Clint - Patrick McGilligan

One of the most revealing biographies of a Hollywood film star in recent times, this book discloses the truth about Clint Eastwood and dispels the carefully preserved mysteries of his past. For nearly 30 years, Clint has topped the box-office again and again.

Like so many of the characters he plays, typified perhaps by The Man With No Name, Clint Eastwood is secretive about himself, his past and his private life. Now approaching 70, he has tended to play characters who are cold, hard and morally ambiguous: from Sergio Leone's 'spaghetti westerns' (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) through Hang Em High and Dirty Harry to Pale Rider and Unforgiven. Alternately stroking and intimidating the press, Clint Eastwood has always been an arch manipulator: of women (he is a notorious philanderer and has at least 5 children out of wedlock), friends and colleagues, publicity and finance. Yet, in a violent, sometimes bewildering age, perhaps no star is more the hero to his audience: a symbol of simple solutions, law and order, 'de-fashioned' values, and no-bullshit rebellion against bureaucracy.

This is a serious and thoughtful biography that gives Clint his due as actor, director - and human being.