Eastwood, Clint (1930—)
In the course of a career that, by the late 1990s, had spanned almost half-a-century, Clint Eastwood rose from obscure bit-part movie actor to America's number one box-office star, became a producer for his own highly successful company, Malpaso, and established himself as a film director of some accomplishment. He is often compared with Gary Cooper—both men have been frequentlyand accurately identified as long, lean, and laconic—but Eastwood's dark good looks and granite-like persona, often self-mocking under a cloak of grim impassivity, are very different from the earlier icon whose career ended as Eastwood's began.
Eastwood's own iconic associations are, most famously, the cheroot-chewing Man With No Name, poncho-clad, unkempt, and unshaven as he goes about his bloody business; he is also Harry Callahan, dark avenger of the San Francisco police force, clean-cut and neatly suited as he goes about even bloodier business. His true significance in the history of Hollywood filmmaking, however, attaches to the fact that, as both director and actor, he breathed new life into a dying American art form, the Western. Finally, with Unforgiven (1992), Clint Eastwood subverted the myth of this historic canon, inverting his own practiced characterization to transmit a moral message for a modern age.
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