May 31, 1930
Clint Eastwood born.
Best known to his many fans for one of his most memorable screen
incarnations--San Francisco Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan--the actor
and Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood is born on this day in 1930, in San
Francisco, California.
With his father, Eastwood wandered the West Coast as a boy during the
Depression. Then, after four years in the Army Special Services, Eastwood went
to Hollywood, where he got his start in a string of B-movies. For eight years,
Eastwood played Rowdy Yates in the popular TV Western series Rawhide,
before emerging as a leading man in a string of low-budget “spaghetti” Westerns
directed by Sergio Leone: Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few
Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). All
three were successful, but Eastwood made his real breakthrough with 1971’s
smash hit Dirty Harry, directed by Don Siegel. Though he was not the
first choice to play the film’s title role--Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and
Paul Newman all reportedly declined the part--Eastwood made it his own, turning
the blunt, cynical Dirty Harry into an iconic figure in American film.
Also in 1971, Eastwood moved behind the camera, making his directorial debut
with the thriller Play Misty for Me, the first offering from his
production company, Malpaso. Over the next two decades, he turned in solid
performances in films such as The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Every
Which Way But Loose (1978), Escape From Alcatraz (1979) and Honkytonk
Man (1982), but seemed to be losing his star power for lack of a truly
great film. By the end of the 1980s, after four Dirty Harry sequels,
released from 1973 to 1988, Eastwood was poised to escape the character’s
shadow and emerge as one of Hollywood’s most successful actor-turned-directors.
In 1992, he hit the jackpot when he starred in, directed and produced the
darkly unconventional Western Unforgiven. The film won four Oscars,
including Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Film Editing, Best
Director and Best Picture, both for Eastwood. He also found box-office success
as a late-in-life action and romantic hero, in In the Line of Fire (1993)
and The Bridges of Madison County (1995), respectively.
As a director, Eastwood worked steadily over the next decade, making such
films as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), Absolute
Power (1997) and, most notably, the crime drama Mystic River (2003),
for which he was again nominated for the Best Director Oscar. The following
year, he hit a grand slam with Million Dollar Baby, in which he also
starred as the curmudgeonly coach of a determined young female boxer (Hilary
Swank, in her second Oscar-winning performance). In addition to Swank’s Academy
Award for Best Actress, the film won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Morgan
Freeman) and Eastwood’s second set of statuettes for Best Director and Best
Picture.
In 2006, Eastwood became only the 31st filmmaker in 70 years to receive a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America (DGA). That
year, he directed a pair of World War II-themed movies, Flags of Our Fathers
(2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). The latter film, which
featured an almost exclusively Japanese cast, earned an Oscar nomination for
Best Picture and a fourth Best Director nomination for Eastwood (his 10th
nomination overall).
Off-screen, Eastwood has pursued an interest in politics, serving as mayor
of Carmel, California, from 1986 to 1988. He was married to Maggie Johnson in
1953, and the couple had two children, Kyle and Alison (who co-starred in Midnight
in the Garden of Good and Evil), before separating in 1978 and divorcing in
1984. Eastwood also had long-term relationships with the actresses Sondra Locke
and Frances Fisher (with whom he had a daughter, Francesca). He married his
second wife, Dina Ruiz Eastwood, in 1996. Their daughter, Morgan, was born that
same year.
June 1, 1980
CNN (Cable News Network), the world's first 24-hour
television news network, makes its debut.
The network signed on at 6 p.m. EST from its headquarters in Atlanta,
Georgia, with a lead story about the attempted assassination of civil rights
leader Vernon Jordan. CNN went on to change the notion that news could only be
reported at fixed times throughout the day. At the time of CNN's launch, TV
news was dominated by three major networks--ABC, CBS and NBC--and their nightly
30-minute broadcasts. Initially available in less than two million U.S. homes,
today CNN is seen in more than 89 million American households and over 160
million homes internationally.CNN was the brainchild of Robert "Ted" Turner, a colorful,
outspoken businessman dubbed the "Mouth of the South." Turner was
born on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and as a child moved with his
family to Georgia, where his father ran a successful billboard advertising
company. After his father committed suicide in 1963, Turner took over the
business and expanded it. In 1970, he bought a failing Atlanta TV station that
broadcast old movies and network reruns and within a few years Turner had
transformed it into a "superstation," a concept he pioneered, in
which the station was beamed by satellite into homes across the country. Turner
later bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks basketball
team and aired their games on his network, TBS (Turner Broadcasting System). In
1977, Turner gained international fame when he sailed his yacht to victory in
the prestigious America's Cup race.
In its first years of operation, CNN lost money and was ridiculed as the
Chicken Noodle Network. However, Turner continued to invest in building up the
network's news bureaus around the world and in 1983, he bought Satellite News
Channel, owned in part by ABC, and thereby eliminated CNN's main competitor.
