Clint Eastwood!

Clint Eastwood’s interaction with an empty chair on the last night of the Republican convention brought back many memories of the iconic actor, as we are sure it has done for many other people.

We first encountered Eastwood as the laconic sidekick to Gil Favor--Rowdy Yates--on the definitive cattle drive western Rawhide back in the very early 1960’s. Many have forgotten that Eastwood got his start on television in that series. Eastwood’s first big move was to go to Italy where he starred in three cultish spaghetti westerns, the greatest of them being the classic “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!� This last film has a world wide following to this day and can be frequently seen on television channels that specialize in that sort of thing.

Playing the strong, silent type has always been Eastwood’s forte.

After his stint in Italy, Eastwood returned to the United States where he starred in another western--Hang Em’ High-- that launched a career in America where he played a series of odd, silent, determined and usually offbeat characters who were usually wronged by the wrong people and then spent the rest of the film righting those wrongs. His biggest move came in the 1970’s when he glommed onto the law and order movement with his character Dirty Harry Callahan, who starred in a series of films based around San Francisco, California where the classic line “Make my day� came into the national vernacular. The first time it was used was in the first film of the genre where Dirty Harry confronts a black criminal who he humiliates when he asks him whether he has shot eight or nine shots from his gun. He just can’t remember. “Do you feel lucky punk? When the criminal does not go for his gun, Harry then clicks his weapon, a 357 magnum, to show him that it was empty all along. Audiences have loved it now for almost forty years.

Clint Eastwood has been a versatile actor for much of his later career. When one thinks of his versatility one needs to look no further than “The Bridges of Madison County� where he and actress Meryl Streep turned a best seller into an above average film. In his later years, Eastwood began to turn to directing and has churned out a series of film that have all been very well done. He directed and starred in the film “The Unforgiven� a dark western that won him Oscars for best actor and for best director just as well. Eastwood’s appearance at the Academy Award ceremonies the year after “The Unforgiven� came out reminded us slightly of the appearance by John Wayne the year that he won best actor for the film “True Grit�. If there can be a successor to the prolific Wayne it must be Clint Eastwood, although the personalities of the two actors are entirely different in their approach to the craft.

Our personal encounters with Eastwood began when we visited Carmel By The Sea, the small but exclusive seaside resort just south of San Francisco. Many have forgotten that Eastwoods first turn at politics and public office came when he was elected as the mayor of Carmel a number of years ago. When we visited the town we were certain to visit the Hogs Breath Inn restaurant, an upscale eatery that Eastwood owned and apparently founded just so that he could have some place in Carmel that he could go and hang out. He was never present when we ate there but his aura hung over the place for those who were fans of his and knew the inside story of who actually owned it. We have noticed that there are apparently a number of these restaurants and bars scattered at exclusive sites around the United States so the title of businessman has not eluded Eastwood either through the years.

Eastwood had a marriage to the same woman for a number of years and it seemed solid until some sort of midlife crisis overcame him and he divorced her. In her place came the thin blonde Sandra Locke, whom he lived with for a number of years before she too fell into disfavor. She had some bit appearances in the comedies about the ape Clyde in the films “Every which way but loose� and “Any which way you can� in which Eastwood played a legendary semi pro fist fighter and brawler who ran a mechanic business on the side.

When one thinks about it, Eastwood’s performance on the stage at the Republican National Convention should come as no surprise. He has always loved to perform and his virtuoso stint in front of thousands and millions more worldwide merely shows how creative that the man really is, even as he approaches eighty years of age. To stand up on a stage like that with no apparent script and ad lib as he did with the imaginative empty chair shows the apparent guts that he has and the spontaneity that can come out of him. However, the things that he said and the message that he espoused on that night will, we feel, forever lend an air of controversy to a career that had been sterling up to that point. Whether Eastwood likes it or not, he has injected himself into this presidential campaign and has now become a part of the legend and lore of presidential politics. Many commentators have called the presentation “bizarre� and “rambling� as its apparent twelve minute length ran well over its scheduled time in a convention that had been so well scripted up to that point. It may have had an affect on Mitt Romney as well because his speech came not long after it ended. Whether it relaxed Romney or not we will never know but it has been said that Romney laughed at the performance back stage, a move that will enrage liberals and some conservatives who found no humor in the thought that Mitt Romney found a man who stood upon his stage and talked to the absent but somehow present president of the United States in derogatory terms and placed words in the mans mouth that he would probably never utter in private or in public.

Laughing at a man who is not there to defend himself fits well into the Romney narrative that includes the story of where his gang of cohorts pinned a gay fellow student to the floor in high school while Romney cut his hair.

Mitt Romney can laugh all that he wants, but the fact that one of his invited guests insulted the President of the United States, an individual who has a much higher likeability factor than Romney does, will not be lost on many voters, particularly those who are undecided. Fifty three percent of the electorate in the 2008 election voted for Barack Obama and Romney and Clint Eastwood just insulted each and every one of them. And, ,interviews with Ann Romney the next day where she said that Eastwood was an icon who was unique and did a unique thing the night before may not set well with women voters either. They may do to Romney what he seemed to enjoy being said that an absent Obama do to Romney himself. Eastwood was apparently trying to attract the votes of the crowd that has followed him for a lifetime, but, we feel that Romney already had those votes anyway. One of the rules of conventions is to simply do no harm. We feel that Clint Eastwood may have stepped over that line and we are now sure that he really has little of the class that still surrounds personalities like John Wayne, who would have never engaged in anything as crude and unseemly as what Eastwood did. As we look over the grand sweep of it all, we see the images of countless chairs of those who have gone before Eastwood sitting empty now as they move on to others who have the character and integrity not to use their fame in such a derogatory way. And, it is the mark of the candidate who enjoyed it all as he watched the crude ones of his party in the audience and laughed along with them as they placed another nail in the coffin of civility and decency in an ever evolving nation that is, because of them, defiantly heading in the wrong direction.

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe