1951: You're in the Army Now

1951 was a year where once again Clint’s plans were dashed. He received the letter that thousands of other kids had fallen on the mat. The Korean War was rife and now Clint had been called upon to serve his country. Fort Ord was situated close to Carmel, up along the Monterey Peninsula. It was here that Clint was to spend the next 16 weeks in basic training. During this time Clint heard that they were looking for a couple of swimming instructors down at the pool area, a stroke of luck as Clint had plenty of experience, so he volunteered for the job. Private Eastwood found himself at the pool along with another private, a handful of sergeants and a Lieutenant. Before long these guys eventually found themselves heading for action in Korea, yet Clint’s name never seemed to come up. He figured as a private it may just be a matter of time before he was transferred from the pool area, which didn’t appeal too much to Clint, he enjoyed the job, and hoped to remain. After thinking it over, he decided to confront the captain and argue his case that he felt he could take care of activities at the pool area by himself. His captain expressed how he certainly didn’t know how to swim, let alone instruct how to swim, so you go ahead and run the pool area, assuring Clint that he was always wearing a sweatshirt, so no one would ever know he was simply a private. Clint was encouraged by his captain’s remarks and soon implemented a fine swimming instruction program, eventually taking on 4 other men to help him fish out the rookies who fell short in their swimming tests. Clint loved this work; he even lived down by the pool in a hut, as opposed to the regulation barracks. ‘I was a private with a swimming pool, wearing Khakis and a sweatshirt, and a year and a half later I was a Corporal.’ It was while Clint was stationed in the area, that he fell in love with Carmel in particular and its surrounding beauty. Along with Clint’s army pay of around $70 a month, he decided to take a part time job outside of the base. Lasting some four months, he worked as a packer for the Spreckles Sugar Company based in nearby Salinas valley. ‘It was hard work, but they paid me $1.70 an hour’ he said. It was only a matter of time before the army caught on to his extracurricular excursions and the job came to a grinding halt. Not one to be beaten, Clint soon found another form of extra work, this time remaining firmly within the guidelines of the Army rule book, he found himself working as a bouncer at the NCO club on the army base. The pay was never going to match the sugar job, but it had its compensations, it was a whole lot easier and Clint could swallow half a dozen beers during a night of work, not bad.

1948-49 Moving on

Of course, playing the piano was to some degree a form of social recognition, but asking Clint, he’d simplify the reasoning. 'You might play for a while and look up and, hey, you might have a date.' To the envy of his friends, Clint was never too far away from the attention of young girls. Back at the Eastwood home, his father began working in sales for the Georgia-Pacific Timber shipping company; it was a long-term career move that would eventually take Clint’s father to executive status. The Family was once again on the move, this time settling in Seattle. Graduating from Oakland Tech at the age of 18 Clint once again decided to go it alone. It was a pretty uneventful period in his life, if he wasn’t busting his back digging either ditches or swimming pools he’d be working the furnaces from Midnight to 7.00am for the Bethlehem Steelworks up near Oakland, ‘My job was general maintenance around the big blast furnaces, and the heat got so intense you felt as if your skin would peel right off your body. I didn’t like the work, even though the pay was good. I was working the graveyard shift, from midnight until nine in the morning. I had my days free, but I was too tired to enjoy them.’ Clint had always dreamt about the prospect of lumber jacking and always wanted to experience it for himself. So it was perhaps inevitable that he headed for Springfield, Oregon by way of the Willamette River. Upon his arrival Clint eventually found work and was hired at the Weyerhaeuser Company mills. He’d only worked there a matter of weeks and soon became aware that lumber jacking could be a dangerous business. In Douglas Thompson’s 1992 book ‘Sexual Cowboy’ Clint explained, ‘I heard a shout and looked up and saw the crane driver and I hadn’t quite got it organised. A nasty load of giant logs hung suspended over my head. I don’t think I’ve reacted faster in my life. Yet even as I started to run, down came the logs. Any one of them could have crushed the life out of me. I just barely jumped clear- as the logs hit the ground they jammed against the crane, which was a lucky break for me. The money was good in the logging business and so was the food. The guys you met there were like wild characters out of a novel. It was pretty hard living but working outdoors in this fabulous country- rugged mountains, tall pine and fir forests – made it worthwhile. I never stayed long enough to work up into one of the really skilled jobs: if a man doesn’t know what he’s doing he can really pay for it. Some of the Douglas firs grew 250 to 300 feet tall and a man who goes up to the top of one of those to lop off the high branches has to be experienced. Log – rolling – that’s riding the logs in mid-river – is another job where you either know what you’re doing or you don’t live long enough to have grandchildren. I earned good money felling trees. I’d pick where I wanted a tree to fall, take my axe and cut a ‘V’ so it would fall in that direction. Then another man and myself would work a two-man double saw. It took two of us because some of these trees were six feet in diameter. Some of the time was spent in the sawmill which was better pay but I preferred being outdoors’

