Unforgiven 1992 Hand Painted Billboard

Unforgiven 1992 Hand Painted Billboard 

Here’s one you don’t see every day. This is the hand painted outdoor sign that appeared across the street from Warner Bros Burbank Studios in California. Our friend Richard DuVal sent this one in who added, ‘that they still paint these signs to this day with the studio’s new releases.’ This particular photo dates back 1992 and the release of Clint’s Oscar winning western Unforgiven. 

An impressive sight, and one that’s a little too big for my wall… 

 

Bronco Billy – Incredibly RARE 7” single

Bronco Billy – Incredibly RARE 7” single

I’ve been meaning to post this since Christmas as it’s an incredibly rare piece of vinyl. As a collector of Eastwood related vinyl, I thought I had a pretty good ‘finger on the pulse’ when it came to 7” singles. 

Then, totally out of the blue I had this package arrive at Christmas, I never had a clue? I hadn’t ordered anything of the 7” square packaging variety? Then discovered this wonderful Ronnie Milsap – Cowboys and Clowns Japanese vinyl. This was totally new to me. The song was of course from Bronco Billy and released in Japan in 1980 under the Cat No (RCA RPS-4) (PB-12006). 

After a bit of detective work, I eventually found it this was a surprise Christmas gift from my longtime friend (and trusted No 2 here on the Archive), Mr Davy Triumph. So thank you Sir, you’re an absolute gentleman. 

I have also now added this beautiful piece to the Guide to collecting Eastwood related 7” Vinyl page here 

           

Vintage Collectables: The 1987 Clint Eastwood Calendar

Vintage Collectables: The 1987 Clint Eastwood Calendar 

Once upon a time, it was great to go down to your Athena store or even the local Woolworths department and pick up ‘Superstar’ calendars! These days it seems that the majority of these are now limited to the current short-lived, pop idol or a premiership football team. 

To be fair, here in the UK I can only remember a couple of Calendars to feature Clint as its subject, and I still have both of them. This one, produced by Landmark Calendars of California was available to buy here in the UK, and was a rather nice one. Being 12” x 12” in size, each month contained a full size, good quality picture on thick gloss paper, and came in a plain white envelope. 

Out of the 2 calendars I own, this was by far the better. And if you should have one of these still tucked away, just remember – come 2026 you can dig it out once again, as the dates and days will all be perfectly aligned! 

Below: The back featured all images for each of the months

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 7

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 7

Clint Eastwood Shot by both sides is an interview which was published in Select Magazine Oct 1990. Select was a monthly publication and primarily a music magazine, so it was easy to miss this one if you restricted the reading to film. It’s quite a detailed interview really, spread over 5 pages and was by Jeff Hayward, Clint’s latest film at the time was White Hunter, Black Heart. Select was a United Kingdom music magazine of the 1990s. It was known for covering indie rock, but featured a wide array of music. Launched in July 1990, its final issue was published in  January 2001. 

1973 When in Hollywood…

1973 When in Hollywood…

Here’s something a little bit special. For anyone who has made the pilgrimage to Universal studios in Hollywood, they’ve no doubt taken the tram tour guide of the studio and backlots. 1964 saw the introduction of pink and white GlamorTrams. During the early years of the tram tour (1964 – 1977) all of the attractions at Universal were reached via the tram. With the introduction of the Screen Test Comedy Theatre and the Animal Actors stage in 1977, the Upper Lot became an attraction in itself. The tour originally departed from the Upper Lot. In 1991, it was moved to the Lower Lot following the construction of the Starway escalator system. In 1996 it moved back to the Upper Lot to make room for Jurassic Park River Adventure on the Lower Lot.

If you were lucky enough to visit the studios at the right time, you may have seen the latest productions being advertised via the large billboards on the side of studio buildings. This great shot was captured in 1973 and produced on an official Universal postcard in order to publicise the tram tour. A closer look at the billboards in the background not only shows the production of Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal, but also the beautiful poster art for Clint’s High Plains Drifter. 

A nice snapshot of Universal’s past. 

Below: A very rare shot of Clint being filmed in Coogan’s Bluff at Universal studios while the tourist tram passes.

