Early life and work of Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, California to Clinton Eastwood Sr. and Margaret Ruth (née Runner).

Early life

He was a large baby at 11 lb 6 oz (5.16 kg) and was named "Samson" by the nurses at the St. Francis Hospital.[1][2][3] Eastwood has English, Scottish, Dutch and Irish ancestry.[4] The elder of two siblings, he has a younger sister, Jeanne Bernhardt, born in 1934. His father worked as a salesman and briefly a detective in San Francisco, according to U.S. Census records,[5][6] and at different jobs along the West Coast during the 1930s.[7] In 1940, the Eastwoods settled in Piedmont, California and did not move again until after Clint reached adulthood.[8] Eastwood often drops references to the Great Depression in interviews, implying that he comes from a poor family, but according to Sondra Locke, "Actually they were never poor, they lived in a very wealthy part of town, had a swimming pool, belonged to the country club, and each drove his own car."[9]

Oakland Technical High School

Eastwood was a weak student and records indicate he had to attend summer school.[8] He was held back at Piedmont Junior High School due to poor academic scores, and later attended Piedmont High School from January 1945 to at least January 1946. Despite his athletic and musical talents, Eastwood shunned school teams and the band.[8] He was told he would make a good basketball player, but he was interested in individual pursuits like tennis and golf, a passion he retains today.[8] He transferred to Oakland Technical High School, where the drama teachers encouraged him to take part in school plays, but was not interested. According to Eastwood, all he had on his mind were "fast cars and easy women".[10][11] He took auto mechanic courses and studied aircraft maintenance, rebuilding both aircraft and car engines.[11] Eastwood also became a pianist; according to a friend, he "would actually play the piano until his fingers were bleeding".[11] He was scheduled to graduate in January 1949 as a midyear graduate, although it is not clear if he ever did.[12] Biographer Patrick McGilligan notes that high school graduation records are a matter of strict legal confidentiality.[12] "Clint graduated from the airplane shop. I think that was his major," joked classmate Don Kincaid.[12] Another high school friend, Don Loomis, echoed "I don't think he was spending that much time at school because he was having a pretty good time elsewhere."[12] "I think what happened is he just went off and started having a good time. I just don't think he finished high school," explained Fritz Manes,[12] a boyhood friend two years younger than Eastwood, who remained associated with him until their falling out in the mid-1980s.

By early 1949 his father moved to a plant in Seattle. Eastwood moved in with a friend in Oakland named Harry Pendleton. He was invited to a house party in Malibu, where he met the film director Howard Hawks who, with John Ford, would influence his career.[13] Eastwood rejoined his family in Seattle, where he worked at the Weyerhaeuser Company pulp mill in Springfield, Oregon with his father.[14] He worked briefly as a lifeguard after obtaining a certificate from a Red Cross course,[15] and played ragtime piano at a bar in Oakland.

Military service

In 1951, Eastwood was drafted by the United States Army and assigned to Fort Ord in California, where he was appointed as a lifeguard and projectionist of training films.[16] Don Loomis recalled hearing that Eastwood was romancing one of the daughters of a Fort Ord officer, who might have been entreated to watch out for him when names came up for postings.[17] To supplement his $67 a month salary he held a part-time job on a loading dock for the Spreckels Sugar Refining Company. He visited Carmel for the first time and remarked "someday I'd like to live here", although he confessed he had gained unwanted attention from a 23-year-old school teacher, after a one-night stand, who stalked him and threatened to kill herself.[18]

On 30 September 1951, while returning from a prearranged tryst with a girlfriend in Seattle,[19] Eastwood was in the radar operator's compartment of an Douglas AD-1Q dive bomber that crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the Point Reyes Peninsula near San Francisco.[20][21] The aircraft had departed from Sand Point Naval Air Station near Seattle, bound for northern California.[n 1] During the flight, the rear door would not stay closed, the oxygen system proved inoperable, and the navigation systems and intercom failed. Eventually, during the late afternoon, the plane ran out of fuel and the pilot was forced to ditch the aircraft in the sea several miles off Point Reyes.[n 2]

