After Dinner Speakers: Clint Eastwood, George W Bush, Martin Bayfield

Actor, director, producer; born Clinton Eastwood, Jr., on May 31, 1930, to Clinton, Sr. and Ruth Eastwood. He has one older sister, Jean. After traveling and looking for work throughout California during the Depression, the family settled in Oakland, where Eastwood graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1948. Eastwood worked odd jobs as a hay bailer, logger, truck driver, and steel-furnace stoker. In 1950, he was called to military duty with the Army Special Services, based at Ford Ord in Monterey, California. While in the army, Eastwood met actors David Janssen and Martin Milner, who convinced him to move to Los Angeles in 1954 after he finished his military duty. Eastwood took a screen test and signed a contract with Universal for seventy-five dollars a week. His first roles were in the science fiction films Revenge of the Creature (1955), and Tarantula (1955). Eastwood's rugged looks landed him the role of Rowdy Yates in the CBS TV series Rawhide (1959), which ran for eight seasons. In 1964, he went to Italy to star in a trio of westerns directed by Sergio Leone. The role Eastwood took – the cool, laconic "Man with No Name" – had been turned down by James Coburn and Charles Bronson. The films included A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) (a remake of the classic Yojimbo), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Nicknamed "spaghetti westerns" due to their Italian production, these films gained worldwide popularity and Eastwood became internationally known. Back in the United States, he directed his first film, the thriller Play Misty For Me (1971), and starred in the leading role. His next important project was a series of violent action movies portraying Harry Callahan, a contentious San Francisco cop. The Dirty Harry series proved immensely popular with the public and included five films over a period of seventeen years, including Dirty Harry (1971), Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). Eastwood gained critical acclaim for directing, including the Charlie Parker biography, Bird (1988); and for directing and producing the 1992 western, Unforgiven, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. He directed and starred in A Perfect World (1993); The Bridges of Madison County (1994) with Meryl Streep; and Absolute Power (1997). He directed (but did not appear in) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997); and produced, directed and starred in the thriller, True Crime (1999). August of 2000 saw the release of his latest directorial and acting project, Space Cowboys, costarring James Garner, Donald Sutherland, and Tommy Lee Jones. Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel, California, in 1986, serving two years. He owns a pub in Carmel, the Hog's Breath, as well as a rustic resort lodge on the outskirts of town. In March 2003, he is slated to receive the Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles. Eastwood has been married only twice, but had a number of relationships and fathered several children out of wedlock. He was married to Maggie Johnson between 1953 and 1980. They had two children, Alison (1972) and Kyle (1968). While married to Johnson, he had a child by Roxanne Tunis: Kimber Eastwood (1964). He became romantically involved starting in 1975 with co-star Sondra Locke, which ended bitterly with a palimony suit in 1989. He is the father of two children by Jacelyn Reeves: Kathryn (1988) and Scott (1986). He and Frances Fisher had a daughter, Francesca Ruth. He married Tina Ruiz, a TV newscaster, in 1996. They had a daughter, Morgan, in December 1996.