Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born on May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, California. Before making it to Hollywood in the mid '50s, he worked a number of dead-end, unskilled jobs, served in the U.S. Army, and dropped out of Los Angeles City College where he was pursuing a business-related degree. He married Maggie Johnson in December 1953, and the couple had two children, son Kyle (born 1968) and daughter Alison (born 1972). In 1955, Eastwood landed a contract with Universal Pictures and got bit parts in B-movies such as Tarantula, Revenge of the Creature and Francis in the Navy, in which he appeared with the famous "talking mule." Universal soon dropped him, but his luck changed after a CBS executive spotted him on the studio's lot in 1959. The exec, who thought Eastwood looked like a real cowboy, signed him to star on TV's Rawhide. He would play the character Rowdy Yates for the next seven years, becoming a household name in the process. In 1964, during his break from the TV series, Eastwood flew to Spain to star in Italian director Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. The following year, he returned to appear as "The Man With No Name" (as his character was billed) in For a Few Dollars More. In 1967, both films were finally released in the U.S., and did well at the box office. His third and final "spaghetti western" with Leone, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (also 1967) made him an even bigger box-office draw back home and a rising star internationally. Now firmly established as a star of Old West action films, Eastwood appeared in the American-made Hang 'em High and Coogan's Bluff (both 1968). He co-starred with Richard Burton in the World War II spy drama, Where Eagles Dare, and got to sing as well as act in the 1969 western musical comedy Paint Your Wagon. His rendition of "I Talk To The Trees" from that film became a top 20 hit in the UK. That same year, Eastwood also starred in the western Two Mules For Sister Sara and Kelly's Heroes, a WWII adventure comedy. 1971 proved to be an important year for Eastwood. In addition to starring in what he considers to be his personal favorite film of his, The Beguiled, he played the hard-edged detective, "Dirty" Harry Callahan, for the first time in Dirty Harry. The role was originally intended for Frank Sinatra, but went to Eastwood after Sinatra dropped out at the last minute. Also that year, he formed his own production company called Malpaso, and made his directorial debut with the thriller Play Misty for Me, in which he played a radio disc jockey being stalked by an unstable fan. He returned to the western genre for his next couple of roles, starring in Joe Kidd and High Plains Drifter (both 1972), which he also directed. He then starred in Magnum Force (1973) (the first sequel to Dirty Harry) and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), which paired him with a young Jeff Bridges He starred in and directed The Eiger Sanction (1975), a spy thriller, and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), yet another western. The Enforcer, often considered to be the best Dirty Harry sequel, was also released in 1976. Another police drama, The Gauntlet (1977), co-starred Sondra Locke, who had also appeared in The Outlaw Josey Wales, and who apparently became Eastwood's real-life love interest in 1975. His marriage to Maggie ended in divorce in 1978. That same year, he starred in his first all-out comedy, Every Which Way But Loose, which paired him with an orangutan named Clyde. He rounded out the '70s with the thriller Escape from Alcatraz in 1979. In 1980, he reteamed with Clyde for the sequel Any Which Way You Can, and also starred in and directed the romantic adventure flick Bronco Billy. He continued his dual role of actor/director for his next three features, 1982's Firefox and Honkytonk Man, which co-starred son Kyle, and the third sequel to Dirty Harry, 1983's Sudden Impact. 1984 found him in the police drama Tightrope, which featured offspring Alison playing his daughter, and City Heat, a '30s era comedy that teamed him with '70s box-office chief rival, Burt Reynolds Eastwood returned to the director's chair for Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), in which he played a marine. He was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in 1986, and served until 1988. His relationship with Locke ended in 1988, the same year he directed Bird, the critically-acclaimed biography of be-bop pioneer Charlie "Bird" Parker. The Dead Pool, the final sequel to Dirty Harry, also appeared in 1988, though it failed to live up to the box-office expectations of the previous films in the series. Eastwood's next few films also suffered from poor box-office attendance, as well as some unfavorable reviews, and it seemed as though his star was beginning to fade. All that changed with 1992's Unforgiven, a revisionist western that won rave reviews and did remarkably well at the box office. The film earned Eastwood his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor (which Al Pacinowon that year), and won him the Academy Award for Best Director, as well as Best Picture. He delivered another fine performance for his portrayal of an aging Secret Service agent in 1993's In the Line of Fire, which also did great business. He returned to directing with A Perfect World (also '93), which paired him with another actor turned Oscar-winning director, Kevin Costner On a personal note, daughter Francesca Ruth Fisher Eastwood was born August 7, 1993; mother Frances Fisher is an actress who appeared in Unforgiven. In 1995, Eastwood won the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, and directed and co-starred with Meryl Streep in the well-received The Bridges of Madison County. Eastwood married news anchor Dina Ruiz in March 1996; in December, daughter Morgan was born. Eastwood appeared in and directed Absolute Power, and directed Kevin Spacey and John Cusack in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (both 1997). Eastwood kept busy with True Crime (1999) and Space Cowboys (2000), which teamed him with Tommy Lee Jonesand Donald Sutherland. 2000 also found him the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, as well as the Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In June 2002, Eastwood was sworn in as a California parks commissioner at Big Basin Redwood Park, Santa Cruz. He returned to directing with Blood Work (2002), where he portrayed a retired FBI agent who recently had a heart transplant. Mystic River, a police thriller starring Laurence Fishburne, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn, released in 2003.