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 6

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 6 

3 Snippets of interest from Jan 1962 – Jan 1966

I pulled these 3 small cuttings from a stack of research material which was sent to me by our friend Lee Pfeiffer many years ago whilst he was compiling material for a book. Each one is interesting as it illustrates where Clint’s career was heading between Jan 1962 (the Rawhide tour of Japan), up through A Fistful of Dollars (known here as The Magnificent Stranger) and finally Jan 1966 – and an early mention of The Good, the bad and the ugly - known at this early stage as The Magnificent Rouges. 

These pieces came from the trade magazines, The Hollywood Reporter and Film Daily.

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 5

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 5

Here’s another 2-page piece which appeared in one of the UK TV listing magazines, TVTimes. 

This article  dates from 22-28 April 1978 and again is one that has survived a past scrap book life. This article was written by Tom Bedford and tied in with the showing of Kelly’s Heroes which was ITV’s Big Saturday Night movie. Although it still shows a bit of tape residue and wear, I’ve given it a small re-touch for the Archive.  

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 4

Hollywood Superstars: BBC Film Season

Many decades ago, it was quite a novelty to have a film season on terrestrial TV, and the BBC was pretty good at them. The most famous of these was arguably Moviedrome, a season of cult films which often had a slot on BBC 2 on a Sunday night. But there were others which featured perhaps a couple of movies throughout the week, often scheduled to come on after the news around 9.25pm.

Today, most films are available at the press of a button with numerous streaming services and dedicated movie channels. But back in the day there were just the 3 channels here in the UK, so you pretty much got what you were given. So, when these seasons arrived, it provided a genuine sense of joy. This full page appeared in a Radio Times when the BBC launched their Hollywood Superstar season. The date escapes me now, but I’m sure I have it somewhere, it was probably the early 1980’s. This overview features the stars and the films shown in bold for this particular season. 

A great line-up of stars, half of which are no longer with us.  

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 3

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 3

Eastwood talks politics. This article appeared in the UK’s Mail on Sunday Newspaper Sunday supplement magazine YOU, November 9th 1986. This appeared some 7 months after Clint won the local election to become mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea. 

There was a great deal of coverage in the media – and I have an awful lot of it archived away, so there will be quite a bit turning up here. With Reagan serving as president at the time, it was perhaps inevitable that a lot of comparisons were made, and a lot more speculation that Clint would perhaps move up the political ladder and one day take on the top job for himself. To Clint’s credit, he always maintained that (for him) politics began and ended purely at a local level, and he was true to his word. Nevertheless, it did provide an interesting couple of years. 

This article/interview was by John Arrow.     

Charles Griffin’s White House Gala Dinner 1985

Charles Griffin’s White House Gala Dinner 1985

Here’s another famous caricature by political cartoonist Charles Griffin. This one depicts Diana, Princess of Wales, John Travolta and Clint during the Dance at The White House in 1985. Princess Diana and Clint share a dance during a White House Gala Dinner in her honour. That night Princess Diana also took to the floor with then President Ronald Reagan, Tom Selleck and Neil Diamond. 

Charles Griffin’s Dirty Harry caricature 1982

Charles Griffin’s Dirty Harry caricature 1982

Here’s a rather humorous depiction of ‘Dirty’ Harry as illustrated by political cartoonist Charles Griffin. This original cutting appeared in the Daily Express Newspaper on Saturday, March 6th 1982 when the film was shown on the ITV channel. 

Charles Griffin was born in Ruislip, Middlesex, on 20 May 1946, the son of Alec Griffin, a furniture manufacturer's agent. Educated at Berkhamsted School, Hertfordshire, he spent two years at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, where he had some of his first caricatures and cartoons published in the RMA journal, Wishstream, between 1965 and 1968. Griffin failed to graduate, claiming later that he was kicked out after caricaturing the commanding officer.

Some of Griffin’s earliest published caricatures appeared in the Chelsea Football Club programme in 1976 and he sold his first pocket cartoon to the Daily Mail in the same year. He freelanced for various publications, including Punch and the Observer as well as teaching part time at Camberwell School of Art. Charles Griffin became political cartoonist at the Sunday People in 1983 and then worked for the Daily Mirror from 1985. In 1996 Griffin left the Daily Mirror to take over from Rick Brookes at the Daily Express. In 1998 Griffin left the Daily Express to draw the Saturday cartoon for the Sun, replacing Stanley Franklin. 