 

On the weekend the entire lumber jacking community spent their money in the town of Eugene, where they would turn the place on its head. They were loud, very loud, but the locals had grown accustomed to the loggers’ behaviour. Clint would often make the journey to the outskirts of town where he could grab a few beers and listen to some live country music, rather badly played live country music. There were as always, girls on the scene, but nothing that Clint took too seriously. Earning $1.80 an hour was certainly enough to keep him happy and in beer. As the job was seasonal the pay was well above the average. During the cold season the company would close down and Clint stayed at the camp with the other loggers, when they were working it was a long day, working from sunup to sundown. In terms of money, they remained fairly comfortable due to the simple fact that most of the time they were simply too damn tired to spend it. That winter was hard for Clint, especially as an acclimatised Californian. The sun could hide itself for 6 months and along with the humidity Clint began to find the conditions quite depressing. ‘In the winter you can go Six or Seven months without seeing blue in the sky. Finally the dampness got to me and I moved on.’ Clint had worked the mills for around a year but decided he’d rather move back to Seattle before a second winter set in. Aged 19, Clint returned home to take on a series of pretty non-eventful jobs, including truck driving for the Color shake organisation. During an excursion to the state of Texas he found employment in Renton as a lifeguard. Deciding to put his natural athleticisms to good use, he was also required to teach as a swimming instructor. He would later of course state that the most beneficial part of the job was enjoying the natural beauties that would visit the pool in their bathing suits! Clint remembers fondly, ‘Believe me, those jobs were hard to get.’

Inside though, he still remained pretty uncertain as to what he really wanted in life. He has since looked back at that time of his life with such self-inflicting terms as ‘a bum’ or ‘ a screw up’ yet, despite this, he remained clear, he wanted to be himself, and to earn his own way in life. After much deliberating, Clint finally came to the conclusion that he was going to continue with his music studies at Seattle University. No sooner had he become comfortable with his position and perhaps ultimately his plans for the future, the American government decided to intervene, and for the time being at least, Clint’s Plans would definitely be put on hold.

Below: Weyerhaeuser Timber Company

1946: A Brush with Death

In the summer of 1946 the three friends set off to what was perhaps one of their greatest adventures, their destination was the beautiful and picturesque Mount Lassen County in Sierra Nevada. It was here where they took on employment as fire fighters working the whole Mount Lassen area. Their conditions upon arrival where not particularly accommodating. Due to a seriously overcrowded bunkhouse, the boys were forced to sleep in the garage, sandwiched between trucks and varying forms of fire fighting equipment. They soon settled in and before long they began to enjoy the rugged lifestyle. The cool evenings were spent around a large open log fire with general boys banter and exchanging stories with their colleges. Weekends were again the time to kick up their heels, the excitement of hitting the town and of course chasing the local girls. This life was pretty idyllic as far as Clint was concerned, the clean mountain air that greeted him each dawn, his love for the forest wildlife including the deer and grizzly bear all added to a near perfect setting. Among Clint’s duties were the clearing and cutting away of brush and small trees, cutting firebreaks as it was known. A logical idea in theory, in the unfortunate event of a fire breaking out, these clearings were designed to act as some minor means of protection in stopping the fire from spreading beyond any one particular point. It was by no means full proof but essential work nevertheless. It was on a perfectly normal morning that Clint and his team were working clearing an area of loose brush. It was very hot and particularly dry, ideal conditions in fact for a fire. It was a mystery just how it actually started that day, maybe a discarded cigarette butt, no one knew for sure. The dry undergrowth began to burn, hot and fast, and before long Clint and his workers could see the flames rapidly approaching their immediate area of work. Together with the thick smoke and the increasing rising temperatures the situation was becoming distinctly uncomfortable, but still the team remained close to their firebreak eager to see if their clearing would work. Unfortunately, the winds were now also increasing which was bad news as floating flames of bush and deadwood were landing on the other side of the clearing. Before long the place became ablaze and Clint and his fire fighting team tackled the flames throughout the night and into the next day. It felt as if they were losing the battle against the inferno that was now moving at an alarming speed.

