Clint Eastwood

The scorching Texas sun is merciless, but Clint Eastwood isn't complaining, not as long as it remains unobscured by the bruised-looking clouds drifting ominously nearby. In the middle of a rolling field a few minutes out of Austin, beneath a picturesquely crooked tree that suggests Mother Nature is one terrific art director, Eastwood is focused on a fake-bloodied Kevin Costner, who's half-sitting, half-reclining against the trunk. Costner is supposed to appear gut-shot and has been generously daubed with enough sticky liquid to make a visitor wonder if George Romero, not Eastwood, is the director in charge.

Vanessa Hudgens, Julianne Hough, Emma Roberts and Clint Eastwood were just a few of the celebrities who took a break from the Coachella Music and Arts Festival to visit the Armani Exchange Neon Carnival on Saturday night. For the last four years, the brand has hosted a giant carnival in the middle of the desert at the Tradition Aviation Airport Hangar just 15 minutes from the Empire Polo Club. It's arguably one of the biggest events surrounding the festival and this year was no different.

Something has happened to Clint Eastwood. No, not the envisaging of furniture as possessing of human thought and feeling. Not just that, anyway. Something has happened to how we see him. As a director, Eastwood hasn't been galvanizing us for a while. “Invictus,” “Hereafter,” “J. Edgar” - these are movies that haven't exactly had many of us running to theaters. But we've still wanted to watch him. Coming into this weekend, Eastwood had starred in two movies ("Million Dollar Baby" and "Gran Torino")

So where's Clint Eastwood when you need him? Sure, he hijacked Mitt Romney's convention with his bizarre soliloquy, a man and his chair. But the moment was spontaneous, surprising and captivating in the can't-turn-away fashion of an impending train wreck. Most of Sunday night's interminable Oscars ceremony consisted of seriously unfunny jokes, painful repartee and a parade of otherwise talented actors forced to read from stilted scripts like benumbed captives in a hostage video.

Movie star Clint Eastwood ruined the career of his former girlfriend, actress Sondra Locke, by getting her a movie development deal in return for calling off a palimony suit, and then using his influence to block her from actually making any films, Locke's attorney contended Wednesday. "This deal with Warner Bros. was a sham.

Karl Rove claims Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl ad for Chrysler was a devious pitch to promote the Obama reelection campaign. Apparently the bulb-headed Pillsbury Doughboy of the political right thinks he's man enough to pick a fight with America's most virile octogenarian. Go ahead, Karl, make his day. In the sweepstakes for most memorable advertisement from Sunday's Super Bowl game, the Eastwood halftime ad was the clear winner. Gritty, moody, yet uplifting, the ad interspersed images of beleaguered but resilient Americans with shots of Eastwood walking toward the camera along a shadowy passageway.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Clint Eastwood confirmed in an interview with his hometown newspaper that he was winging it last week when - unscripted and unvetted - he addressed the Republican National Convention. The resulting loss for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney didn't stem from what Eastwood said (an American movie icon chatting with an empty chair worked for some people), but from what the Republican presidential hopeful gave up. Those 12 minutes of prime-time television, with an audience of 30 million people, will not be coming back, at least not too many times.

TAMPA, Fla. - Appearing on a couple of morning network television shows Friday, potential First Lady Ann Romney sounded like she wanted her 12 minutes back. That would be the 12 minutes of prime television time the night before that her husband's handlers handed to movie icon Clint Eastwood just before the climax of the Republican National Convention. Eastwood, 82, turned the 720 precious seconds into a meandering walkabout through his (not entirely cogent) political beliefs. And Romney, in return, damned him with faint praise.

Clint Eastwood stands alone in Hollywood as a man about whom no negative word is spoken. Whether they agree or not with his politics, no matter how people feel about his films or the whole Dirty Harry thing, everyone loves Clint Eastwood. Actors love Clint, writers love Clint, other directors love Clint. In thousands of interviews across time and space he is held up as a model of what Hollywood can and should be - artistically ambitious, committed to craft, respectful of others, frank but polite, a man who hires good people and then gets out of their way. He is the last of what was always a very rare breed, a man of conviction with an unassailable reputation.

Barack Obama may have George Clooney. But Mitt Romney's now got Clint Eastwood in his camp. Eastwood appeared at a Sun Valley fundraiser for Romney on Friday night, telling reporters that he's behind the former Massachusetts governor because “I think the country needs a boost.” Romney invited the actor and director up to the microphone at the sundown event at the Sun Valley Resort Lodge. “There is a guy here from the world of acting, who has pursued his dreams in a very unusual way. He stood up to the industry and did things his own way," Romney said.

