10 THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT
GRIZZLED Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood returns to the big screen Dec. 14 in The Mule, playing a World War II vet who becomes a courier for a Mexican drug cartel. Here are ten things you don’t know about the 88-year-old Dirty Harry star that’ll make your day.
1 When Clint was born in 1930, hospital nurses nicknamed him “Samson” because he was a hefty 11 pounds, six ounces.
2 He’s descended from Mayflower passenger William Bradford.
3 He was a lifeguard and swimming instructor while based at California’s Fort Ord during the Korean War.
4 According to the late Burt Reynolds, Eastwood was fired as a contract player at Universal Pictures “because his Adam’s apple stuck out too far. He talked too slow. And he had a chipped tooth and he wouldn’t get it fixed.”
5 His breakout role in 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars was first offered to James Coburn and Charles Bronson — but their rejections led to Clint becoming The Man with No Name.
6 He wore the same poncho in A Fistful of Dollars, 1965’s For a
Few Dollars More and 1966’s The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly — and says he never washed the garment because “it would fall apart.”
7 He scored the lead in Dirty Harry because original choice Frank Sinatra couldn’t hold a gun, according to a hiring honcho. “That sounded like a pretty lame excuse,” says Eastwood, “but it didn’t matter to me. I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ ”
8 In the ’80s, he served for two years as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., a town of less than 4,000, and repealed a law that prohibited selling and eating ice cream on public streets.
9 He’s a pianist and composed the scores of multiple films, including Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Flags of Our Fathers.
10 A hardcore golfer, he owns Tehama Golf Club in the Golden State.