Posted by Lambchop
There are several reasons to love Clint Eastwood. One of them is that he is the mystery speaker at the Republican National Convention tonight- choosing to participate in what is arguably the most important election of our lifetime.
Clint Eastwood has been in the public eye since first becoming a contract actor with Universal Studios in the 1950s. Raised in blue-collar Oakland, Eastwood worked odd jobs as a hay bailer, truck driver, and logger. Later Eastwood joined the Army Special Services where he met actors David Janssen and Martin Milner, who convinced Eastwood to move to Los Angeles and try acting.
Eastwood made a career out of westerns including TV series, Rawhide, and later, playing tough cops where he simultaneously honed his craft of directing. Eastwood won Academy Awards for films Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby and an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1994.
Eastwood tended to vote Republican, but, like many, was opposed to wars in Viet Nam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq. Eastwood tends toward Libertarianism. Politics has bee more than just hobby for Eastwood - he was elected mayor his home town of Carmel in 1986. Later Eastwood was appointed to the California State Park and Recreation Commission by Gov. Davis. Gov.Schwarzenegger appointed Eastwood to the California Film Commission and he also acted as a spokesman for Take Pride in America, an agency of the United States Department of the Interior which advocates taking responsibility for natural, cultural, and historic resources.
In 1988 made the film Bird about legendary jazz musician Charlie Parker. Black Director Spike Lee criticized Eastwood for making the film saying a white guy shouldn’t make it. Eastwood said: "He was complaining when I did Bird. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else."
Lee continued his criticism over the years saying the Changeling (set in Los Angeles before the city had a large group of African-Americans) was too white. Eastwood’s response: "What are you going to do, you going to tell a fuckin' story about that? Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a movie and it's 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people.
Spike Lee: "Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen. If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that ... But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know."
Eastwood Response: "The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go: 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate." Referring to Lee, he added: "A guy like him should shut his face."
Later in 2005, Clint Eastwood, when asked about Director Michael Moore, said if Michael Moore ever shows up at his door with a camera, he will kill the controversial movie director.
‘Nuff Said
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