Clint Eastwood attended Oakland Technical High School. After graduating from high school, Eastwood found work as a logger, hay baler, truck driver, and furnace operator at a steel mill. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1950 and stationed at Fort Ord, California, where he taught swimming on base. After being discharged in 1953, Eastwood attended Los Angeles City College and worked at a gas station.
Eastwood passed a screen test with Universal Studios, signed a 40-week contract, and landed his first roles in the 1955 monster movies “Revenge of the Creature” and “Tarantula” and the comedy “Francis in the Navy”.
When his Universal Studios contract ended, Eastwood took a few television roles, but he made a living by digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck. Eastwood’s breakthrough role came in 1958, when he landed the role of Rowdy Yates on the Western television series “Rawhide.” He continued to play the cowboy for eight seasons of the series.
The actor traveled to Italy in the 1960s to star in a series of spaghetti Westerns—”A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”—all directed by Sergio Leone. His time in Europe brought Eastwood international attention.
In 1967, Eastwood formed his own company, Malpaso Productions, which produced his first Western, “Hang ‘Em High,” in 1968. Malpaso Productions was behind many of Eastwood’s cowboy roles in 1973’s “High Plains Drifter,” 1976’s “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and 1985’s “Pale Rider,” as well as Eastwood’s portrayal of real-life inmate Frank Lee Morris in 1979’s “Escape from Alcatraz.” Success followed success!”