CNN eventually came to be known for covering live events around the world as
they happened, often beating the major networks to the punch. The network
gained significant traction with its live coverage of the Persian Gulf War in
1991 and the network's audience grew along with the increasing popularity of
cable television during the 1990s.
In 1996, CNN merged with Time Warner, which merged with America Online four
years later. Today, Ted Turner is an environmentalist and peace activist whose
philanthropic efforts include a 1997 gift of $1 billion to the United Nations.
May 31, 1930
Clint Eastwood born.
Best known to his many fans for one of his most memorable screen
incarnations--San Francisco Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan--the actor
and Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood is born on this day in 1930, in San
Francisco, California.
Also in 1971, Eastwood moved behind the camera, making his directorial debut
with the thriller Play Misty for Me, the first offering from his
production company, Malpaso. Over the next two decades, he turned in solid
performances in films such as The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Every
Which Way But Loose (1978), Escape From Alcatraz (1979) and Honkytonk
Man (1982), but seemed to be losing his star power for lack of a truly
great film. By the end of the 1980s, after four Dirty Harry sequels,
released from 1973 to 1988, Eastwood was poised to escape the character’s
shadow and emerge as one of Hollywood’s most successful actor-turned-directors.
In 1992, he hit the jackpot when he starred in, directed and produced the
darkly unconventional Western Unforgiven. The film won four Oscars,
including Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Film Editing, Best
Director and Best Picture, both for Eastwood. He also found box-office success
as a late-in-life action and romantic hero, in In the Line of Fire (1993)
and The Bridges of Madison County (1995), respectively.
As a director, Eastwood worked steadily over the next decade, making such
films as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), Absolute
Power (1997) and, most notably, the crime drama Mystic River (2003),
for which he was again nominated for the Best Director Oscar. The following
year, he hit a grand slam with Million Dollar Baby, in which he also
starred as the curmudgeonly coach of a determined young female boxer (Hilary
Swank, in her second Oscar-winning performance). In addition to Swank’s Academy
Award for Best Actress, the film won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Morgan
Freeman) and Eastwood’s second set of statuettes for Best Director and Best
Picture.
In 2006, Eastwood became only the 31st filmmaker in 70 years to receive a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America (DGA). That
year, he directed a pair of World War II-themed movies, Flags of Our Fathers
(2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). The latter film, which
featured an almost exclusively Japanese cast, earned an Oscar nomination for
Best Picture and a fourth Best Director nomination for Eastwood (his 10th
nomination overall).
Off-screen, Eastwood has pursued an interest in politics, serving as mayor
of Carmel, California, from 1986 to 1988. He was married to Maggie Johnson in
1953, and the couple had two children, Kyle and Alison (who co-starred in Midnight
in the Garden of Good and Evil), before separating in 1978 and divorcing in
1984. Eastwood also had long-term relationships with the actresses Sondra Locke
and Frances Fisher (with whom he had a daughter, Francesca). He married his
second wife, Dina Ruiz Eastwood, in 1996. Their daughter, Morgan, was born that
same year.
June 1, 1980
CNN (Cable News Network), the world's first 24-hour television news network, makes its debut.
CNN was the brainchild of Robert "Ted" Turner, a colorful,
outspoken businessman dubbed the "Mouth of the South." Turner was
born on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and as a child moved with his
family to Georgia, where his father ran a successful billboard advertising
company. After his father committed suicide in 1963, Turner took over the
business and expanded it. In 1970, he bought a failing Atlanta TV station that
broadcast old movies and network reruns and within a few years Turner had
transformed it into a "superstation," a concept he pioneered, in
which the station was beamed by satellite into homes across the country. Turner
later bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks basketball
team and aired their games on his network, TBS (Turner Broadcasting System). In
1977, Turner gained international fame when he sailed his yacht to victory in
the prestigious America's Cup race.
In its first years of operation, CNN lost money and was ridiculed as the
Chicken Noodle Network. However, Turner continued to invest in building up the
network's news bureaus around the world and in 1983, he bought Satellite News
Channel, owned in part by ABC, and thereby eliminated CNN's main competitor.
CNN eventually came to be known for covering live events around the world as
they happened, often beating the major networks to the punch. The network
gained significant traction with its live coverage of the Persian Gulf War in
1991 and the network's audience grew along with the increasing popularity of
cable television during the 1990s.
In 1996, CNN merged with Time Warner, which merged with America Online four
years later. Today, Ted Turner is an environmentalist and peace activist whose
philanthropic efforts include a 1997 gift of $1 billion to the United Nations.
Tony Figueroa
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