Clint Eastwood, The Greatest, is 90 today

There is no greater Hollywood legend than Clint Eastwood in my opinion. Today he is 90 and I want to use my blog for once to wish him a Happy Birthday rather than comment further on the violence hitting US cities still after the tragic and brutal death of George Floyd. Clint Eastwood has been my favourite male film star for so long and I'm hoping that even at such a venerable age he will continue to be in and/or direct movies. I'm sure he will. Ever since he rocked onto the television screens as Rowdy Yates in the 1959-1965 series Rawhide and then as the deadly loner gunman in A Fistful of Dollars in 1964, a bad but extraordinarily wonderful and entertaining Spaghetti Western, I have been a huge fan. I should rattle off just a few of his great films. Great in my view: Dirty Harry - an unrivalled brilliant film playing Inspector Harry Callaghan, always chosen by his overwhelmed boss to do the dirty jobs - In the Line of Fire, a classic combination of thriller and romance as a secret service agent protecting the president, Unforgiven, brilliant almost beyond words, Pale Rider, sinister and awesome to watch, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, a terrible film really but I loved it, Where Eagles Dare, one of the best war films ever made, Firefox, a totally thrilling film where Eastwood is a superstar fighter pilot stealing a Russian prototype jet fighter, The Bridges of Madison County, Clint at his most romantic, and Gran Torino, a fabulous film with Clint, a bad-tempered combat veteran living amongst Korean immigrants in Detroit. Some critics said Gran Torino was racist but if you actually watch the film it's exactly the opposite and wonderfully affectionate and very Clint. It's almost my top favourite Clint film, and it's not just because of the beautiful Gran Torino car in his garage! A wealth of extraordinarily brilliant films, not to mention the ones, like the exceptional Million Dollar Baby which he directed but didn't star in. So, Clint Eastwood, a very Happy Birthday and thank you.