Clint Eastwood's many different lives, from actor to director to mayor

Clint Eastwood just doesn't stop. His latest film as director, Juror #2, arrives in cinemas this week and has been widely reported to be his final movie. But even at 94 years of age and with a 70-year Hollywood career under his belt, only a fool would bet against the great gunslinger having another bullet or two in his filmmaking chamber.

Like all of the most iconic Hollywood stars, Eastwood has shown a remarkable ability to reinvent himself in order to stay at the top of the industry. He carved out his name as a man without a name in some of the best Westerns ever before becoming a fixture of awards season as a pleasingly old-fashioned director with a reputation for making movies with the same ruthless efficiency as a quick-draw cowboy.

So, with Eastwood possibly bowing out of Hollywood for good and riding off into the sunset, it's worth having a look back at his eclectic career and enviable legacy on the big screen.

Man With No Name

Eastwood made his big screen debut in the 1955 monster movie Revenge of the Creature, appearing in a brief and uncredited role as a lab technician. The same year, he got his first credited role in the comedy movie Francis in the Navy. By the following year, the Eastwood we would come to know popped up in a handful of Western movies and, in 1958, he played a key supporting role in Ambush at Cimarron Pass.

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After this, there's a six-year gap in his big screen filmography. Eastwood, at that time, made a mark on the small screen as one of the breakout stars of Western TV series Rawhide, in which he played the brilliantly named Rowdy Yates across eight seasons — the only cast member to appear in all 217 episodes. After his small screen interlude, Clint Eastwood the Hollywood star appeared in earnest. In 1964, Sergio Leone's iconic spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars introduced the world to The Man With No Name.

Inspired by Akira Kurosawa's samurai movie Yojimbo, the film features Eastwood as a nameless gunslinger and mercenary who takes advantage of warring families in a town on the Mexican border to make some cash. The film was largely panned by critics at the time, but its satirical feel and Eastwood's effortless 60s cool have become iconic in the years since.

Part of this is undeniably due to Leone's sequels — For a Few Dollars More and the epic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly — which were released in quick-fire fashion a year apart. The final movie was a financial success despite general critical antipathy towards spaghetti Westerns and cemented Eastwood as a star. He would spend the rest of the 60s and much of the 70s starring in big-money action epics and Westerns, leveraging his status from the "Dollars" trilogy.

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Around this time, Eastwood found his second truly iconic role as the titular morally compromised cop in Don Siegel's thriller Dirty Harry. He would eventually reprise the character in four sequels, including one that he was able to direct himself. And it was as a director that Eastwood would find his next level of career identity.

Behind the Camera

By the early 1970s, Eastwood wanted more creative control. He finally got his wish in 1971 when he made his directorial debut with the psychological thriller Play Misty For Me, in which he played a radio DJ stalked by a fanatical listener. Critical praise and modest financial success greeted the film's release.

In the book American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood, the star explained why he was ready to direct. He said: "I stored away all the mistakes I made and saved up all the good things I learned, and now I know enough to control my own projects and get what I want out of actors."

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Throughout the next few decades, Eastwood directed a whole string of films — many of which also allowed him to step into the lead role. During this time, some of Eastwood's biggest critical and commercial successes showed up, including High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales. It was a great time for his screen career, but Eastwood was — as ever — ready for a change.

Mr Mayor

Unsatisfied with simply being one of Hollywood's biggest names, Eastwood made the move into politics in the 1980s. He had always been a political voice, expressing libertarian views and speaking against American involvement in numerous wars, including Korea and Vietnam. In 1986, he was elected as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He served a two-year term in the post.

Eastwood subsequently spent several periods as part of the California State Park and Recreation Commission, including during Arnold Schwarzenegger's time as the state's governor. His political involvement has since gone in bizarre directions, including his infamous speech to an empty chair representing Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention in 2012. In 2020, he endorsed the Democrat candidate Mike Bloomberg for president.

Oscars Darling

Bizarrely, Clint Eastwood was entirely ignored by the Academy until the beginning of the 1990s. But, just as Return of the King was showered with Oscars in recognition of the entire Lord of the Rings franchise, it felt as if the Academy kept their powder dry just to praise one Eastwood movie above all others. That film was the 1992 thriller Unforgiven — as close as Eastwood will ever get to a revisionist Western.

In self-referential fashion, the film saw Eastwood play an ageing outlaw taking on one last job. Eastwood said at the time that he would never make a traditional Western again, and this does feel like a final, declarative statement on the genre. It's a terrific film, taking aim at some of the more hollow cliches of the Western and depicting bracing, brutal violence shorn of all Hollywood glamour. Eastwood celebrated and critiqued his own past to tremendous effect.

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Unforgiven got nine Oscar nominations and won four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He narrowly missed out on the Best Actor award in favour of Al Pacino — another Hollywood icon being rewarded after decades for his body of work. This was the film that cemented Eastwood as a star worthy of recognition at the highest level. In 2005, he won Best Picture and Best Director once again for Million Dollar Baby.

The Ultimate Third Act

Since Unforgiven, Eastwood has seldom paused for breath. He has become prolific behind the camera, making dozens of films — including eight in the last decade alone. Some of those movies have become late-career star vehicles for Eastwood — including Cry Macho and The Mule — while others have foregrounded other stars. Many of the films in the latter category have received Oscars recognition, including the Bradley Cooper-starring American Sniper and Richard Jewell, which catapulted Paul Walter Hauser into the A-list.

Read more: Did Clint Eastwood’s new, and possibly final, movie just enter the 2024 Oscar race? (Digital Trends, 2 min read)

Eastwood just keeps going, with Juror #2 his latest — and perhaps final — foray behind the camera. The film sounds fascinating too, following Nicholas Hoult as a murder trial juror at the heart of a devastating moral conundrum. Strangely, the film is getting a very limited release in US cinemas. It's an unusual way to treat the final farewell for a true cinematic great.

Juror #2 is in UK cinemas from 1 November.