The 1971 co-star Clint Eastwood knew was out of his league: “A big star”
Actors and movie stars can often be two very different things, and while many have shown that you can be both at the same time, Clint Eastwood has always fallen a little more into the latter camp.
He’s not a bad actor by any means, but it’s telling that only two of his 11 Academy Award nominations have been for his work in front of the camera, and none of his 13 Golden Globe nods have been for his performative efforts. Not that it matters, because the man’s an icon.
Eastwood has given several iconic performances and anchored many iconic films, all without being the most naturally gifted thespian in the room. If someone looks like a star, carries themselves as a star, and backs it up at the box office, then they’re always going to be regarded as a star, and it fit him like a glove.
Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy may have pushed his career up the slope toward the A-list, with Hang ‘Em High, Where Eagles Dare, and Kelly’s Heroes reinforcing him as a draw and a bona fide, bankable leading man, but 1971 was undoubtedly the most pivotal year of Eastwood’s legendary career.
That brought the release of his directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, which set the stage for him to become the greatest actor-turned-filmmaker of all time, and also Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry, which cemented his place in cinema history when he brought one of the industry’s most famous antiheroes to life for the first time.
As a result, that means his other Siegel-directed picture of the year, The Beguiled, often goes overlooked, although it’s comfortably one of his most underrated movies. The core cast of the literary adaptation is predominantly female, and the second-billed name in the ensemble left Eastwood feeling rather overawed.
Geraldine Page plays Martha Farnsworth, who runs the school where Eastwood’s injured soldier recuperates, and he was suitably blown away. “She’s out of my league, being a big star on Broadway and all,” he shared at the time, but he was quickly put at ease. “When we started, she told me she was a big fan of mine on Rawhide.”
When The Beguiled began production in April 1970, Page was a four-time Oscar nominee, a Bafta nominee, a two-time Golden Globe winner and five-time nominee, a two-time Primetime Emmy winner, and a Tony nominee, so you can understand why the guy who’d built his reputation on a thousand-yard stare, a six-shooter, and minimal dialogue didn’t think he could compete.
Continuing his edification, Eastwood summed her up as “such a ballsy actress,” and one without airs, graces, or pretensions, who arrived on set to inspire the other actors. “‘This is the way I am, this is the way I want to do it’, and then these other young gals were sort of drawn into it,'” he remembered, and it sounds as though those young gals weren’t the only ones who were enamoured by Page.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Clint Eastwood Newsletter
All the latest stories about Clint Eastwood from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.