It was one of the team that raised the alarm when their hose had become snagged with the trees as the fire continued to get closer. It was becoming a worrying and increasingly dangerous situation, there was no choice Clint and his team had to retreat to the truck and get out of there. As the driver slammed his foot on the accelerator the truck almost immediately cam e to a shuddering halt. It was the hose, which was still tangled up within the trees of the forest, the wheels continued to spin, but they were going nowhere. Without contemplation Clint quickly weighed up the situation, grabbing an axe and leaping from the truck, he laid into the hose. With the driver’s foot still pressed firmly on the pedal, the hose broke free leaving the truck to spin off through the forest and Clint still running on foot in pursuit of the truck. As the smoke grew thicker Clint noticed a clearing and beyond that a small farm house that he turned and headed directly for. Staggering through a pumpkin patch he reached and pounded at the front door of the house. The occupants, a farmer and his wife took Clint to the kitchen where he slumped exhausted into a chair. The farmer was both smart and wise, he new of the dangers of such fires and had situated his home out of harms way, and he assured Clint that he was in no immediate danger and to relax. The coffee and pumpkin pie served to him in the kitchen couldn’t of tasted sweeter. He eventually caught up with the rest of his team, no one was surprised that Clint had coped with the situation, they were sure he could take care of himself. The fire continued for a further two days, but the young Clint emerged as a pretty impressive individual. As a 17 year old he was conducting himself as a man well above his years. It was probably the last of the great adventures that Clint took with his two friends Bob Sturges and Jack Macknight, but from here he would set out on his own and taste a whole new set of experiences.

Clint still returned to school where his results remained steady and adequate but nothing spectacular certainly nothing that warranted serious university tuition. In between semesters he continued to explore California and beyond. His family was happy with this and respected his wishes. Why wouldn’t they, he’d already demonstrated both an independence and a mature intelligence. By 1947, if Clint could have chosen a career in show business it may very well had been as a musician, he had become pretty good on trumpet, and particularly good on piano. In fact, he found himself playing piano at the Omar Club on Broadway in Oakland, there was never any money to show for his efforts but the young man was given free meals and all the beer he could swallow in return for tinkering at the ivories. Fritz Manes recalls, ‘everyone started gathering around and listening and having a great time. Then whenever we came back, they tried to get Clint to play and people would come in and ask for him. And he’d walk in and say, ‘Well, we’ll get to it later,’ but he always did because he wanted to, and he would play for hours, literally for hours.’

‘I was up 24 hours a day at that age’

He certainly adhered to his fathers’ words, in 1972 he told Geraldine Phillips ‘My family, they were a big influence on me. They taught me how to work. We didn’t have much, so I worked at everything. Like everybody, I sold Liberty magazine, sold spices door to door, hustled bags for old ladies at the supermarket. The most boring job I ever had was in a can company, sending sheets through the lithograph oven. I was 16 then, and a few times I’d daydream and they’d all crash. I was thinking about the evening before, or that evening- as I was up 24 hours a day at that age!’ If the hard work did anything, it certainly toughened him up, but Clint remembers the days fondly, ‘That was the happiest time of my life up till then.’ Clint made two important friends that particular year, Bob Sturges and Jack Macknight. As a rebellious threesome they bought various car parts and together they would construct drag cars that they would enter into furious races. Clint vividly remembers seeing his friends dragster burst into an inferno at 100 mph.

The Police were of course another part of the growing up experience. With the noise created by the dragster meetings it was perhaps natural that it would cause a spate of residential complaints. Clint particularly remembers a gathering in secret early one Saturday or Sunday morning. They had all barely arrived before the cops appeared from all angles. Obviously tipped off, the police had both ends of the road blocked. He recalls how dragsters split in every conceivable direction across the fields and meadows with livestock charging everywhere, and the Police following hot on their tails. ‘It was like a scene from a mad movie.’ The three friends became closer and closer, and by the weekends they were gatecrashing pretty much any party they could find. They would naturally be chasing the girls with rich fathers, why just a party when it could be a party set around a swimming pool with plenty of food and soda. Together they would change into their trunks and generally have a great time with the girls that were becoming more and more of an interest to the boys.

