September 26, 2002
By D.K. Holm
We doubt if this book will make his day
Whatever you do in life, don't get in the way of Patrick McGilligan. Resist his efforts to be friendly. If he decides he wants to write your biography, make a run for it. Take a pitchfork to the motherfucker if you have to, but ward him off.
On the other hand, if you succeed in staying under his radar, then live your life as quietly and discreetly as possible. Don't draw any attention to yourself. And you’d better look under your bed before you turn in at night, 'cause Patrick McGilligan is gonna git you.
McGilligan is the boogeyman of movie biographers. So far, he has done quite a job on a passel of prominent movie directors. Robert Altman was portrayed as a philandering alcoholic. George Cukor was etched as an epicene snob prone to peppering his films with lavish close-ups of this or that extra who happened to be the director's catamite du jour. Fritz Lang was revealed as a chronic liar and sadistic, self-disguising Jew who ended up as the half-blind recipient of daily blowjobs from a succession of busty hookers. No petty act is too small to expose, no reputation too big to deflate.
In his other life, McGilligan actually husbands the flame of reputation. BACKSTORY is his series of books anthologizing interviews with screenwriters both neglected and famous. In those books, McGilligan shows himself to be a poignant protector of the cheated and the abused, a curator of those neglected or forgotten writers whose work formed the spine of Hollywood cinema for so many years. There are three volumes in that series, with a fourth on the way.
But that's Dr. Jekyll. We're talking about Mr. Hyde here.
In CLINT: THE LIFE AND LEGEND (612 pages, $35 dollars, ISBN 0 312 29032 2) he takes on that "classic" American actor-director whom all critics cream over.
To you, Clint Eastwood may be the TV-star-turned-Sergio-Leone-cultivated international Western hero, a lone wolf who vindicated your lifelong devotion by finally winning an Oscar for UNFORGIVEN.
Tough. To McGilligan, he is a vindictive cheapskate womanizer who has pulled the wool over the eyes of many a colleague and critic, a man who learned to play the Hollywood game thanks to having the luck to be born with a charismatic smile.
"Legend" is the operative word in McGilligan's title. McGilligan sets out to show how Eastwood has successfully developed a pleasing public persona that disguises the nervous neurotic underneath, an ultimately ordinary human being who benefited from extraordinarily luck. Eastwood couldn't have achieved his stature without the complicity of a braying middlebrow press comprised of morons just as enamored of Hollywood glamour as the steady flow of skinny, boyish blondes Eastwood squired out of his Carmel tavern for a bit of the quick in-out in a secret nearby apartment. As McGilligan notes in an afterword , "I have, in my office, a floor-to-ceiling stack of Clint interviews and clippings (a vast number for a guy supposedly wary of publicity)." Mr. Publicity-Shy turns out to be adept at manipulating the media, even to the extent of sleeping with key critics to insure positive reviews.
Basically, McGilligan's Eastwood is a trashy, poorly dressed guy who learned during his days in the Universal Studios actors school that publicity is the most important arm of the movie biz, and that he had to create a very specific public image and stick to it, like a stand-up comedian and his joke persona. To McGilligan, Eastwood is an Anna Nicole Smith with delusions of Madonna.
Here are some of the news flashes about Eastwood's life reported by McGilligan:
Eastwood comes from a long line of lazy rich guys (pages 10 - 11) Clinton Eastwood, Sr., was the scion of a Northern California family. A college dropout, Clint Sr. is described by acquaintances as "intellectually lazy" and as having a "casual arrogance" about his looks. He hopped from job to job, usually in sales, which he preferred for their non-desk, no-paperwork glad-handing. Mr. Eastwood was inclined to bring home an extra six-pack for his underage son and his California car-culture friends (page 38). He ended up at Georgia-Pacific and died in 1970.
