Clint Eastwood has achieved something that almost no other actor has ever achieved: even 60 (!) years after his breakthrough in Sergio Leone’s Italian western classic ‘For a Fistful of Dollars’, he is still a sought-after and well-known star – both front and back the camera. Although his latest directorial work, the thriller “Juror #2”, will be released next year, Eastwood himself has decided to leave his Hollywood career behind him – after all, he is now 93 years old!
But how did he manage to maintain his career for so long? According to cult director Quentin Tarantino, there was a point at which Eastwood’s fame could easily have gone downhill: after he established himself in the US with supporting roles (for example in Jack Arnold’s monster spider classic “Tarantula”) and television series (including with 217 episodes of the western series ‘ A Thousand Miles of Dust’, Eastwood only received the attention he deserved in Italy. Together with Sergio Leone, he realized the so-called Dollar Trilogy, still one of the biggest milestones of the Spaghetti Western. But what would happen next?
Many Americans who celebrated success with Italian genre films eventually disappeared into the B-movie sector – until they were no longer stars, but at best ‘former stars’. A fate that could easily have befallen Eastwood. According to Tarantino, a single encounter was responsible for this not happening…
…and the one with a director Don Siegel: After the conclusion of the trilogy “Two Glorious Scoundrels” (1966), Eastwood moved back to America, where he took the lead role in Siegel’s action film “Coogan’s Big Bluff” (1968) – which was only a moderate success, but had a long life . The result was a long-lasting and extremely fruitful artistic partnership.
With the western ‘Eat for the Vultures’ and the psychosexual drama ‘Betrayed’, Eastwood and Siegel made two more films together – before they of “Dirty Harry“also a big hit commercially: The vigilante thriller spawned a total of four sequels and gave the star of “Gran Torino” arguably his most iconic role. Eastwood had thus temporarily secured his status as a Hollywood star – and he maintained it in recent decades with countless masterpieces and blockbusters, which he increasingly directed himself.
Quentin Tarantino: “One of the most important collaborations of all time”
In his Book “Cinema Speculation”* Quentin Tarantino has made a connection between the escape story of ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ (1979) and the collaboration between actor and director. He is writing: “(…) The real saving grace is that Siegel managed not to abandon his friend Eastwood. The artistic collaboration between a big star and a big director is one of the most important of all time. A big part of this partnership was that both men owed the other more than they could ever repay.
Amazon Prime Video customers can currently stream “Escape from Alcatraz” on the FILM LEGENDS channel (free with a 7-day trial):
Siegel helped revive Eastwood’s career – and Eastwood’s star persona in turn had a lasting impact on former studio contract filmmaker Siegel’s career. “With Siegel, Eastwood escaped the status of a flash in the Hollywood studio system (unlike Lee Van Cleef, who stayed in Italy and produced Pastaland thrillers),” says Tarantino. “With Eastwood, Siegel escaped anonymity and only became an important filmmaker in Hollywood’s A-League relatively late in his life.”
Eastwood continued to make his mark on the Western genre, appearing in numerous thrillers and action films and was also able to establish himself as a celebrated author in Hollywood: he was recognized for his films ‘Merciless’ (1992) and ‘Million Dollar Baby’. (2004), each awarded a director’s Oscar.