Both Eastwood and the pilot were uninjured and Eastwood was able to swim to shore using a life raft.[22] After some difficulty getting onto the beach, Eastwood made his way past Abbotts Lagoon and over a high fence towards a bright light that was nearer to him than Point Reyes Lighthouse. This turned out to be the KPH RCA receiving station.[20] The single operator at the station initially had trouble understanding Eastwood's explanation of the plane crash, but ultimately called the Coast Guard. He was taken to a "Coast Guard Station" (probably the Point Reyes Lifeboat Station) and reunited with the pilot, who had drifted further north. The next day, Eastwood was taken to the San Francisco Presidio and told that he would likely have to testify to an inquiry, which in the event was not the case. He later reflected on his thoughts during the crash, "I thought I might die. But then I thought, other people have made it through these things before. I kept my eyes on the lights on shore and kept swimming."[23][20] A search is currently underway to locate the submerged wreck of the plane.[24][25]

During his military service Eastwood became friends with future successful TV actors Richard Long, Martin Milner and David Janssen.[26]

Eastwood left Fort Ord in the spring of 1952 and moved back up to Seattle where he worked as a lifeguard for some time. However, as he had little money and few friends in Seattle, he moved down to Los Angeles.[27] During this time he worked managing an apartment house in Beverly Hills by day (into which he then moved) and worked at a Signal Oil gas station by night.[28][29] In June 1953, Eastwood met 22-year-old secretary Margaret Neville Johnson on a blind date. They married shortly before Christmas 1953 in South Pasadena with friend Harry Pendleton as his best man, and honeymooned in Carmel.[28][30] After concluding his part-time work, he briefly attended Los Angeles City College and held several jobs digging foundations for residential swimming pools,[29] which he continued in between his early films.[31]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Different sources report different intended destinations. Schickel says it was Alameda Naval Air Station near Oakland. Zmijewsky says it was Mather Air Force Base at Sacramento. The Navy's accident report says it was San Diego, with a stop at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento.
  2. ↑ Accounts of the crash location also differ slightly. Schickel says "they could see the cliffs at Point Reyes, three or four miles away. Zmijewsky says it was north of Drake's Bay and two miles offshore. The Navy's accident report indicates that it was west of Kehoe Beach.

References

  1. ↑ Schickel 1996, p. 21.
  2. ↑ guardian.co.uk Gentle man Clint, November 2, 2008.
  3. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p. 22
  4. ↑ Smith, Paul (1993). Clint Eastwood a Cultural Production. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1958-1.
  5. ↑ adherents.com The Religious Affiliation of actor/director Clint Eastwood.
  6. ↑ Zmijewsky, p. 13
  7. ↑ CBS Evening News interview, February 6, 2005.
  8. 1 2 3 4 McGilligan (1999), p. 34
  9. ↑ Locke, Sondra (1997). The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly – A Hollywood Journey. William Morrow and Company. ISBN 978-0-688-15462-2.
  10. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p. 35
  11. 1 2 3 McGilligan (1999), p. 37
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 McGilligan (1999), p. 40
  13. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p.41
  14. ↑ The King of Western Swing - Bob Wills Remembered. Rosetta Wills. 1998. p. 165 ISBN 0-8230-7744-6.
  15. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p.43
  16. ↑ Eliot, p. 23
  17. ↑ McGilligan, p. 49
  18. ↑ McGilligan (1999), pp. 48–49
  19. ↑ McGilligan (1999), pp. 49
  20. 1 2 3 Schickel 1996, pp. 51–55.
  21. ↑ "Accident Report: AD-1Q BU#409283 Eastwood". U.S. Navy. 1951.
  22. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p. 50
  23. ↑ Zmijewsky (1982), p. 16
  24. ↑ Prado, Mark (April 19, 2018). "Clint Eastwood's downed plane off Point Reyes subject of search". marinij.com. Marin Independent Journal. Retrieved April 21, 2018. (includes text reprint of its original October 1, 1951 newspaper report on the incident)
  25. ↑ Holm, Walt. "The Hunt for Clint Eastwood's AD-1 Skyraider". openexplorer.nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved April 21, 2018.
  26. ↑ Schickel 1996, p. 50.
  27. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p.54
  28. 1 2 McGilligan (1999), p. 55
  29. 1 2 Zmijewsky (1982), p. 17
  30. ↑ McGilligan (1999), p. 56
  31. ↑ Zmijewsky (1982), p. 19

Bibliography

  • McGilligan, Patrick (1999). Clint: The Life and Legend. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-638354-8.
  • Schickel, Richard (1996). Clint Eastwood: A Biography. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-679-42974-6.
  • Zmijewsky, Boris; Lee Pfeiffer (1982). The Films of Clint Eastwood. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-0863-9.
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