Affects knowledge of prior filmmakers he really knows nothing about (pages 41 - 42) One of the myths about Eastwood that McGilligan debunks is how, as a teen, he met and was inspired by Howard Hawks, whom he supposedly met after returning one of Hawks's horses to his ranch after finding the animal wandering down a highway after a storm. By interviewing the other guys who were there for the meeting, McGilligan reveals that Hawks actually talked to a friend of Eastwood's. Rather than sitting at the feet of the great auteur, in fact the insensate youngster stayed in the car during the brief visit and didn't really know who the older guy was.
Did his military service poolside (pages 44 - 48) Eastwood supposedly hated the idea of going into the army (there were no chicks in it then). In 1950, instead of volunteering like the rest of his friends, Eastwood waited to be drafted, and then while at Fort Ord in line to be cherry-picked for Korea, finagled his way into a staff services job as lifeguard at the base swimming pool. This was due to the fact that Eastwood had been a lifeguard in previous summer camp jobs, and possibly because he was sleeping with the daughter of a camp big shot. Other future movie stars, such as David Janssen and Martin Milner, and a lot of musicians, also spent time at Ford Ord, where the lazy Eastwood was able to observe that movie stars don't have to do a lot of work and can still get all the girls they want.
Flirts with gay director to get ahead (pages 81 - 82) It turns out that Arthur Lubin, the Universal contract director who made the Francis the Talking Mule movies, was gay (is this is the same hypocritical old fart who is elsewhere quoted as decrying all the "fucking and sucking" he had to put up with in contemporary movies? [KINGS OF THE Bs, page 375]). Someone introduced Lubin to Eastwood at the gas station where the aspiring actor was working. Soon thereafter, Lubin was buying him suits, taking him on trips, and putting him under contract. Eastwood's wife even asked Lubin if he was trying to steal away her husband. Lubin, who died in 1995, says he never had sex with Eastwood, but always "wondered" about him. Like nearly every other benefactor in Eastwood's life, the star eventually turned on Lubin, broke his contract with him, and neglected to later acknowledge his impact on the actor's career.
Sleeps with critics to insure good reviews (pages 225 - 228) Eastwood knew how to cultivate reviewers to be on his side (except for Kael, who woundingly called him a fascist). With Warner's backing he reintroduced the press junket (page 266). He hired Verna Bloom, the actress wife of TIME reviewer Jay Cocks, to be in one of his movies. He started an affair with L.A. HERALD EXAMINER reviewer Bridget Byrne after she panned DIRTY HARRY. In the wake of the affair, her reviews went from "The star is at his best when he is too out of breath to speak" to "great," "wonderful," "witty," "warm" and "touching." After fucking her, Eastwood, as was his wont, would brag to buddy Fritz Manes that another positive review was "in the bag."
In general, critics earn disapproval for not seeing through Eastwood's game. The worst is TIME's Richard Schickel, who wrote a previous, but authorized, bio of Eastwood. McGilligan corrects Schickel's book all through his own, and notes that Schickel's 1996 bio is "less a journalistic effort than a strenuous argument on behalf of Clint's greatness" (page 523). McGilligan witheringly quotes acknowledged friends of Schickel's like David Thomson who, in reviewing the book, would note how it tends to "skirt much that is grubby, mean and selfish" about Eastwood, and not acknowledge "how steadily Eastwood has campaigned, first in Europe, then at home, for respectability, esteem and 'life achievement awards,’ a process of which Schickel's book was a part.
Revealed as the unnamed Hollywood star profiled in the New Age book LIFE EXTENSIONS (pages 308 - 311) Authors Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw refer glowingly to a vigorous action movie star they call Mr. Smith. This is Eastwood. They met him through Eastwood's longtime friend Merv Griffin, and Eastwood later helped them get their bestseller published via Warner Books, where the actor had a stake in it. Fearful of aging and death (he may even have had a few facelifts), Eastwood is described as taking a gag-inducing arsenal of "aging preventatives" that include choline, selenium, Deanol, Hydergine, DMSO, NaPCA, L-arginine, and L-dopa, to mention but a few. The full daily prescription, a blend of vitamins, anti-oxigents and even experimental drugs, is listed on page 311. Mr. Smith had a Mrs. Smith in the book, but it was Sondra Locke, not Eastwood's real wife, Maggie.
