In a career that has spanned five decades (and counting), Clint Eastwood, 68, has redefined and elevated the Western.

"Rawhide" premiered in 1959, perhaps the peak of the TV Western's popularity.

Clint Eastwood's upbringing and early acting attempts manifested few indications of such a stellar career. His childhood was shaped by the Depression and his father's search for work. His family finally settled in San Francisco, where he finished high school and signed on with the Army. After surviving the Korean War, he moved to Los Angeles where he married Maggie Johnson and worked many jobs while attending college. A friend suggested he apply to Universal, where he landed a contract spot. "It was $75 a week," recalls Eastwood, "which seemed like a lot of money at that time."

Eastwood appeared in a few forgettable Universal films, like Tarantula and Revenge of the Creature. By the mid-Fifties, he says, "the studio system was slowly coming to an end, and TV was starting to come on real strong." Eastwood eventually landed a major role in Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958). Production problems resulted in a forgettable film, which disappointed him.

"Finally," he says, "I heard CBS was doing a Western series." Eastwood tested the next day and got one of the roles as Rowdy Yates on Rawhide, which premiered in 1959. Over 20 Western series enthralled American television audiences at that time, including Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Maverick. "It was a great period," Eastwood remembers. "I was learning a lot, and I worked with a lot of people I grew up watching on the screen." But his character did not develop beyond the well-meaning, impetuous cowboy.

An opportunity came when his agent apologetically forwarded a script for a Western to be made by an Italian studio. Eastwood took the chance and went to Italy to make the movie under director Sergio Leone. The minimalist acting style Eastwood applied to his role in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) fit perfectly with Leone's vision of the West--stark, amoral, and violent. Eastwood's laconic, mysterious, lightning-fast gunfighter not only determined the style of the movie but shaped the "spaghetti Westerns" that followed.

Revolutionizing the Western was the last thing on Eastwood's mind. After A Fistful of Dollars previewed to enthusiastic audiences in Florence, Leone quickly signed Eastwood to a sequel, For a Few Dollars More (1965). It was Eastwood's last Italian Western, "I could have gone on doing them for another 10 years, but there's only so far to go."

The spaghetti Westerns opened in the U.S. in 1967 and 1968 and were universally panned. However, Eastwood's character (dubbed the Man With No Name) caught on with the younger audience, which was disillusioned by Vietnam and had no allegiance to the conventional tall-in-the-saddle, white hat-wearing good guy. Eastwood created the prototype for a bold Western anti-hero.

Eastwood then formed his own production company, Malpaso. His first American feature, Hang 'Em High (1967), "delved into the pros and cons of capital punishment." Eastwood also proved he could draw an audience as the star of a mainstream American film.

In his next movie, Coogan's Bluff (1968), Eastwood teamed up with director Don Siegel and began one of cinema's greatest collaborations. Siegel not only directed Eastwood in some of his best roles, but mentored the budding director. Their next efforts were Two Mules for Sister Sara and Beguiled (1971).

After directing himself in a popular thriller, Play Misty For Me (1971), Eastwood re-upped with Siegel for the phenomenal Dirty Harry (1971). The role rocketed Eastwood from movie star to cultural icon.

Following the routine Joe Kidd (1972), Eastwood directed himself in a Western that was anything but ordinary. High Plains Drifter (1972) is the taut tale of a mysterious stranger who wreaks vengeance not only on the outlaws who murdered the town sheriff but on the townspeople who condoned the crime. As a producer, director, and star, Eastwood was in total control, challenging the genre and bringing to it a rare mystical quality.

In 1976, Eastwood brought his unique point of view to a more traditional Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales. "I love the plot line, not only of a man searching for a life after devastating experiences, but also a person who believed that human beings could exist together without the necessity of eradicating each other," says Eastwood. "I'm always attracted to characters who are in search of family or in search of some kind of unity."

Eastwood seemed to be on the same kind of search after his divorce from Maggie in 1984, tackling an ever-wider variety of films. One of these was the Capraesque Bronco Billy (1980) about an ex-shoe salesman who stars in an anachronistic Wild West show and emulates the moral virtues of his movie cowboy heroes.

Pale Rider followed in 1985. Though a commercial success, the film was indicative of a professional plateau. It looked as if Eastwood and the Western had seen their best days. The Nineties proved otherwise.

Unforgiven (1992), the story of a rusty gunfighter lured out of retirement by one last job--the retribution killing of two men who disfigure a prostitute--offered complex characters and the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. It took the Western's most familiar element, violence, and exposed its corrosive influence with chilling effect. Eastwood says. "It demythologized the West."

Unforgiven earned Eastwood Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Actor.

Eastwood continues to fill theaters with an ever-expanding variety of films. He remarried in 1996 to television news journalist Dina Ruiz, and the couple has a new baby girl. "I feel a certain comfort about the things I've done," says Eastwood. "The main thing is to keep trying, keep shooting at it. It's not like trying to do all you can or trying to rush to the end, but just having an inner goal you try to live up to."

Copyright ©1998 Cowboys & Indians

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Text by Lance Thompson Photographs by Eddie Adams/Outline