How Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name Inspired This Iconic ‘Star Wars’ Character
Clint Eastwood’s prolific performance in A Fistful of Dollars influenced the coolest sci-fi character around, Boba Fett. Eastwood’s character, the Man with No Name, was a mystery man who rode into town, did his job, and rode out again without ever revealing his past. This enigmatic figure captured the imagination of audiences around the world, and when George Lucas was looking for inspiration for Boba Fett, he turned to Eastwood’s performance. Like the Man with No Name, Fett is a mystery man who does his job and doesn’t reveal his past. And like Clint Eastwood, Boba Fett has become an icon of pop culture.
After a small part in 1956’s Revenge of the Creature, Clint Eastwood became a household name on Rawhide. He played Rowdy Yates on the popular tv series before an Italian Western shot him to superstardom. In A Fistful Of Dollars, Eastwood’s character was based on Akira Kurosawa’s samurai film, Yojimbo. Film studio Toho sued the creators of A Fistful Of Dollars, claiming the films were too similar. Learning of the Western’s samurai roots is eye-opening.
How Classic Westerns influenced George Lucas
When George Lucas was crafting the Star Wars Saga, it took many cues from Eastern culture as well as classic films about the Old West. “There were quite a few films made about bounty hunters in the Old West,” George Lucas told CBR in 2021. “that’s where that came from. When I was writing the early scripts for Star Wars, I wanted to develop an essentially evil character that was frightening. Darth Vader started as a kind of intergalactic bounty hunter in a space suit and evolved into a more grotesque knight as I got more into knights and the codes of everything. He became more of a Dark Lord than a mercenary bounty hunter. The Boba Fett character is really an early version of Darth Vader. He is also very much like [ Clint Eastwood ] from the Sergio Leone Westerns.”
Boba Fett takes many cues from Clint Eastwood
Boba Fett first appears in live-action in the 1980s The Empire Strikes Back. He is a bounty hunter like many Clint Eastwood characters. Not only that, but he wears a cloak similar to the poncho Eastwood often sports in westerns. Just like The Man with No Name, Fett says as little as possible and is willing to play both sides. Fett is hired by Darth Vader to find the Millennium Falcon. He tracks the ship to Cloud City, where he captures Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia.
Fett’s next appearance is in Return of the Jedi, where he fights Luke Skywalker above the Sarlacc pit. He is then presumably killed by Han Solo, who accidentally knocks him into the pit. However, the quiet character made an impression. So much so that he was immediately brought back in other media, like cartoons. However, Fett made his return to live-action in a season 2 episode of the wildly popular The Mandalorian tv series. He has since even gotten his own limited series, The Book of Boba Fett, which dropped in 2021. That series doubled down on Star Wars’ Old West inspirations. Fett wears a poncho over his body armor, just like the iconic Clint Eastwood character.
Clint Eastwood tells of the terrible fire of November 10, but he still has to work.
Clint Eastwood wasn’t going to let a wildfire keep him from getting to work.The 91-year-old actor/director told Ellen on Monday’s episode of how he drove toward a Southern California wildfire last month that was encroaching the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, where his office has been for 40 years.
Ellen described the November 10 blaze, known as the Barham brush fire, as a ‘really bad fire that came really close to the lot,’ adding that ‘air quality was so bad that everyone evacuated’ – but not Clint!’I was coming back down to do some work at a sound stage and I saw all this smoke going,’ the screen legend said, adding he noticed the smoke plumes emanated from the Warner Bros. lot.
The Tinseltown staple continued: ‘And I’m getting closer and closer and its Warner Bros. and its smoke and I got almost up there and I thought, the whole studio’s burning down, maybe I’ll go in and see if I can retrieve something.’The filmmaker of classics such as Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Unforgiven said that the Warner Bros.
Studio was spared of any damage, as the blaze was contained to a nearby hill.’So we went on the sound stage and started working and we forgot about it and … everybody said, “The studio’s been evacuated! And I said, “We’re not evacuated, we’re here working!”‘
The office neighbors where Ellen works out of, and she describes Eastwood as ‘a good neighbor’ who never complains. Ellen showed that she and her staff had helped decorate Eastwood’s office with holiday decor, which Clint called ‘pretty nice.’
He added: ‘A lot better than some of the things she has done. One time she called up and said somebody made a pinata of her and said you have to go out there and take a baseball bat and beat the hell out of it.’Eastwood was on to promote his latest film Richard Jewell, which hits theaters Friday .
Clint Eastwood’s special dating history with Hollywood beauties .
Actor Clint Eastwood is one lucky guy! He’s dated a lot of gorgeous women in Hollywood, including his ex-wives Maggie Johnson and Dina Eastwood (née Ruiz). But no woman could ever make him feel as incredible as his current girlfriend, Christina Sandera, does.“He’s truly happy with her,” an insider exclusively told Closer Weekly in May 2020. “She’s fun, easygoing and his kids like her too. She’s on an even keel like he is.”
