through
hard work and talent, he went from playing bit parts in low-budget movies
to become one of the world's biggest box office stars. Then, at a stage
in his life when most actors would be content to bask in fading glory,
he reinvented himself as a highly respected Academy Award-winning director.
Born in 1930, Eastwood did a stint in the U.S Army and briefly attended
Los Angeles City College before dropping out. He turned to acting, and
made his movie debut in Revenge of the Creature (1955). Other
nondescript movie roles followed -- in Tarantula (1955), The
First Traveling Saleslady (1956), and Escapade in Japan
(1957). From 1959-1966, he starred in a TV western, Rawhide,
and got his first taste of national fame. That role led to an invitation
to star in a trio of Sergio Leone "spaghetti westerns," A
Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965),
and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Eastwood's laconic
character, The Man With No Name (dressed in a signature flat-brimmed
sombrero and shabby poncho), captivated audiences around the world,
and served as a template for his later taciturn "tough-guy"
roles. The movies made Eastwood an international star.
The coming years brought a wider variety of roles. He appeared in Where
Eagles Dare (1968), Paint Your Wagon (1969), and Kelly's
Heroes (1970). In 1971, he hit pay dirt again with Dirty Harry.
As .44 Magnum-wielding police inspector Harry Callahan, he created one
of his most memorable characters and tapped into a growing national
concern about crime. That same year, he got his first job behind the
camera, directing Play Misty for Me. For the rest of the 1970s
and 1980s, he alternated between action thrillers and oddball comedies,
starring in Magnum Force (1973), High Plains Drifter
(1973), The Eiger Sanction (1975), The Outlaw Josey Wales
(1976), The Gauntlet (1977), Every Which Way But Loose
(1978), Escape From Alcatraz (1979), Pale Rider (1985),
Heartbreak Ridge (1986), and Pink Cadillac (1989).
During those same years, Eastwood began a long strong of appearances
on Quigley Publications' annual Top 10 Poll of Money-Making Stars. (In
all, he appeared on the list 21 times.)
By the late 1980s, Eastwood began to expand his artistic horizons. He
directed Bird, a biography of jazz great Charlie "Bird"
Parker (1988) and White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), loosely
based on the life of director John Huston. In 1992, he put a capstone
on his career when he directed and starred in Unforgiven. The
movie, a gritty "revisionist" western about an aging gunfighter,
offered a stark contrast to his previous, violence-glorifying westerns.
Unforgiven earned an Academy Award for Best Picture, and Eastwood
won for Best Director. Other popular movies followed, including In
the Line of Fire (1993), The Bridges of Madison County
(1995), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997),
Absolute Power (1997), Mystic River (2003), and Flags
of Our Fathers (2006).
In 2004, Eastwood scored a knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby.
Like Unforgiven, it turned a genre's clichés upside
down; this time by transforming a feel-good boxing movie into an unflinching
examination of a tragic disability. Million Dollar Baby won
Eastwood a second Best Director Academy Award, and also picked up a
trophy for Best Picture. In 2006, his World War II film Letters
from Iwo Jima won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
Eastwood
has interests outside of acting and directing. He's a longtime jazz
fan (and wrote music for nine of his movies, including Million Dollar
Baby and Mystic River). In 1986, he was elected mayor
of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and served a two-year term. He's also
become an outspoken critic of the federal Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), after an inn he owns was hit by an ADA lawsuit. In 2000,
he testified before Congress in support of a bill that would help protect
small-business owners from such opportunistic lawsuits.
--
Bill Winter
Quotable
"I
like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone." —
Clint Eastwood in USA Today (January 25, 2004) |