Back at Oakland Technical High School, Clint continued to maintain steady progress in his studies, while doing his best to avoid the continued attempts by his teacher to involve him in more school plays. He was now into his 16th year and attained his full height of 6ft 4 inches, and naturally he was somewhat forced into the schools basketball team. As far as Clint could remember ‘There was one guy taller than me at six-five.’

Clint and the rebel Teenage Years

In the midst of an embarrassing situation he would immerse himself in a seemingly invisible veil. ‘I guess the girls reckoned I was just too dumb. Somehow, I could never get it right. I was just too nervous around women at that time.’ In a 1974 interview, Clint told Playboy Magazine, ‘I remember in Junior High School in Oakland, I had a teacher decide we was going to put on a one-act play, and she made up her mind I was going to be the lead. It was really disastrous. I wanted to go out for Athletics; doing plays was not considered the thing to do at that stage in life- especially not presenting them before the entire senior high school, which is what she made us do. We muffed a lot of lines.’ His mother Ruth was surprised that Clint ended up as an actor at all. She was pleased in one way, that her son had been volunteered for the school play. Maybe this was a way of drawing him out of his natural shyness. Clint hated every minute of the rehearsals and the thought of stepping out into the spotlight absolutely terrified him. ‘I’d seen a million movies, but up to that point the closest I’d got to acting was making a pistol out of my hand, hunkering down behind the seat in front of me, and shooting back at the Screen.’

It actually came close to never happening at all. Clint and a class friend, Harry Pendleton had secretly concocted a plan to skip the play and simply not turning up. It was only a fear of the consequences, which forced the two kids back to face their ordeal.

‘They’ll murder us if we let them down’ Clint told Harry on the phone. ‘Yeah, I guess it would be easier all round if we just did it,’ replied Harry. Clint would later explain that it went better than they had thought it would. His mouth dried as soon as he stepped on stage. He gazed upon the audience including Miss Jones who had picked Clint for the play, then the laughs started echoing from the audience, but strangely enough the laughs had come at the right place. The kids were actually laughing along with him and not at him. ‘I guess it was the time I realised you can act extroverted without really being so, and that being self confident didn’t mean people took an instant dislike to you or laugh at you.’ Remembers Clint, ‘I was only fifteen, but that was the day I grew up.’ They somehow got through it and Clint even conceded that he quite enjoyed the experience, but nevertheless concluded, ‘I made up my mind then that I would never get involved with anything to do with acting again.’

Clint was naturally the athletic type, reaching his 6ft 4-inch frame by the time he was at high school. At one point it looked as if a career in basketball was the natural path to follow. His immediate love was for cars, jazz and girls; they were the focal points of the teenager’s dreams. Clint was enjoying a great independence that perhaps most kids his age never really had. His father even managed to scrape together $25 to buy Clint his first car. From that moment on cars became even more of a priority than girls. While Clint was growing up in the Forties his mother would bring home some Fats Waller records, which he instantly connected with. Before long he began to acquire the taste for Duke Ellington and Count Basie and studied the way these artists played. Clint was accustomed to playing a little piano, and pretty soon he began to try and imitate their particular style of play. It was an introduction to Jazz, the American art form that would remain a real passion throughout his life.

Below: Oakland Technical High School

By the time Clint had reached 15, he decided to take off by himself and return in time for the next school term. He threw together a couple of bags, kissed his family farewell, jumped into his car and headed off to the great state of California. Clint had no well laid out plan as to where to go in California, it was the open road and he’d stop where he fancied stopping.

It was during this time that he also witnessed a life changing experience; when he saw for the first time to a young alto sax player named Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker along with Coleman Hawkins, Flip Phillips and Lester Young performing at the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in San Francisco. ‘There was this guy in a pinstripe suit who just stood up and started going at it. I didn’t know who he was, but I was just mesmerized. And of course it turned out to be Charlie Parker. He could just do anything with that horn. Technically, he was just brilliant and innovative, yet there was emotion and great sensitivity. Jazz always represented a freedom in general, but also a freedom of expression in an artistic way. It was just a quality of being different, of not really fitting in but doing your own thing your own way.’

