CC: That approach seems related to advice I’ve read your father gave you about getting jobs.

CE: When I was a kid, I remember going out looking for jobs, and I would ask him how I could figure out how much I would make. He told me to not worry about that, to tell them what I could do for them and that I wanted to learn everything about their business and become a great asset to the company. It’s an old-fashioned, Mark Twain approach: Show them what you can do and the rest will take care of itself. Not many people live by those words today. I was fortunate to be raised in that era.

CC: Thirty years after Play Misty, you directed Mystic River for free. What was it about Mystic River and then Million Dollar Baby that made those films so difficult to make?

CE: When I bought the Mystic River story, the studio thought it was a good idea, but by the time the script was done they kept saying it was such a dark story. But I said it was worth telling. They hedged around until I went back to where I was on Play Misty, and said I didn’t want to be paid for directing Mystic River, I just wanted to do the film. I was paid [Directors] Guild minimum, and I took a percentage, so if the picture made some money I would do OK; if it didn’t, on to the next one.

With Million Dollar Baby, the studio execs felt that it was a woman-boxing picture, and there had been a girl-boxing picture called Girlfight that had come out some months earlier. I didn’t see it—I heard it was pretty good, but it didn’t make any money. So I had to say, this isn’t really a boxing movie, that’s just what this subculture is doing down in this gym, but

28 ;e Costco Connection JUNE 2010

In June, all Costco locations and Costco.com will carry a selection of Clint Eastwood films on DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD), including the 19-DVD box set 35 Films 35 Years, the BD box set Clint Eastwood Collection and Invictus. Warehouses will also be carrying The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Hang ’Em High, both on BD. The Costco Connection

 

it’s really a father-daughter love story. That still didn’t sound exciting to the execs, but they finally said to go ahead and do it.

CC: Play Misty is also where you revealed your interest in jazz. Not only did you play a jazz DJ in the film, you also included performance footage from the Monterey Jazz Festival.

CE: It was great. Once I got out shooting at the jazz festival, one thing led to another. We shot Cannonball Adderley, a big favorite of mine, and had some wonderful footage that we couldn’t use in the picture. In later years I tried to get that footage back to make a jazz documentary, but Universal had dumped it all.

CC: In 1988 you did get to make Bird, a film about the life of jazz legend Charlie Parker, and there were reports in the press about you talking with Leonardo DiCaprio about him playing another jazz legend: Chet Baker.

Tracking Eastwood

BORN IN San Francisco (1930), raised mostly in Oakland. Drafted for Korean War military duty, stationed at Fort Ord on Monterey Bay. Bought his first house in that area during Rawhide years, and gradually acquired other property there, including Mission Ranch hotel and restaurant. Elected Carmel mayor for one term, 1986 to 1988; completed two films—Heartbreak Ridge and Bird—during that term. In 1999 developed Tehama Golf Club in Carmel. Also in 1999 led investor group—including Arnold Palmer and Peter Ueberroth—that purchased Pebble Beach Resorts. Married twice, father of seven children.

CE: He and I talked about it one time and he was enthusiastic about it, but I’ve never been able to get a script that went deeper than just another guy who self-destructs. The thing that made Chet different than Bird was that he was sort of a matinee-idol-looking guy. The first time I saw him, I was in the Army in 1951, and the girl I was with ... when Chet came on, you could tell that she was thinking he was OK.

CC: Some movies don’t find an audience when they’re first released. I’m thinking of films such as Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life or Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Have you been disappointed that any of your films didn’t find the audience that you felt they deserved?

CE: I think that’s happened with a lot of movies—that people look back in hindsight and see there are interesting works that at the time nobody really wanted to jump on…. For me, White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) would be an example of that, as well as some others. I’ve learned this along the way: A lot of good movies don’t make money, and a lot of bad movies do. That’s the way things happen.

CC: Would Changeling (2008) be in that category? I didn’t see it get the attention it deserved, but you did a great job of capturing the look of California in the ’20s.

CE: It was one of those scripts that was worked out very well, and everything in it had happened. It was a terrible tragedy of that era, and when you think back on that time, people were driving in Model T cars and communications weren’t like they are today. I enjoyed making it. It was not a picture that became a big mainstream film, but it was fun to do.

CC: With Invictus last year, you put me in a seat and then took me someplace I wasn’t expecting to go—something you do consistently.

CE: Well, I’ve got a different one coming out [scheduled for theatrical release in the fall, 2010]. Hereafter is an interesting film, I think. I’m saying that with all due nonobjectivity. It was fun to do. C