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 2

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 2

I had to try and archive this article; I suppose purely for personal reasons. I have a strong, vivid memory of this piece which I have re-touched to a small degree, but it still bears some old, dry tape residue marks. The evidence of these ‘battle scars’ actually forms the very reason why this article still remains so personal. The reason being, they once formed part of a school project book! 

The clues to Clint’s age contained within the article date it to 1977. This would make perfect sense, and would have dated me at the age of 13. In school we were given the task of compiling a project piece, an overview of a famous person such as a sports star, a pop star or (as I chose) a film star.  

So, within this exercise book I’d scribbled my reasons, what was the appeal of my chosen subject - and along with that taped in several cuttings I’d found in old magazines. I was rather proud of that little project as I remember, and for some reason, I held on to these few remaining pages. 

I don’t think I realised then where it would eventually take me! 

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 1

Eastwood: Pieces from the past No 1

I’ve been sitting on 1000’s of pieces for many decades now, magazine articles, clippings and all sorts of bits. They’ve sat in folders for so long, I thought it was about time to dig some of these out and take a scan of them for reasons of both nostalgia and general interest. I lot of these are contained in their original magazine form, but a lot I also have duplicated – where articles or pages have been separated from the magazines or newspapers and are therefore a lot easier to scan. 

The contents and subjects will be quite varied, perhaps an interview, a feature or simply Clint’s favourite recipe or television show – there’s a lot of stuff, but it’s all very nostalgic and of the time. I’ve found that a great deal of fans love this sort of material and it often re-awakes many memories of the past. 

As Clint’s work rate slows down it also feels appropriate and timely to pull a great deal of this material and take a retrospective look back to the golden decades of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. 

To begin this new feature, I’ve randomly picked this original 1973 interview / feature which appeared in Photoplay magazine from August 1973 and is by Vernon Scott. What’s very interesting about this piece is the inclusion of a particular photo. The shot of Clint pointing gun at camera… This photo shoot has always been associated with The Enforcer (1976), and was even used in the film’s publicity campaign – although Clint never appears with the gun in any of the scenes? It was therefore always considered as a simple publicity photo. In this article the photo is credited from Magnum Force, which was of course the Dirty Harry film for this specific time. It’s a very strange and puzzling mystery as Eastwood also appears to be wearing the same jacket which was also worn in The Enforcer? Was this considered as part of Harry’s casual wardrobe, and simply carried over? Was this photo shot for Magnum Force and shelved until the release of The Enforcer?  It would be great to get a definitive answer.   

Clint interviewed on the set of Where Eagles Dare

Clint interviewed on the set of Where Eagles Dare

Here’s a rarely seen little piece from Showguide Magazine: The Big Screen Scene (July 1968). Showguide was approx A5 in size and was published on a monthly basis. It was available free in certain UK cinema chains. Clint was featured in this issue as ‘Star of the Month’ and was interviewed by Tony Crawley. 

Tony Crawley was born on March 26, 1938, in Farnham, England. He has been a journalist since 1955 (starting at the Salisbury Journal and the Bourneouth Times), he has supplied celebrity interviews and reportage for UK, US, European newspapers and magazines: Paris Match, Variety, Photoplay, Daily Mail, Sunday Telegraph, Today, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Film Monthly and more.

Here Clint talks briefly about his early career as well as the busy schedule he had ahead of him. 

My kind thanks to our friend Graham Rye, who was working on a piece for his excellent publication 007 Magazine when he spotted this and passed it on to me. For everything Bond Graham's site is about the best you can get and can be found HERE

Coogan’s Bluff: Rare Unseen Artwork

Coogan’s Bluff: Rare Unseen Artwork

I’m always surprised by the amount of rare and unseen artwork that continuously appears to surface. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, I’m contacted by eagle-eyed fans who have spotted various lost treasures. In this case I have to thank my good friend Davy Triumph for finding these beauties. 

Below are some resent concept designs that surfaced for Don Siegel’s classic crime thriller Coogan’s Bluff (1968). The designs were made by Studio Favalli of Italy. 

33 x 18 cm tempera on thin cardboard

51,5 x 27 cm tempera and photographic film on cardboard

3 preliminary artworks, 16,5 x 23 cm each, pencil on paper

Below: a finished example of the final Italian poster used for the film’s release. 

Below: Another unseen design, this one by Rodolfo Valcarenghi, 38 x 54 cm, tempera on thin cardboard