Eastwood loves free stuff (pages 255 and 504) Eastwood is comped in restaurants all over California. McGilligan also says that Pearson and Shaw comped him some of the expensive drugs he takes. Most of all, Eastwood pioneered the concept of product placements in movies (Puma, GMC, Dos Equis), with the proviso that he be allowed to keep the material after a shoot. That's why the GMC logo figures so prominently in ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, and even during the emotional climax of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. "No comp was too petty for Clint; Warners' annual Thanksgiving gift of a fresh-frozen turkey to company big shots would evolve into a ritual for Clint. The star couldn't be counted on to buy his own turkey." One year when it looked as if Eastwood wasn't going to get his turkey on time, Warner execs "had to book an open seat on a commercial airliner for the frozen birds, so Clint could get his free turkey, and then make a show of bringing it to someone, usually his mother." Shades of Nancy Reagan.
The Warner publicity machine overstated shooting schedules so that Eastwood could continually come in "under budget" (page 376 and elsewhere). Anyone who thinks that Eastwood is a lazy director finds confirmation for this conviction in the pages of this book. Eastwood can stand about six weeks on location and then gets antsy and starts to rush through the last pages of the script, often leading to the endings that don't make sense. Warners used to say that Eastwood just knew how to come in under budget, but McGilligan reveals that the studio habitually exaggerated his film's shooting schedules in order to foster this image. And his movies tend to be terribly shot. The screenwriter on PALE RIDER even complained (but not to Eastwood) about how hard it was to see the finished product. "The television networks had to crank up the lighting exposure for later airings at home. 'I actually think it looks better on TV,' commented [Dennis] Shryack." Perhaps the thrifty Eastwood found adequate lighting too expensive.
The whole weird Sondra Locke thing (from pages 229 on) The reader is provided the most details about Eastwood's love life from the Locke years. McGilligan interviewed her, but she also wrote a book of her own. They met while making THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES in 1976, when they began an affair that culminated in him casting her, Woody Allen-ishly, in several subsequent movies, often in unpleasant roles. Locke fulfilled the Eastwood template: small, angular girls who vaguely resembled the star himself. He called his numerous targets "little dollies." Eastwood got her pregnant twice, and she terminated both. He bought her some houses, which she decorated, and then kicked her out of them. She was blithely unaware of his womanizing, partially thanks to the evil influence of her "friend," the catty then-wife of James Brolin, who manipulated her while carrying on her own affair with Eastwood. On set and off, Eastwood usually stuck to his "little dollies," women who knew their place and how to keep quite. But McGilligan also provides a Beatty-ish list of fellow superstars who succumbed to Eastwood's allure at one time or another, including Catherine Deneuve, Jean Seberg, Kay Lenz, CHOPPER CHICKS IN ZOMBIETOWN-star Jamie Rose, and possibly Meryl Streep. Also, like Bob Crane, Eastwood was an early fan of videotaping his lovemaking (starting with Locke). It was the "ultimate turn-on," he confided to his bar buddies (page 362). Perhaps the most nauseating factlet about Eastwood's love life is that he likes his petite, boyish girlfriends to call him "daddy."
Ran as mayor of Carmel in order to profit himself and his business friends (pages 415 - 416) Perhaps the most serious charges in McGilligan's book concern Eastwood's land deals in California and his pro-developer stint as mayor, fully covered by the LOS ANGELES TIMES at the time. The paper cited numerous "conflict of interest" situations, and carefully tracked the actor's longtime land purchases, many benefiting from insider info. Eastwood even supposedly slept with his mayoral opponent.
