In 1955, he made his cinema debut in the monster film “Tarantula”. But did you recognize him behind his aviator mask?
Director of nearly forty feature films (two of which earned him the Oscar for best director), sacred monster of cinema, essential face of the western, Clint Eastwood is without the slightest doubt one of the most important in Hollywood history.
Let us think of his mute and charismatic incarnation of the man with no name in Sergio Leone’s dollar trilogy, of his unforgettable punchlines in Inspector Harry, of his moving face to face with Meryl Streep in On the Road to Madison or his touching interpretation of retired veteran Walt Kowalski in the remarkable Gran Torino, it is difficult to imagine the epic cinema without him.
However, even if today we have the impression that he has always existed, there is indeed a time (that those under 60 cannot know) when no one had yet heard of Clint Eastwood . Like most future great actors, it was by entering through the back door and accepting roles as extras that he began in the world of cinema.
As we can see by viewing the extract below, it was in 1955 (68 years ago!) that Clint Eastwood’s very first appearance on the big screen dates back to, in the monster film Tarantula, where a gigantic spider terrorized the residents of a town in Arizona.
Even if his name was not credited in the credits and if we never saw the bottom of his face, covered by his aviator mask, the future standard bearer of the western was already playing the hero, since he played a pilot of fighter dropping a missile on the monstrous arachnid.
(Did you recognize which other famous actor is in this 1965 film?)
The same year, the director of Tarantula (Jack Arnold, also famous for having directed The Shrinking Man) also gave another small role to Clint Eastwood in Revenge of the Creature (from Black Lake) where the young actor budding played a scientist, his name thus appearing for the first time in the credits of a film.
After several other extra roles, Clint Eastwood quickly took his first step on the path to glory by landing one of the first roles in the series Rawhide in 1959. Five years later, he left for the Italian sun to take part in the film which was to revolutionize his career and mark the history of cinema: A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone.
(Re)discover the trailer for this film…