An inspirational moment in his life and one that would eventually lead to one of Clint’s most personal film projects. Continuing on his journey, he eventually stumbled across a farm up by Yreka where he was to spend the rest of the summer. Bailing hay was hard work and the young Clint could barely summon enough strength to crawl into his bunk of a night.

It was through Don that Clint would meet his first wife Maggie Johnson, both Clint and Don still remain friends to this day. Another classroom buddy whom he would remain close friends with was Fritz Manes. Fritz went on to play an important part of Clint’s production company Malpaso, producing a great deal of successful projects in the Eighties. By the time he attended Oakland Technical High School, Clint was tall, good looking and never had a problem attracting the attention of young girls. Towering over the over kids wasn’t always an advantage, it also lead to a fair share of general Mickey taking, not that the other kids were any tougher, but their playful games often lead to an inevitable cruelty. The Young Clint was more than able to dish out as much as he received, if not more. Fritz Manes speaking in Minty Clinch’s Book recalls, ‘He had a kind of natural charisma that was really maddening. You could sit in class and do all the little tricks of flirtation, flex your muscles, shuffle your ten-dollar bill, and nothing would work if Clint were in the room. He’d be sitting there doing nothing, just looking at the floor, and all the girls would be looking at him as if they were in a trance, locked in on some secret magnetism he had. It was very demoralising for the rest of us.’ Like every other teenager, it was at high school where Clint fell hopelessly for a girl. Joan was a red headed beauty and certainly one of the most popular girls in the class. Although Clint was crazy about this girl, she never made any outwardly show of interest toward Clint. Other girls of course followed, but for Clint simply just talking to girls was somewhat of a painful and uncomfortable experience. By nature he was ultimately a loner and asking a pretty classmate out on a date just didn’t come naturally, he was simply too introverted.

Above: Oakland Technical High School

With the prospect of an uncertain future, and the lack of security that every kid needed, Clint found himself daydreaming in class. He’d sit gazing through the class window, fantasising of becoming a great pilot. ‘He was a dreamer, he always had a lot of imagination’ recalls Jean. ‘I saved more people on the operating table than any other surgeon alive,’ he says. ‘Curiously though, I never dreamed of being an actor.’ Education was always going to be tough; constantly on the move to whatever town his father could pick up work. He’d walk into a new school, and find there were totally different standards and inevitably they would be at a different level of any given subject. Clint never felt ahead of the game. He felt he was constantly falling behind and always running to catch up. There was never time to settle, and he found it increasingly difficult to either fit in or hang out with a regular group of friends ‘It wasn’t a lot of fun’. He was always the new kid in class or the new kid on the block. ‘I must have gone to eight different Grammar schools. I didn’t have a lot of friends; our family – my parents and my younger sister and I – was a unit.’ The loneliness of a long distance traveller firmly helping to cement the well attributed loner image.

Talking to Tom Snyder in 1980, it was clear that Clint had typically drawn on the positive aspects of life on the road as a child. ‘It was hard, but I think you can find something good out of anything bad. I would have preferred to stay in the same place and enjoy the same people throughout the growing years. But I suppose there are benefits to it. You learn to get along with a lot of different people, in a lot of different places.’

Clint’s father always stood by his belief; ‘You don’t get anything for nothing he kept telling me, and although I rebelled, I never rebelled against that.’ There was a harsh truth to those words, Clint continues, ‘There was no public assistance then. There was no fallback position for anyone. You didn’t know how things could turn out. I think it left me with a feeling of uncertainty about life.’ Clint admired both his parents, especially his father’s ethics; an engraved philosophy that he would instil upon his own children later in life. He didn’t grow up to resent his father, he realised he had great parents and was lucky to have them. ‘When I look back now, I know dad had to think pretty fast at times because there was a lot of people out of work in America.’ Clinton Snr took any form of work to battle against the economic hardship, as long as it put food on the table. Clint recalls, ‘We weren’t hungry and my parents were always cheerful, but you saw people living in broken down vehicles on the roadside or in chicken shacks beside the field.’ By the time Clint had reached his early teens, the family had settled in Oakland. His father had found a stable job with the Container Corporation of America, and for the first time in his life, Clint felt some sense of stability, regularly attended Piedmont Junior High School. It was while here he made some lifelong friends including Don Kincade.