Clint The man and the movies

Film critic Levy (King of Comedy) argues in this sharp biography that Clint Eastwood is "an inkblot in whom we see a variety of opposing ideas at once." Eastwood was born in San Francisco in 1930, and after performing in a school play as an eighth grader, he told his drama teacher that, despite her praise, "I don't want to do that again, ever in my life." That changed after his military service ended in 1953, thanks to fellow soldiers who urged him to take "a shot at Hollywood." Taking a wide angle, Levy covers Eastwood's rise to stardom starting with some lucky breaks; his forays into politics, including his bizarre speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where he addressed an empty chair as if Barack Obama were in it; his complex personal relationships; and how sexual assault functions as a "personal obsession" in his films. Levy has a knack for memorable phrasing, describing 1997's Absolute Power, for example, as "a B-movie story requiring significant momentum so as to keep the audience from falling into the holes in the plot." It makes for a solid account of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the life of one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (July)

A film critic's biography of a cinema legend. Fans of Clint Eastwood have long had a surfeit of biographies about him to choose from. Levy, a film critic whose previous books include volumes on Robert De Niro and Paul Newman, adds to this trove with this admiring work. He's clearly a fan, praising Eastwood for his "dogged work ethic" and for being "an honest-to-Pete American icon," yet he also notes Eastwood's "let's call itcomplex history of wives, partners, and children" and the wide range in quality of the many films he has acted in and directed. Levy covers Eastwood's peripatetic upbringing in Northern California, where he was a mediocre student and cared only about "girls, hot rods, and the piano"; his early love of jazz and "meat-and-potatoes Hollywood films"; his acting success, from television'sRawhide to the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone to his iconic role as detective Dirty Harry; and his maturation as an accomplished director. The book is repetitive, with Levy describing the plot of every Eastwood picture, the critics' reactions, and his own assessment. Levy tends to gush: He says of the revisionist WesternUnforgiven, "If the devildoes get the best lines, this is a film filled with devils, made by angels, depicting Hell with heavenly gifts," noting that the dialogue is "just as fine and bejeweled as you like." Yet his glasses aren't so rose colored that he can't see the clunkers, writing, for example, that the comedyAny Which Way You Can "makes you feel as if you're stuck with a drunk who insists on telling the same joke over and over and telling it more loudly each time." And he doesn't skimp on details from Eastwood's colorful personal life, including multiple infidelities and "eight children some forty-two years apart by six different women…that he knew of." An evenhanded if overly effusive appreciation of Clint Eastwood's career. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.