Eastwood is one of those fake Republicans (pages 208 - 216, 334 - 336, 373 - 374) I don't know why it surprises film people that Eastwood is a rabid Republican of the Reagan school. Most action stars are (John Wayne, Robert Stack, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis). Eastwood is just not a very good Republican. The youngster resented the military service forced on him while later making jingoistic battle fables. Tight with his money, Eastwood rarely contributes to campaigns. Instead he basks occasionally in the shadow of a Reagan when it suits him, but otherwise does nothing, beyond inserting occasional bits of Republican propaganda into his movies ("A handout is what you get from the government. A hand up is what you get from a friend").
Mr. Family Values Republican has eight children by six women, only two of whom he actually married (see "Eastwood: as father" in the index). Eastwood has seed-laying bragging rights in any ghetto. He sired his first illegitimate kid as a teen in Seattle, forcing him to flee the city for Hollywood, and he hasn't stopped since. The first child, born in 1953 and given up for adoption, later found out who her father was and had an uncomfortable dinner meeting with him. Besides two kids by his first wife and one by his second, Eastwood has also bred one daughter named Kimba Tunis with a RAWHIDE squeeze, two with a Carmel-based flight attendant, and one with Frances Fisher. "And if Kimba Tunis was kept secret for twenty-five years, and the Washington woman for forty, might there not be others?" Eastwood's wife Maggie desperately wanted children, but the star's first known child was with Robin Tunis, born several years before Maggie's first kid.
Yet he doesn't seem to treat women very well (pages 436 - 437, 465 - 467) A story analyst he was sleeping with named Megan Rose brought Eastwood the original script for UNFORGIVEN, which he only shot when he ran out of other material (not because he was waiting to be "old enough to play it," as the publicity dictated). When she asked for a finder's fee, he shut her out. Locke was treated poorly. And in one of the most bizarre episodes in the book, Eastwood rammed a car and then took a ballpeen hammer to it because the driver, an unsuspecting animation producer named Stacy McLaughlin, made the mistake of parking in one of his sacred spaces; later, he actually defeated the victim in court.
Troglodyte views on gays and Jews (and this is Hollywood!) (pages 522, 338, 454) Locke was married to a gay guy she knew since childhood. Eastwood was happy with that when it was convenient for him, but once things started falling apart the actor was prone to making such public utterances as "Jeffrey Dahmer is right up" Gordon Anderson's alley. Eastwood and his buddies call Jews "Wejs," which is "Jews" spelled mostly backwards, and pronounced "Wedges."
Began Oscar whoring at a surprisingly early stage (page 211) Thanks to a well-orchestrated campaign, Eastwood finally got his much-coveted Oscar, ending what McGilligan calls "one of the most astonishing reversals of critical fortune in movie history."
McGilligan doesn't think much of the films, either. HONKYTONK MAN is "insufferably earnest." MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL "never succeeded in conjuring any Savannah reality" even though it was shot on location. SPACE COWBOY is "predictable." And UNFORGIVEN is derided for fooling ten-best list compilers into thinking that it was "demythologizing revisionism."
But unlike most trashographies, Clint is well written. It is founded on a firm aesthetic base, that of a movie-lover, which the author has been since his days at the University of Wisconsin, where he contributed to the VELVET LIGHT TRAP. McGilligan comes across as subtly offended that Eastwood should have so much time and money to perpetrate such shoddy work, only to have the films praised unthinkingly by beguiled critics. The only flaw in the book is that the author continually refers to his subject as "Clint" suggesting an intimacy belied by the subtle enmity of the book as a whole.
McGilligan's next victim is Alfred Hitchcock, the book itself due sometime after the start of the year. Blondes! Handcuffs! Cruel pranks! Dirty jokes! Voyeurism! Grace Kelly doing a striptease! We can't wait.
NEXT TIME: Oliver Stone takes drugs!
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR |
ARCHIVES
