Clinton Eastwood was born in San Francisco on May 31, 1930senior, today a monument with its 90 years. The boy grows wandering (he will change 10 schools in 10 years) and stays in California when his parents go to live in Texas. "I spoke little - he said - I lived in a world of my own and the only thing I was passionate about was music". In truth, even the snakes (when he was a boy he was 13 at home) and the acting with which he conquered the girls. With the desire to emerge, the magnetic gaze and the lazy gait copied by his idol Gary Cooper managed to tear small parts in the B-Movies of the 1950s; then he became the protagonist of the serial "The men of the prairie" which took off on CBS in 1959. On the set he stole the secrets of the trade and soon became popular on TV. Leo Di Caprio's character in Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is a homage dipped in poison at that time in his career, since that was when his agent proposed him the script for "For a Fistful of Dollars" (1964). What intrigued him - he says - was having recognized in the plot the Kurosawa films that Hollywood had filmed with "The Magnificent Seven".
He also accepted to please his first wife, Maggie Johnson, but clashed with CBS who did not want to leave him free for the time of filming in Italy. In the suitcase, in the end, he put a new contract for TV and a poncho bought for the occasion.
For his part, Sergio Leone entrusted himself to him after the refusal of many other actors and a tight negotiation on the downward remuneration. To characterize the character of the Nameless Man, he imposed a Tuscan hat and cigar on him: a constant suffering for someone who loathed smoking. But thus was born his fortune and an unprecedented cliche in the history of the western. Eastwood returned home without knowing about the film's high grossing: the film had also changed its title. He was surprised when Leone called him back the following year on the set of "For a few dollars more"; what was being born was a foster child relationship. "The good the bad the bad" of '66 was an international success, but the three films only landed in Hollywood after 1967 and Eastwood doubled itself replacing Enrico Maria Salerno who in Italian had given him a new range of shades. He would return to the western over and over again, both as an actor ("Hang him higher") and as a director ("The pale knight"), until the epic of "The ruthless" which today establishes his unmistakable icon.
1968 marks the third turning point of his career: he meets Don Siegel on the set of "The Man with the Leather Tie", a metropolitan and violent western and learns from him what Leone could not give him: how to make himself credible without a poncho on him.
Keep the hat (from Texan this time) and the closed and rough character. He also inherits the anarchist, libertarian, unconventional spirit from Siegel.
In the 70s the series "Inspector Callaghan" with Siegel gave him great popularity; the directorial debut is in "Play Misty for me" (1971). His Malpaso production company was born, soon known for its ability to reduce the unnecessary costs of the studios. He now produces all his films and, despite some failures, is a "sure value" for the Warner distribution. At the time of Inspector Callaghan both he and Siegel were accused of fascism and excessive violence in the representation of the police; he had fierce criticism of the character's stereotype. The two responded in 1979 with "Fuga da Alcatraz", unconditionally acclaimed. Meanwhile Eastwood had built a solid reputation as a totally American star, spotless hero in a corrupt world. In 1993 with "The merciless" came the glory of the Oscar with two statuettes and a flood of nominations. Two years later he would have had a career Oscar and then two more between "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby"; with "Gran Torino" here is the celebration like the new John Ford. He resembles the director of "Ombre rossa" for his common roots in a puritan idealism, for the idea of a frontier engraved in the DNA of the American melting pot, for the melancholy of a time that passes inexorably, for the passion of cinema as a complete craft and free, for the tormented background of the characters that everyone must atone for a guilt and seek redemption. But the real trait in common with the great Hollywood tradition is the expressive economy: few camera movements, great attention to the actors, depth of field, sense of space, epic attitude that tends to elegy. Several times he said he wanted to disappear from his films as an actor and then denied himself in the recent "The Mule"; in fact, it is increasingly inspired by real characters that it brings to the screen as everyday heroes, from "Sniper" to "Sully" or to stories from the past such as "EJ Hoover" or "Changelling". In private life it looks more and more like a monument. But it is not easy and has punctuated the life of sentimental stories and children (8). The portrait that his partner Sondra Locke made of her during a poisonous divorce lawsuit is merciless. But now that he turns 90 for all of us, Clint always remains, the silent, the tormented, the ironic Man without Name.