Christina came into the Gran Torino star’s life after Dina filed for divorce from Clint in October 2013. Two months after she sent in the paperwork, the reporter went on Bethenny Frankel’s former eponymous TV show to dish about her separation.“I don’t’ think we will be getting back together,” Dina said at the time. “That is why I filed for divorce. I think maybe a part of me was holding out, like ‘What are we doing here?’
Then there have been some definite signs that we’re not going to get back together so let’s move on amicably is my opinion, but I think there is a mental chokehold on you when you don’t have something in place that shows you are definitely apart.”Although the pair decided to call it quits, Dina explained she has no bad feelings towards Clint. In fact, she said he’s “probably the sweetest guy” she’s ever met. “He is a loving, kind, low-key person, so my intuition was still great on marrying a good person,” the journalist gushed.
By December 2014, Clint and Dina’s divorce was finalized. The Dirty Harry star moved on with Christina and they made their first red carpet appearance together at t he 2015 Oscars. It wasn’t long until the Academy Award winner moved his beloved into the same Carmel, California, home he used to share with Dina.“The first time I saw the place I thought it was terrific,” Clint gushed to Architectural Digest about his beautiful estate in August 2016. “Visually it was something else, and I thought it was the place I’d like to call home.”
Maggie Johnson : Maggie is Clint’s first wife. In 1953, they tied the knot and welcomed two kids together: daughter Alison Eastwood and son Kyle Eastwood. The two lovebirds stayed together for 31 years until they got divorced in 1984.//Roxanne Tunis : In 1959, Clint romanced stuntwoman Roxanne after they met on the set of the western TV show Rawhide. In June 1964, their daughter Kimber arrived in the world.
Sondra Locke : Sondra was in a relationship with Clint in the 1970s. The two actors have starred in many movies together such as The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet and Sudden Impact. She died in November 2018 from cardiac arrest. // Jacelyn Reeves : Jacelyn and Clint had a brief fling in 1984. The duo are proud parents to their two kids — Scott Eastwood and Kathryn Eastwood.
Frances Fisher : Clint and Frances were dating from 1990 to 1995. In August 1993, they welcomed daughter Francesca Eastwood into the world. //Dina Ruiz : Clint and Dina were married from 1996 to 2014, and during that time, the couple welcomed a beautiful daughter named Morgan. After they got divorced, Dina went on to marry former basketball player Scott Fisher in 2016.///Erica Tomlinson-Fisher : Although there are no photos of Erica, the Mule star briefly dated her when he broke off his marriage to Dina, per reports. However, their love didn’t last long because Clint settled down with Christina shortly after.
Why Tom Hanks likens the Clint Eastwood style to entwined horses ?
Veteran actor Tom Hanks has likened Clint Eastwood’s directorial style to wrangling animals. Hanks worked with Eastwood for the first time on Sully, the story of a real-life feat of heroism in which his character, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, safely landed an endangered plane New York’s Hudson river in 2009.
Hanks told the Graham Norton Show: “You certainly don’t want one of those Eastwood looks. “He treats his actors like horses because when he did the 60s series Rawhide, the director would shout ‘Action!’ and all the horses bolted. So when he’s in charge, he says in a really quiet soft voice, ‘All right, go ahead,’ and instead of shouting ‘Cut!’ he says ‘That’s enough of that.’ It’s intimidating as hell!”
Hanks also said that the real Sullenberger made for a strong presence on set, even criticizing Eastwood for his lack of punctuality when he was 20 minutes late. “Sully was very particular about how we portrayed the procedure and the emotions,” said Hanks. “He pulled out this dog-eared, stapled and notated script that he had read. Postits, stapled index cards all over it – I’m sure his wife had even written ‘No’ across it in lipstick! We went through every page and every moment, every beat had been commented on. He had opinions.”
Hanks and Eastwood campaigned for different sides during the recent US presidential campaign. The actor – who was even mooted by documentary-maker Michael Moore as a future Democrat candidate – was a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton, frequently speaking of his lack of faith in her rival, Donald Trump, whom he described as a “self-involved” gas bags”.
Eastwood, meanwhile, came out for Trump in August, saying the Republican was “on to something, because everybody’s secretly getting tired of political correctness”. “That’s the kiss-ass generation we’re in right now,” he said. “We’re really in a pussy generation.” Eastwood also said he thought a lot of the backlash to Trump was misplaced.
“We see people people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist. “Everybody, the press and everybody’s going, ‘Oh, well, that’s racist’ and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it. It’s a sad time in history.”Following Trump’s earlier , Hanks election to reassure his fellow Clinton supporters about the future. “We are going to be all right,” he told an audience in New York. “We will move forward, because if we do not move forward, what is to be said about us?”