The vocalist Clint Eastwood called “one of the greatest singers ever”
For most true artists, the medium shouldn’t really matter. Combing through the greatest actors of their generation, giving a monster performance isn’t all that different from seeing a guitarist deliver a great solo onstage or watching a painter make a few deft strokes to paint a masterpiece. While Clint Eastwood usually got most of the job done by being the coolest person in the room, he admitted that he had a taste for the classics underneath that tough exterior when discussing his favourite singers.
In almost every movie he starred in, though, Eastwood always carried himself like the stoic badass everyone knew all too well. Whether it was his performance in Dirty Harry or his playing the lonesome drifter in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, fans could get captivated by only one line of dialogue without him moving a muscle.
That kind of blunt approach to film also shines in the way that he directs as well. For all of the great films that he has in his arsenal in front of the camera, his work on American Sniper and Richard Jewell are both masterclasses in how to make something that’s artistically bleak, especially when the message boils down to how cruel life can be to the average people on the street.
Anyone who works in that medium for that long will need a break at some point, and Eastwood always found his calling listening to cool jazz. Since all of his films have centred around him kicking ass and taking names, this kind of music feels like the calm after the storm where everything can come to a rest.
And in terms of jazz singing, no one did it better than Ella Fitzgerald, as far as Eastwood could tell. As much as the genre gets a rough tag for being music meant to be played by the grandparents of the world, there is some magic behind her vocal takes as well, including moments where she conveys the subtlest of emotions by pronouncing one word in exactly the right way.
While Eastwood had been a fan since hearing Fitzgerald in her teenage years, she had never slipped up once, saying, “[She’s] one of the greatest pop singers ever starting out with ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket’, which was her first hit when she was a teenager and then she went on to be one of the greatest singers ever.”
But before people start questioning Eastwood’s taste, there’s actually a lot in common with the way that Fitzgerald sings and his approach to acting. Even though not every one of their performances is meant to be the most dynamic pieces in the world, both of them understood the power of choosing the right moment to deliver the goods, and when they eventually did, both of them shined brighter than anyone could have imagined.
Half of Eastwood’s greatest roles seem to be based around guys who seem to listen to nothing outside of drill sergeant instructions, but underneath all of that macho posturing is someone who appreciates the finer things in life. Because even after a day of playing the role of the uninhibited outlaw, it’s not the worst thing in the world to have a glass of wine and decompress with Fitzgerald singing all those troubles away.
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