Reg Green of La Cañada Flintridge enjoys a brisk early morning hike, and that's what he was doing in the hills behind Descanso Gardens when he came upon an imposing figure standing motionless on the trail. Green, 83, was briefly alarmed, then realized he was looking at a life-size plywood cutout of a man, and not just any man. It was Clint Eastwood in a pose from the movie "A Fistful of Dollars. " The rugged cowboy was wearing a poncho and chomping a stogie. "What a great idea this is," Green thought at the time, back in May. "This is really a way of bringing art to the people.

Two years before Dave Brubeck died, the Los Angeles Times published an interview with the great jazzman on the occasion of his 90th birthday. With Brubeck's death at 92, we share our visit to his home in this profile from Dec. 5, 2010. WILTON, Conn -- Most people who have never lived in Connecticut imagine that the whole state is exactly like Wilton. It's not, but driving toward the town where Dave Brubeck lives, you understand why this dream never dies, especially in late autumn when every tree seems almost mythic in its chromatic display and every pitch and roll of the rural, straight-from-the-calendar-page landscape yields views that can either fill your heart or break it gently.

Hollywood doesn't usually make sequels to flops, but Clint Eastwood doesn't typically follow convention. So less than two months after the actor-director's infamous “Empty Chair” speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Eastwood is back supporting Gov. Mitt Romney in a new advertisement backed by the "super PAC"  American Crossroads. The new commercial, called “At Stake,” is part of a new $12.6-million ad blitz backed by conservative consultant Karl Rove's political action committee.

Beyonce won't be hitting the stratosphere for Clint Eastwood, as the singer announced Wednesday she was no longer available to star in his adaptation of "A Star Is Born. " "For months we tried to coordinate our schedules to bring this remake to life but it was just not possible. Hopefully in the future we will get a chance to work together," Mrs. Jay-Z said in a statement.  It's been a long road for the film, which has had previous incarnations starring the likes of Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland.

SEATTLE -- If a chair hangs in a tree, does it represent murder? The debate on whether lawn chairs with the president's name on them and hanging from trees are innocent references to Clint Eastwood's famous "empty chair" rant at the Republican National Convention -- or symbolic lynchings of America's first African American president -- now spans the country. A white plastic chair suspended above a yard in Camas, Wash., is the latest exhibit. Like the others before it, including in Austin, Texas, and Centreville, Va ., the chair is marked "No-Bama.

Something has happened to Clint Eastwood. No, not the envisaging of furniture as possessing of human thought and feeling. Not just that, anyway. Something has happened to how we see him. As a director, Eastwood hasn't been galvanizing us for a while. “Invictus,” “Hereafter,” “J. Edgar” - these are movies that haven't exactly had many of us running to theaters. But we've still wanted to watch him. Coming into this weekend, Eastwood had starred in two movies ("Million Dollar Baby" and "Gran Torino")

Beyonce won't be hitting the stratosphere for Clint Eastwood, as the singer announced Wednesday she was no longer available to star in his adaptation of "A Star Is Born. " "For months we tried to coordinate our schedules to bring this remake to life but it was just not possible. Hopefully in the future we will get a chance to work together," Mrs. Jay-Z said in a statement.  It's been a long road for the film, which has had previous incarnations starring the likes of Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland.

While plenty of Americans are scratching their heads over Clint Eastwood's polarizing appearance at the Republican National Convention, the iconic actor and director can take solace in knowing that he can still count on President Obama to buy a ticket to his next film. Despite Eastwood's rather rambling “invisible Obama” monologue/skit in which he criticized the president by saying he failed to deliver on his promises - Eastwood did this by way of a mock interview with an imaginary Obama in an empty chair before Mitt Romney's speech at the convention Thursday night - the president apparently holds no hard feelings.

Two of young Hollywood's biggest stars beat out a grizzled industry veteran at the box office this weekend - but just barely. Jake Gyllenhaal's cop drama "End of Watch" and Jennifer Lawrence's horror vehicle "House at the End of the Street" tied for the No. 1 weekend position, each grossing a decent $13 million. Clint Eastwood's baseball drama, "Trouble With the Curve," didn't hit a home run with opening weekend audiences, as the movie debuted with a slightly lower sum of $12.7 million.

Even The Man With No Name can change his mind, and a good thing too. Clint Eastwood told the world he was finished with acting after 2008's "Gran Torino," but "Trouble With the Curve" has lured him in front of the camera one more time. This amiable, old-fashioned film is no world-beater, but it underlines why, appearances with empty chairs excepted, it is always a pleasure to see this man on the screen. Eastwood plays Gus Lobel, a venerable scout for the Atlanta Braves baseball team who finds it increasingly difficult to mask the creeping ravages of age. Gus is a cantankerous coot who trips over furniture, has urinary problems and mutters "I don't need easier" whenever anyone makes the mistake of trying to help him out. It is not only the 82-year-old Eastwood's gift for making acting look relaxed and natural that stands out here, it is how unusual it is for Hollywood to place someone with more lines than the DMV front and center in a major motion picture.