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Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer, and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide (1959–1965). He rose to fame for playing the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) during the late 1960s, and as Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, and The Dead Pool) throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made him an enduring cultural icon of a certain type of masculinity.
For his work in the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor. These films in particular, as well as others including Play Misty for Me (1971), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Tightrope (1984), Pale Rider (1985), Heartbreak Ridge (1986), In the Line of Fire (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Gran Torino (2008), have all received commercial success and critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980), which are his two most commercially successful films after adjustment for inflation.
In addition to directing many of his own star vehicles, Eastwood has also directed films in which he did not appear, such as Mystic River (2003) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations, and Changeling (2008). He has received considerable critical praise in France, including for several films which were not well received in the United States, and he has been awarded two of France's highest honors: in 1994 he became a recipient of the French Republic's Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 2007 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur medal. In 2000, he was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. bio source: wikipedia
Controversy surrounding Clint Eastwood biography claiming he is an atheist
On August 19, 2002 Patrick McGilligan released a biography about Clint Eastwood. In the book he labels Eastwood as an atheist (quote from the book is needed).
On December 24, 2002 just 4 months after the book was published Clint Eastwood sued the biographer and the publishing company for $10 million dollars. A People article said the following:
Clint Eastwood, 72, filed a $10 million libel suit on Christmas Eve against the author, Patrick McGilligan, and St. Martin's Press for publishing a harshly critical biography of him, "Clint: The Life and Legend," reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
According to the suit, the book falsely accuses the "Unforgiven" Oscar winner of wife-beating, atheism and wartime cowardice.
Author McGilligan, whose previous books include bios of directors Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor, and St. Martin's Press, were out to "destroy Clint Eastwood's reputation -- both as a maker of motion pictures and as a man," Eastwood's lawyer claimed in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.
"Readers and reviewers of the book who know no better simply accept the false statements," the lawsuit said.
According to a review in the Houston Chronicle, the book was first published in Great Britain three years ago, and "has apparently been bouncing around U.S. publishers amid rumored threats from Eastwood's lawyers. It isn't difficult to see why. 'Clint' is perhaps the most thoroughly demythologizing book yet written on modern Hollywood."
McGilligan told the Chronicle that Eastwood's suit is "ruthless" and "vindictive."
"Clint makes a lifelong and career-long habit of suing people into the ground," McGilligan told the paper from his home in Milwaukee. "The book is as truthful and factual as possible, considering that the guy puts up a wall of publicity and lawyers whenever he goes anywhere."
Lawsuit information source: People
INFORMATION IS NEEDED ABOUT THE RESULTS OF THE LAWSUIT: The book is currently not being sold by Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com (9-21-12), although used copies are available at both websites, and new copies at a premium price are available on Amazon.com from non-Amazon retailers. On the other side of the aisle we see that on October 11, 2011 the New York Times used "Clint: The Life and Legend" as a source. Was the lawsuit successful in keeping the book off the shelves? Please help Celebatheists.com answer this question, you can submit any information to this articles discussion page.
Showbizspy article "Clint Eastwood on the Fence About God"
In a March 14, 2011 article with Showbizspy Clint Eastwood "remains on the fence about his religious beliefs."
"I was born during the Depression and I was brought up with no specific church. We moved every four or five months during the first 14 years of my life, so I was sent to a different church depending on wherever we lived. Most of them were Protestant, but I went to other churches because my parents wanted me to try to figure out things for myself. They always said, ‘I just want to expose you to some religious order and see if that’s something you like’. So although my religious training was not really specific, I do feel spiritual things. If I stand on the side of the Grand Canyon and look down, it moves me in some way... Of course, it would be wonderful to talk with my parents again, who are, of course, deceased. It makes the idea of death much less scary. But then again, if you think that nothing happens after you die, maybe it makes you live life better. Maybe you’re supposed to do the best you can by the gift you’re given of life and that alone," - Clint Eastwood
In another interview with Showbizspy Clint Eastwood explained that he doesn't fear death:
“Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realization that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt. And I don’t feel any different to how I did when I was 60 or 70. I felt good then, and I feel good now. You’re forced to think about death a lot at this age, because you’ve lost a lot of people. Let’s put it this way, there wouldn’t be much point in me attending a high-school reunion now because there wouldn’t be anybody there. We’d struggle to raise a quorum. I picked up the paper the other day and another two were gone — people I’d grown up with." - Clint Eastwood in Showbizspy January 16, 2011
Quotes from Clint Eastwood
In an joint interview between Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood from September 2011 in GQ they got to talking about politics. Clint Eastwood expressed an opinion about gay marriage that would fly in the face of many of the fundamentalist Christians and Republicans of our time.
Clint Eastwood: I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21, because he promised to get us out of the Korean War. And over the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And libertarians had more of it. Because what I really believe is, Let’s spend a little more time leaving everybody alone. These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of.
Leonardo Dicaprio: That’s the most infuriating thing—watching people focus on these things. Meanwhile, there’s the onset of global warming and—
Clint Eastwood: Exactly!
Leonardo Dicaprio: —and these incredibly scary and menacing things with the future of our economy. Our relationship to the rest of the world. And here we are focusing on this?
Clint Eastwood: They go on and on with all this bullshit about “sanctity”—don’t give me that sanctity crap! Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want.
"My parents would take me to a church, but it was always a different place. They were Protestants and one church would be Episcopalian, another would be Presbyterian and another would be Methodist. I remember my father saying, 'You’ve got to go to church tomorrow', and I was a little kid and I said to him, 'How come you don’t go?' And he said, 'Well, it’s my only day off and I want to sleep.' And I said, 'Well, it’s my only day off too.' And he said, 'OK, don’t go.' I think he wanted to expose me to a certain amount of religion in order to see if I had any feelings for it and whether it was something I wanted to carry through life.
‘I was always respectful of people who were deeply religious because I always felt that if they gave themselves to it, then it had to be important to them. But if you can go through life without it, that’s OK, too. It’s whatever suits you. ‘I do believe in self-help. I’m not a New Age person but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I’ve always liked the Buddhist religion. When I’ve been to Japan I’ve been to Buddhist temples and meditated and I found that rewarding." - Clint Eastwood in an Daily Mail interview January 2011