Most fans may already know or at least be familiar with these two
pictures of Clint which first appeared in the Seattle Times on June 27th 1953. However,
the story has often been fragmented and briefly touched upon by many authors in
several books. I saved this story many years ago which was written by Phil
Dougherty under its original title - Clint Eastwood Swam Here.
The article
appeared in the Sammamish Review, April 13, 2011, pp. 1-2 and was later
published on the web. I felt that Phil Dougherty’s account brought all of the available
information together rather nicely, so I’ve chosen to reproduce it here (with
thanks) for fans who may not be too familiar with these events.
Clint Eastwood Swam Here
Ever hear that Clint Eastwood taught lifeguard training
classes at the National Red Cross Aquatic School held at Beaver Lake one
summer? It’s true, and a little research not only adds details to the story but
provides pictures of a young Eastwood at Beaver Lake just before his leap from
obscurity to celebrity.
Eastwood was born in San Francisco in 1930. He graduated
from Oakland Technical High School in 1949, about the same time his parents
moved to Seattle. He opted not to follow, instead working various jobs up and
down the West Coast, including working as a lifeguard and later teaching lifeguard
training classes.
But he did spend some time in Seattle. He was a lifeguard at
Renton’s Kennydale Beach in the summer of 1949 or 1950, and even then had no
trouble attracting women. George Wyse, the athletic supervisor for King County who
hired Eastwood for the Kennydale gig, explained years later in an interview:
"He was a nice-looking young kid, well-built. He drew quite a gang of
young ladies around him" (McGilligan).
Eastwood was drafted into the army some months after the
Korean War broke out in the summer of 1950.
But he stayed stateside during the war, and by the summer of 1953 was
back in Seattle and living with his parents at 1917 33rd Avenue S, near Colman
Park. In June 1953 he taught lifeguard training at the Red Cross Aquatic School
at Beaver Lake.
The Red Cross Aquatic Schools offered training in first aid,
lifesaving, small craft handling, and water safety techniques, but the schools
were limited to participants who either planned to teach these skills or work
as lifeguards. It was quite a coup in 1939 when Gus and Lulu Bartels, owners of
Beaver Lake’s Four Seasons Resort, successfully negotiated with the Red Cross
to select Beaver Lake as its permanent Northwest location for its aquatic
school. In 1954, the year after Eastwood’s stint at Beaver Lake, the Issaquah
Press reported that there were only five such schools in the country. Ten-day classes were held at Beaver Lake in
mid-to-late June for many years between 1939 and 1956, though it’s not clear
whether they were held there every single year.
The 1953 aquatic school began on June 16 and ended on June
26. Thirty-nine trainees from as far away as Utah participated, representing
police departments, Northwest industries, and youth groups. Participants
plunked down $45 ($375 in 2011 dollars) for the course. This also covered room
and board at the resort, which had been purchased in 1950 by Dick and Ruth
Anderson and renamed Andy’s Beaver Lake Resort (usually just called
Andy’s). Trainees could choose to
specialize in first aid or water safety work.
Eastwood evidently taught both classes, and two pictures of
him at work appear in the Seattle Times on June 27, 1953. One shows him demonstrating artificial respiration
with a group of other instructors, while the other is a pleasing close-up of
Eastwood demonstrating a pair of "water wings," wet knotted pants
with its legs filled with air, that serve as an effective flotation device in
the absence of a life vest. Water safety
instruction at the school also included survival techniques using a dishpan and
using heavy boots.
The weather was cool and rainy for nearly the entire
course. And the classes weren’t easy.
The instructors were "lifebuoys" and the trainees "scum,"
and the lifebuoys kept the scum on their toes, for example delighting in
keeping them out in a cold wind and rain for almost two hours while drilling
them on the intricacies of canoe instruction.
But it wasn’t all work and no play. A couple of evenings
both lifebuoys and scum joined together for costume parties, and meals were
occasions for joking and singing. Another evening near the end of the course
the lifebuoys initiated the scum, officiated by a freshwater King Neptune. The
school may have also put on a public demonstration of water safety and first
aid techniques on Sunday, June 21. Press accounts describe such Sunday public
demonstrations during other years, including 1954, but don’t mention it in
1953.
Eastwood returned to Kennydale Beach after the aquatic
school ended and worked as a lifeguard there for at least some part of the
summer of 1953. But his life soon
changed. By the end of 1953 he was married and living in Los Angeles -- and you
know the rest of the story. And what otherwise would be a long-forgotten Red Cross
training course at Beaver Lake instead
became a singular thread in the tapestry of Sammamish history.
Original link can be found here
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