How to inspire an icon: Clint Eastwood names his four movie mentors
Becoming a legendary actor is something very few performers in history have been able to achieve, and the same can be said of those behind the camera. And yet, Clint Eastwood has managed to accomplish both, which speaks volumes to his standing as an all-time industry great. Hell, he’s even created a few scores, too.
He resides as one of the most iconic figures in American cinema thanks to his grizzled charisma, radiant star power, and effortlessly commanding screen presence, Eastwood would then split his time between acting and directing to further enhance his reputation as one of the best ever, winning four Academy Awards along the way to complement a string of unforgettable credits.
When he first broke into the business seven decades ago, even if he was supremely confident in his ability to make it, Eastwood could have never dreamed of the career he’d go on to enjoy. On the surface, it would be reasonable to assume that Sergio Leone and Don Siegel would be among his mentor figures considering they directed several of his most memorable movies, but the timeless star instead opted for a quartet of fellow filmmaking heavyweights that he never even worked with.
That being said, it’s easy to see why he’d view the four as being so inspirational given both the genre in which he made his name and the longevity he enjoyed after first turning his hand to directing with 1971’s Play Misty for Me, with all of them comfortably among the most influential figures in cinema.
“I guess my roots go back to John Ford and Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges and early American directors,” Eastwood explained to Larry King, with Ford and Hawks in particular having crafted many of the greatest Westerns ever made between them to cement themselves as a pair of the monolithic figures in the genre the actor would first find stardom on screens both big and small.
Sturges wasn’t known for playing in that particular sandbox, though, but his standing in Hollywood history is equally titanic. For the fourth, Eastwood acknowledged what the creative team behind A Fistful of Dollars would not, at least until legal action ensured credit was given where credit was due.
“Ironically, one of my favourite directors was also Akira Kurosawa, who was indirectly responsible for my career,” Eastwood continued. “Because my career started with the remaking of a Japanese samurai film.” Until Toho mounted a successful legal challenge given the clear and obvious influence it held, A Fistful of Dollars refused to name Yojimbo as a direct influence, but at least the leading man hasn’t forgotten where the inspiration came from.
He may have never worked with Ford, Hawks, Sturges, or Kurosawa, then, but their respective fingerprints have been found all over Eastwood’s work on either side of the camera to make them suitably fitting mentors.
Clint Eastwood’s four greatest filmmaking inspirations:
- Akira Kurosawa
- John Ford
- Howard Hawks
- Preston Sturges