10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Clint Eastwood

This Friday will see the release of “Cry Macho,” the latest film starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. The release from AT&T Inc.'s T Warner Bros. is expected to be a commercial hit, making the 91-year-old actor/director the oldest Hollywood legend to reign at the box office.

Eastwood has been in the public eye since the mid-1950s, and to many people, he is as familiar as a beloved relative or longtime friend.

Yet there are a great many aspects to Eastwood’s career that some people may not realize. To fill that knowledge void, here are 10 things about Eastwood that may have escaped your knowledge.

1. An Inauspicious Debut: Eastwood was a new contract player at Universal-International when he made his big-screen debut in the 1955 B-level “Revenge of the Creature” as an absent-minded lab technician. Eastwood’s screen time was so minimal that he wasn’t identified in the credits. 

Five months after the film went into general release, the studio was unimpressed with his potential and terminated his contract.

2. Bye-Bye RKO: Eastwood first gained a modicum of audience attention in “The First Traveling Saleslady,” a 1956 comedy western starring Ginger Rogers and Carol Channing. Eastwood was cited in the film's advertising, although he had relatively little to do in this film as an Army lieutenant in the Old West, which was just as well because very few people saw it.

The film also has the sorry distinction of being the final production released by RKO Pictures, the studio that gave the world “King Kong,” the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals and “Citizen Kane.”

3. Unlikely TV Appearances: Eastwood’s first foothold in stardom occurred in the role of Rowdy Yates in the TV western “Rawhide,” which ran from 1958 to 1965. During this period, Eastwood made a number of guest appearances in unlikely TV shows including the talking horse sitcom “Mister Ed,” the game show “Pantomime Quiz” and Danny Kaye’s kitschy variety show.

Eastwood looked conspicuously uncomfortable in all of these surroundings, later admitting he was uncertain how to play himself on screen.

After “Rawhide” was canceled in 1965, he never made another guest appearance on television and only rarely acquiesced for TV talk show appearances, albeit under controlled circumstances.

4. The Last Choice For The Big Role, Part 1: In 1964, Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone was stymied in his efforts to cast an American star as the lead in his proposed western “A Fistful of Dollars. His initial choice Henry Fonda asked for too much money and actors Charles Bronson, Steve Reeves, Ty Hardin and James Coburn rejected the script. Eastwood’s “Rawhide” co-star Eric Fleming also passed.

Actor Richard Russell, who appeared in several cheaply-made Italian gladiator epics, was also unimpressed with Leone’s script, but agreed to consult on a potential star. Russell picked Eastwood’s name from a list of American actors and Eastwood jumped at the chance to attempt the big screen stardom that eluded him in the 1950s. You know the rest of the story.

5. Holy Missed Opportunity, Batman! In 1968, the TV series “Batman” was slumping in the ratings and producer William Dozier, who also produced “The First Traveling Saleslady," began fishing around for guest stars to play new villains.

Dozier was in touch with Eastwood to play Two-Face, the nemesis from the Batman comics whose face was half-disfigured in an acid attack by a mobster.

Although Dozier rewrote the Two-Face backstory for a less grisly explanation of his appearance — he became a TV news anchor who was injured when an overhead spotlight fell and exploded — the series’ make-up crew had a difficult time creating an effect that would not be too gruesome for the show’s family-friendly image.

Alas, “Batman” was canceled before a solution could be created.

6. The Last Choice For The Big Role, Part 2: While the Leone films gave Eastwood film stardom, the 1971 “Dirty Harry” cemented his status as a movie superstar. Once again, he was far from the original choice for the role.

The character of police inspector Harry Callahan was envisioned for John Wayne, who was unhappy with the screenplay’s level of violence. Frank Sinatra was attached to the project, but delays in creating a new screenplay resulted in his departure for other endeavors. Steve McQueen was pitched with the idea of making the film a sequel to his 1968 “Bullitt,” but he claimed to abhor sequels, while Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster and George C. Scott all turned it down. Eastwood accepted the part and, again, you know how that turned out.

7. Roles That He Turned Down: While Eastwood’s two biggest roles came by default rather than design, he also did his share of rejecting big parts.

Among the notable parts that Eastwood passed on was the role of Willard in “Apocalypse Now” (which he considered too dark), John McClane in the film adaptation of the action novel “Nothing Lasts Forever” (he owned the screen rights but let it lapse — it was filmed as “Die Hard” with Bruce Willis in the role) and New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg in “The Killing Fields” (Sam Waterston received an Oscar nomination for his performance).

8. Pinch Hitting As The Oscars Host: Eastwood was in the audience for the 1973 Academy Awards telecast when he was asked to come backstage — it seemed host Charlton Heston was delayed in arrival when his limousine had a flat tire and a last-second substitute was needed.

Eastwood, who was scheduled to appear at the end of the telecast for the presentation of the Best Picture Award, gamely went on camera with no preparation, ad-libbing “This was supposed to be Charlton Heston’s part of the show, but somehow he hasn’t shown up. So who do they pick? They pick the guy who hasn’t said but three lines in 12 movies to substitute for him.”

Eastwood cold-read Heston’s opening monologue, which had several references joking about the actor’s prominence in Biblical epics. While in mid-recitation, Heston finally appeared on stage to rescue Eastwood from his dilemma.

9. That Nasty Film Critic: Eastwood endured his share of bad reviews over the years, but the harsh criticism from the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael became a growing irritant.

According to his former paramour and co-star Sondra Locke, Eastwood hired a psychiatrist to analyze her reviews to gain a sense of her mental state. The psychiatrist determined that Kael was physically attracted to Eastwood but came to hate him because she knew she could never have him for herself, hence her skein of excessively negative reviews of any film he made.

But, then again, Kael was notorious for going overboard with her bad reviews, most infamously with her slam of “The Sound of Music” that resulted in her being fired as McCall’s film critic.

10. Nary A Word Of Acknowledgement: In 2001, the English band Gorillaz put out the song “Clint Eastwood.” The song’s name was based on its similarity to the theme of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and never cited Eastwood directly in its lyrics.

And what did Eastwood think of the song? In a 2017 Reddit AMA, Gorillaz’ drummer Russel complained, “Nah man, kinda rude. But y’know, there’s still time. If you’re reading, Clint. Do the right thing.”

Photo: Clint Eastwood in "Cry Macho," courtesy of Warner Bros.