Personal life of Clint Eastwood

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The personal life of Clint Eastwood:

Relationships

Eastwood, age twenty-three, married Maggie Johnson on December 19, 1953, six months after they met on a blind date.^[1] However, the marriage would not prove altogether smooth, with Eastwood commenting that he had married too early.^[2] A decade later, during a trial separation from Johnson, an affair Eastwood engaged in with dancer and stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis (who was also married yet separated) produced his first child, Kimber Eastwood (born Kimber Tunis; June 17, 1964),^[3][4] whose existence was kept secret from the public until July 1989, when the National Enquirer revealed her identity.^[5] After a reconciliation, he and Johnson had two children together: Kyle Eastwood (born May 19, 1968) and Alison Eastwood (born May 22, 1972), though he was absent from both births.^[6] Johnson filed for legal separation in 1978, after another long period of estrangement, but did not officially divorce Eastwood until May 1984,^[7][8] receiving a reported cash settlement of $25 million.^[9]

Eastwood's relationship with actress Sondra Locke began in the autumn of 1975 while filming The Outlaw Josey Wales. They lived together, part-time, for nearly fourteen years, although Locke remained married to her gay husband, Gordon Anderson.^[10][11] Eastwood befriended Locke's husband and purchased a house on Crescent Heights Boulevard in West Hollywood for Anderson and his male companion.^[4] In the late 1970s, Locke underwent two abortions and a tubal ligation,^[12] later stating it was a "mutual decision" to have the procedures.^[13] Eastwood and Locke went on to star in five more films together: The Gauntlet, Every Which Way But Loose, Bronco Billy, Any Which Way You Can, and Sudden Impact. By the late eighties, their relationship was on the decline. When Eastwood learned that Locke was attempting to evict his live-in, college-aged son, Kyle, and was discussing a palimony suit with a divorce lawyer, Eastwood tried to end the relationship and asked Locke to vacate his home on April 3, 1989.^[14] She stalled, so on April 10, 1989, while Locke was away directing the film Impulse, Eastwood had the locks changed on their Bel-Air home and ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage.^[15] Locke filed a palimony suit against Eastwood, and later sued him a second time for fraud, alleging that a directing pact he set up for her at Warner Bros. in exchange for dropping the first lawsuit was a sham.^[16][17] In 1996, minutes before a jury was to render a verdict in Locke's favor, Eastwood agreed to settle for an undisclosed amount.^[18]

During the last three years of his increasingly distant relationship with Locke, Eastwood quietly fathered two children with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves:^[19] a son Scott Eastwood (born Scott Reeves; March 21, 1986)^[20] and daughter Kathryn Eastwood (born Kathryn Reeves; February 2, 1988).^[8] The birth certificates for both children stated "Father declined."^[21] The affair was first reported in the Star tabloid in 1990,^[22][23] but went unmentioned by mainstream news sources for more than a decade.^[24]

In 1990, Eastwood moved in with actress Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of Pink Cadillac in late 1988.^[25] They co-starred in Unforgiven, and had a daughter, Francesca Eastwood (born Francesca Fisher-Eastwood; August 7, 1993).^[26] Eastwood and Fisher ended their relationship in early 1995,^[27] but remain friends and later worked together in True Crime.

Eastwood with his (now former) wife Dina in 2007

Eastwood subsequently started dating Dina Ruiz, a television news anchor thirty-five years his junior, whom he had first met when she interviewed him in 1993.^[26] They married on March 31, 1996, when Eastwood surprised her with a private ceremony at a home on the Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas.^[28] The couple has one daughter, Morgan Eastwood (born December 12, 1996).^[29]

In August 2013, Dina Eastwood announced that she and her husband had been living separately for an undisclosed length of time.^[30] On October 23, 2013, Dina filed for divorce after she withdrew her request of a separation citing irreconcilable differences. She asked for full custody of their 16-year-old daughter, Morgan, as well as spousal support.^[31]

Music

Eastwood, an audiophile, has had a strong passion for music all his life, particularly jazz and country and western music.^[32] He dabbled in music early on, and in late 1959 he produced the album Cowboy Favorites, which was released on the Cameo label.^[32] The album included some classics such as Bob Wills's San Antonio Rose and Cole Porter's Don't Fence Me In. Despite his attempts to plug the album by going on a tour, it never reached the Billboard Hot 100.^[32] In 1963, Cameo producer Kal Mann told him that "he would never make it big as a singer".^[33] Nevertheless, during the off season of filming Rawhide, Eastwood and Paul Brinegar—sometimes joined by Sheb Wooley—toured rodeos, state fairs, and festivals. In 1962, their act, entitled Amusement Business Cavalcade of Fairs, earned them as much as $15,000 a performance.^[33] Eastwood has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint, Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Brothers. This deal was unchanged when Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner to private investors. Malpaso has released all of the scores of Eastwood's films from The Bridges of Madison County onward. It also released the album of a 1996 jazz concert he hosted, titled Eastwood after Hours—Live at Carnegie Hall. Eastwood owns an extensive collection of LPs, which he plays on a Rockport turntable. Eastwood co-wrote "Why Should I Care" with Linda Thompson and Carole Bayer Sager, which was recorded by Diana Krall.^[34] His interest in music was passed on to his son Kyle, now a jazz musician.

Leisure

The Hog's Breath Inn in Carmel, once owned by Eastwood

Eastwood, a lifelong non-smoker, has been conscious of his health and fitness since he was a teenager, and practices healthful eating habits. As a young man making a name for himself during the production of Rawhide, Eastwood would be featured in magazines and journals, which often documented his health-conscious lifestyle. In the August 1959 edition of TV Guide, for example, Eastwood was photographed doing push-ups. He gave tips on fitness and nutrition, telling people to eat plenty of fruit and raw vegetables, to take vitamins, and to avoid sugar-loaded beverages, excessive alcohol, and overloading on carbohydrates.^[35]

On July 21, 1970, Eastwood's father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 64.^[36] The death, described by Fritz Manes as "the only bad thing that ever happened to him in his life", came as a shock to Eastwood, as his grandfather had lived to be 92. It had a profound impact on Eastwood's life; from then on he became more productive, working with a greater sense of urgency and with more speed and efficiency on set.^[37] Although Eastwood had always been a health and fitness enthusiast, he became more so after his father's death. He abstained from hard liquor, adopted a more rigorous health regime, and sought to stay fit.^[37] However, he still favored cold beer and opened a pub called the Hog's Breath Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1971.^[38] Eastwood eventually sold the pub and now owns the Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant, also located in Carmel-by-the-Sea.^[39]

In 1975, Eastwood publicly proclaimed his participation in Transcendental Meditation when he appeared on The Merv Griffin Show with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation.^[40] He has meditated every morning for years.^[41] Eastwood is an experienced pilot, and sometimes flies his own helicopter to the studio to avoid traffic.^[42][43]

Eastwood owns the Tehàma Golf Club, located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and is an investor in the Pebble Beach Golf Links.^[44] He plays golf, including at tournaments sponsoring charitable causes.^[45]

References