How Clint Eastwood has continually defied expectations

Like anyone who has been around for so long, the venerable actor-director – who turned 90 last week – is now taken for granted, says Geoffrey Macnab​

Clint Eastwood as William Munny in his Oscar-winning film ‘Unforgiven’ (1992) (Warner Bros/Rex)

Clint Eastwood doesn’t like birthdays and a cake with candles wasn’t going to make his day when he turned 90 last week. Nonetheless, his son Scott Eastwood had promised to “smuggle one in”.

“He probably won’t like it but we will put one in,” Scott shared about the secret birthday plans with TV show Access Hollywood.

Scott’s remarks suggested that the Dirty Harry star and former mayor of Carmel is just as much a curmudgeon in real life as in many of his later screen roles. In his public pronouncements in recent years, Eastwood has sometimes sounded like a Californian version of 1970s British sitcom character, Alf Garnett. In a 2016 interview with Esquire magazine, he railed against political correctness and praised President Trump for “just saying what is on his mind” without censoring himself.