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List Price: $25.99 | | Publisher: Harmony
Salesrank: 4303
Released: October 6, 2009 |
| Our Price: $12.98 |
| Used Price: $7.99 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
As an actor, he seduces us with his tough-guy charm. As a director and producer, he amazes us with his artistry and technical savvy. As a Hollywood icon, Clint Eastwood, one of film's greatest living legends, represents some of the finest cinematic achievements in the history of American cinema.
In American Rebel, bestselling author and acclaimed film historian Marc Eliot examines the ever-exciting, often-tumultuous arc of Clint Eastwood's life and career. Unlike past biographers, Eliot writes with unflinching candor about Eastwood's highs and lows, his artistic successes and failures, and the fascinating, complex relationship between his life and his craft. Eliot's prodigious research reveals how a college dropout and unambitious playboy rose to fame as Hollywood' s "sexy rebel," eventually and against all odds becoming a star in the Academy pantheon as a multiple Oscar winner. Spanning decades, American Rebel covers the best of Eastwood' s oeuvre, films that have fast become American classics–Fistful of Dollars, Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and Gran Torino.
Filled with remarkable insights into Eastwood's personal life and public work, American Rebel is highly entertaining and the most complete biography of one of Hollywood's truly respected and beloved stars–an actor who, despite being the Man with No Name, has left his indelible mark on the world of motion pictures.
American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood Reviews:
Mixed bag which concerns itself more with Clint's personal life than his films... 
2009-10-25 - I'm always interested in anything about Clint Eastwood, so I was very happy when this book came out. Unfortunately, it's a mixed bag. It has several factual errors and the author seems to have an agenda. Marc Eliot seems more interested in the sordid aspects of Clint's personal life, and quite often skims over his actual films to obsess (and obsess) about Clint's many girlfriends, especially the Sondra Locke story. Clint is not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination, but this book often reads like a sleazy, tabloid story in which the author is more interested in the salacious rather than the substance of Eastwood's remarkable, diverse, and epic career (which is still going strong, and going stronger now more than ever).
The factual errors that I found were the following:
1. Unforgiven was not shot in less than a month, as stated by the author, but in 52 days.
2. Clint's character in The Eiger Sanction wasn't a member of the clergy, but an art professor/dealer.
3. Sergio Leone, at first, wasn't enthusiastic about Eastwood in the lead for A Fistful of Dollars. Leone wanted Charles Bronson and/or James Coburn, but Coburn was too expensive, and Bronson couldn't make heads or tails of the script, which was in badly translated English. While Leone liked Clint, he eventually had to warm up to him, but Leone did.
Eliot writes that Clint's career is on the decline in several spots in the book. Clint has had a few films bomb, but he's never been really that down and out like Eliot portrays him as. Everytime Clint was down, he got back up right away. It seems that Marc Eliot is reluctant to admit that Clint is really a great film artist, even though Eliot does mention that Clint outshines his contemporaries by miles.
Overall, this book is decent, but it hardly touches on Clint's actual filmmaking. While Clint's personal life should be touched upon, here it's an obsession of the author, and it negates the impact of the book.
GREAT READ 
2009-10-14 - Most of the Clint bios out there are either adoring puff pieces or hatchet jobs, but this one was right down the middle. it also includes the period of his recent run of Oscar-recognized excellence (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, etc)that came long after the other books were published. I found it to be thorough, interesting, totally comprehensive, and remarkably revealing, given that the subject is not known to give many interviews. Eliot is part biographer and part film historian, and he writes about the Clint movies in a way that is more stimulating than the style usually found in these types of books without sacrificing the fun, gossipy angle.
This is THE Clint Eastwood book to get!
HE'S ONE OF A KIND ! 
2009-10-13 - There is probably not a more iconic Hollywood figure today than Clint Eastwood, nor for that matter is there a more private one. Now, New York Times bestselling author Marc Eliot ( Reagan" The Hollywood Years, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart) to a large degree demystifies Eastwood by putting carefully examining the movies he has had made and his life to date.
As Sondra Locke with whom Eastwood had a 14 year relationship said, "People can know him for years and never be sure of what he's thinking. He's one of the warmest people in the world, but there's a certain distance, a certain mystery to him." Readers will not discover Eastwood's thoughts but much light will be shed on his journey from college dropout/playboy to become one of the most successful and respected men in the film industry. It was a twisted path marked by 2 marriages and 7 children. His romantic liaisons were often with co-stars, and he once said, "There is only one way to have a happy marriage, and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.
He's played many a tough loner and, according to Eliot, Eastwood was tough, hanging out in "seedy bars" and playing jazz piano in his younger days. Little would one think that the tall, lanky fellow who for over 7 years co-starred in TV's Rawhide and churned out spaghetti Westerns would one day be a multiple Academy Award Winner. But, he was and to paraphrase a song he did it his way.
Enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
The good, the bad... (well, somebody had to say it)
2009-10-11 - The story of Eastwood's personal life is well done, but I would have appreciated more on Eastwood's creative life as an actor and auteur. Most of his groundbreaking 1960s-1970s films receive a few pages of surface details but almost no analysis (Eastwood's or the author's) of his work or the creative process behind it. Surely a whiole book could be written about Eastwood's participation in those early Sergio Leone films. Presumably Eastwood had some thoughts about the characters, the scripts, the cinematic style? How about Eastwood participation in the box-office dud, "Paint Your Wagon"? The film is mentioned almost in passing, but the book's list of Eastwood-related musical recordings omits any reference to Clint's three songs on the soundtrack to the film, and the film is not even included in the book's index. The book is worth reading but it's not the definitive biography I had hoped for.
