Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor, film director, film producer and composer. He is primarily known for his tough guy, anti-hero acting roles in violent action films, particularly urban police dramas in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He has received five Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award and five People's Choice Awards—including one for Favorite All-Time Motion Picture Star.

His performances as the laconic Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns and as Inspector Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films have seen him become an enduring icon of masculinity. For his work in the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), Eastwood won Oscars for Best Director, producer of the Best Picture, and received nominations for Best Actor. These films in particular, as well others such as Play Misty for Me (1971), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), In the Line of Fire (1993) and Gran Torino (2008) have all received great critical acclaim and commercial success.

Eastwood also has an interest in politics; serving as Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from 1986 to 1988. He has directed many of his films and has also found success in others in which he has not acted such as Mystic River (2003). He is the only person to have starred in blockbuster films for five consecutive decades, making him the longest-running movie star ever.http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2009/1/14/is-clint-eastwood-the-longest-running-movie-star-ever.html

Early life

Eastwood was born in San Francisco, California, to Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker and migrant worker, and Margaret Ruth Eastwood (née Runner), a factory worker. Clint was born a very large baby at 11 pounds (5 kgs). Eastwood has English, Scottish, Dutch, and Irish ancestry. He was raised in a "middle class Protestant home" and moved often as his father worked at a variety of jobs along the West Coast. The family settled in Piedmont, California, during Eastwood's teens, and he graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1949. He worked at a pulp mill in Springfield, Oregon when he was 18 or 19. Eastwood then worked as a gas station attendant, as a fireman, and played ragtime piano at a bar in Oakland.Career In 1950, during the Korean War, Eastwood was drafted into the US Army, and was aboard a military flight that crashed into the Pacific Ocean north of San Francisco (Drake's Bay). He escaped serious injury, but had to remain behind to testify at a hearing investigating the cause of the crash. This kept him from being shipped to Korea with the rest of his unit.sammonsays.com John Sammon interview of Eastwood During his military service, Eastwood became friends with fellow soldiers and future actors Martin Milner and David Janssen.