Clint
The Life and Legend
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
“Pitiless.” —Le Monde
“A damning indictment of the man and the culture that lionizes him. ” —The Washington Post
“The most thoroughly demythologizing book yet written on modern Hollywood.” —The Los Angeles Times
With just one syllable, the man is identified: there can only be one Clint, the American lone wolf personified. And now, in the last few years, Clint Eastwood has become the point man for the American conservative movement, known for a certain lecture to an empty chair and his runaway hit “American Sniper.”
When this biography first appeared, it was met with critical praise for its research, and anger on the part of its subject to the point where he sued the author for $10 million: that suit, which resulted in the effective suppression of the book in the United States, was eventually settled without penalty or threat of future reprisal.
Now updated and drawing on extensive interviews with intimates, legal documents and behind-the-scenes reportage on the making of his most famous (and obscure) films, Clint: The Life and Legend is, for fans as well as non-fans, the ultimate life story of this corroded pillar of Hollywood.
This update from the original edition encompasses Clint’s personal life since then — divorce, reality television, and Clint’s appearance before the 2012 Republican National Convention — and all his recent films, through to the success and controversy of “American Sniper.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Certain stars encourage our appetite for scandal, but Clint Eastwood is an actor people identify with and want to like. This presents an acute problem for those who read McGilligan's carefully researched and well-written but highly unflattering unauthorized portrait of the icon's life. McGilligan vilifies Eastwood as a womanizer with two priorities: "fast cars and easy women." The author takes potshots at Eastwood's lack of education, suggesting he lied about finishing high school, then slanders his patriotism by speculating that he romanced a general's daughter to escape service in Korea. When a girlfriend became pregnant and had an abortion, Eastwood claims it "crushed his heart," provoking McGilligan to question whether he was simply trying to evoke sympathy for himself. The book is entertaining when it describes Eastwood's early period as a contract player, thrown into such potboilers as Ambush at Cimarron Pass. His TV years in Rawhide are comprehensively covered, as is his association with director Sergio Leone in the series of spaghetti westerns that launched him to superstardom. McGilligan's analysis of Eastwood's moviemaking points out that he "rips the masks off women and they are revealed as murderous harpies" in such films as Play Misty for Me and High Plains Drifter. His much publicized relationship with Sondra Locke spotlights a streak of cruelty, along with competitive behavior toward directors because "Clint hated anybody who was weak." McGilligan's tome is worth reading, however, when it delves into Eastwood's contributions as an artist who has produced a body of work that's won two Oscars and an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. Illus. not seen by PW.
