The unsung co-star Clint Eastwood called “a wonderful actor and terrific performer”
Having been in the business since the early 1950s, Clint Eastwood has encountered actors from all over the world spanning multiple generations, but only a select few get to become recurring on-camera collaborators of the filmmaking icon.
Morgan Freeman became a close friend as well as a frequent creative partner after teaming with him on Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Invictus, playing an integral role in the movies that won Eastwood his four Academy Awards, with Freeman earning an Oscar of his own after scooping ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for the boxing drama.
Given the extent of Eastwood’s career on either side of the camera, three movies don’t seem like a whole lot, considering he’s helmed 40 features and acted in dozens upon dozens more, but there aren’t exactly a huge number of folks to have been in more of his films than Freeman.
One of his most trusted screen partners and a very close friend popped up in no less than seven of them, though, so it’s clear Geoffrey Lewis was among Eastwood’s favourites. A prolific performer, he accrued more than 200 credits across film and television during a career that spanned more than half a century, but to many audiences, he’s best known as that guy who always tended to crop up in a Clint flick.
Lewis made his Eastwood debut as Stacey Bridges in 1973’s western High Plains Drifter before sharing the screen with the star again the following year in Michael Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot as Eddie Goody, one of the two assailants who abduct the central pair played by Eastwood and Jeff Bridges.
His most prominent gigs came in the unexpected smash hit Every Which Way but Loose and its sequel Any Which Way You Can, with Lewis, the brother and manager of Eastwood’s bare-knuckle fighter, truck driver, and surrogate father to an orangutan Philo Beddoe.
Western dramedy Bronco Billy, action caper Pink Cadillac, and crime drama Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil continued their association through to 1997, but after that they never worked together again prior to Lewis’ passing in April 2015 at the age of 79.
The father of his Blueberry and The Way of the Gun co-star Juliette Lewis was never out of work for too long, but for many, his Eastwood outings were his defining run of films. In a statement following his death, his seven-time collaborator had nothing but the utmost praise for his work.
“I was very saddened by the news of Geoffrey’s passing,” he said, per Entertainment Weekly. “I worked with him on many films and thought he was a wonderful actor and terrific performer. He had the most expressive face, which made working with him so fun. Geoffrey will be greatly missed.”
A character actor through and through, Lewis may not have been a star, but he was dependable and popular enough within the industry to ensure he was always a regular presence on screens, both big and small.
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