Clint was born in 1930 in San Francisco, California. He landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Even though he is being honored tonight for his work on Rawhide, the following shows how much more he contributed to western film.
Clint’s big-screen breakthrough came as “The Man with No Name” in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). As the last film racked up phenomenal grosses, Clint rose to a sought-after box office attraction very quickly. Yet again, a success, was his first U.S. made western film, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968), before playing in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), he leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
We also know the name “Clint Eastwood” from the wonderful “Dirty Harry” movies: Dirty Harry (1971), Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), The Gauntlet (1977), and Sudden Impact (1983). There were so many more films, that he created or worked in, than just these (we would need several more pages to list them all): Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958), Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Pale Rider (1985), Unforgiven (1992), and many many more.
The Reel Cowboys were proud we are to honor such a legendary actor, producer, and director at the 2019 Silver Spur Award Show. |
