(narrator) It's the 29th of March, 1993, and the 65th Academy Awards are underway.

After 39 years in the business, 62-year-old movie legend Clint Eastwood is nominated for his first ever Oscars.

It's up for nine Academy Awards.

Nine.

(narrator) By the end of the evening, Unforgiven had won four Oscars including Best Director for Clint.

The toughest of tough guys here is the king of understatement, laughing off his colossal achievement.

(David Valdes) That's somebody else doing cartwheels with the Oscar in his hand.

(narrator) Over his seven decade career.

(Professor Frayling) The movies have been around for about a century and for half a century of them Clint Eastwood has been there as well.

(narrator) He starred in iconic macho films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Dirty Harry.

(Clint Eastwood) You've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?"

Well, do you, punk?

(narrator) And directed world-class actors like Tom Hanks in Sully: Miracle on the Hudson about the remarkable real life rescue, but behind the camera, we reveal a hidden story kept from the press for decades of Clint Eastwood's chaotic love life.

(Professor Frayling) It does appear to have been a semi-open marriage.

(narrator) Fathering eight children by six mothers.

(Douglas) People started digging around and they turned up the identity of his lovechild.

(narrator) Leaving dozens of women in his wake.

(David) He put all of her things into cardboard boxes and put them out in the driveway.

(narrator) Breakups which became increasingly bitter and public.

(Marc) Battles with women, hostilities, lawsuits.

(narrator) And how astonishingly, at his lowest ebb, these personal battles inspired him to raise his game.

(Marc) Once turmoil came back to his life, he made one of the greatest films of his career.

I would put him up there with Chaplin, with Welles, Hitchcock, with Ford.

(narrator) And how he has mellowed into old age, finally giving his children the love and support they deserve.

This is the story of Clint Eastwood.

(upbeat music) Clint's life began in San Francisco in one of America's darkest hours.

(Carrie) Clint Eastwood was born in 1930, the first full year of the Depression.

(Marc) His family was just as poor as everybody else.

(Professor Frayling) His father never sustained a career but was constantly moving on from place to place, from job to job.

(narrator) His education was under constant upheaval which left its mark on him.

(Carrie) He kind of developed a life as a loner and really didn't have a lot of friends because they were always moving.

(Professor Frayling) Not many words, he's never used many words from that day to this.

♪ (narrator) But he had an artistic side which would sustain him through his life.

(Douglas) The only thing he could feel good about was he was skillful as a musician.

(Professor Basinger) His mother loved music and she played Fats Waller records.

(Marc) He liked to play jazz piano so while other kids were hanging out in restaurants and basketball courts, he was playing piano.

(narrator) Both his parents encouraged him.

(Douglas) He had a very close relationship with his mother.

He talked to her every day on the telephone, it didn't matter where he was.

He was filming in Africa or in the jungles somewhere or Granada, Mom got a telephone call.

(Professor Frayling) His father had all these aphorisms like "you must always outrun yourself."

Rules for life and Eastwood would quote them.

(solemn music) (narrator) But this creative loner was often in trouble at school.

(Marc) He was a tough kid and when kids at that age fight it's usually a sign of rage, anger.

They felt that they had been robbed of childhood.

All the Depression babies had similar issues.

(narrator) After scribbling obscene graffiti and burning an effigy on the sports field, Clint was kicked out of school.

So he did odd jobs.

-Lumberjacked.

-Filled shelves.

He worked at Bethlehem Steel.

(narrator) He applied to go to college studying music, but his plans were cut short.

(dramatic music) (news reporter) Through the summer of 1950, American GIs fought on courageously against overwhelming odds.

(Douglas) Korean War began, he was drafted into the Army.

(Professor Frayling) But he gets lucky and he ends up as a swimming instructor.

(narrator) Based in California where a chance encounter with an actor he knew would help transform his fortunes.

The guy he bumped into was David Jensen who was a contract player with Universal.

He said, "Look, you know, come to Universal see if you can get a job."

(narrator) Clint was accepted into Universal's Talent School.

Clint Eastwood photographed very well.

(Carrie) The most important and useful thing he learned was how to ride a horse.

(Professor Frayling) It also teaches him how to make the camera love you and that's really important.

Camera loves star.

(Professor Basinger) They gave out report cards and at the bottom it says, "This is a very nice boy."

(narrator) Clint won a series of small roles but after a year, he was dropped.

He went back to odd jobbing, taking occasional bit parts in films but in 1958, U.S. TV station CBS needed actors for their new TV western.

(Douglas) So Clint's agent put him up for this new series, Rawhide.

(narrator) Clint won the role.

His first Wild West adventure, playing hunky sidekick, Rowdy Yates.

(Douglas) A kind of can-do wrangler with a cattle herd, the number two star of the show.

He's the romantic interest, he always gets the girl.

(narrator) Rawhide was a hit, soon becoming one of the most watched TV shows in America.

(Douglas) And because of that it just made Clint a household name very early on.

(narrator) Before long, Clint became fascinated by what went on behind the camera.

Clint Eastwood is ambitious and he always was so I think he wanted to be a director from the moment that he was a star.

Quite early on, Clint Eastwood asks the producers, "Can I please direct an episode?"

(narrator) Either the studio agreed then backtracked or gave an outright no, accounts differ, but it didn't happen.

(Marc) That is the signal moment in Clint's life when he realizes he can't be in Hollywood.

He cannot be controlled.

(narrator) Rawhide would remain a hit in America for six years but while Clint's career took off, his private life would become hopelessly tangled.

(Professor Frayling) It does appear to have been a semi-open marriage.

Whether everyone knew everything that was going on, I don't know.

(narrator) And a call from Italy would offer him his first leading role in a movie.

(Marianne) He just stood there and mumbled his lines and then, we thought, oh my God, if this man is to be the hero of the film, what's going to happen?

(dramatic music) (lively music) (narrator) It's 1963 and 33-year-old Clint Eastwood is enjoying TV success in Rawhide.

Off screen, Clint enjoys plenty of success with women too.

(Douglas) Clint was very much the ladies' man.

When he met Maggie Johnson, what Maggie had was a great personality, sense of humor, exuberance.

(narrator) The pair met on a blind date in 1953 and married the same year.

(Douglas) Marriage didn't prevent Clint from wandering and another girl who he had been in involved with gave birth not that many months later to a baby daughter, Laurie.

(narrator) Her mother gave Laurie up for adoption and Clint didn't find out that his daughter existed until she got in touch with him more than 30 years later.

It seemed that Clint was just a guy who couldn't say no.

One relationship stood out from the rest.

(Douglas) Clint had the affair with Roxanne Tunis who was a regular on the set on Rawhide acting as a stunt woman.

(narrator) An open secret on set.

This affair would carry on for more than a decade.

(Douglas) Commitment always seems to have been an issue with him.

(narrator) And result in another daughter, Kimber, whose paternity Clint would not acknowledge until she was in her 20s.

And still, Maggie stuck by him.

(Professor Frayling) The publicity about Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates is of happily married to Maggie, home-loving, healthy and uh, this is presented as the all-American family.

(dramatic music) (narrator) The loner in Clint valued his privacy but that didn't stop him pursuing more fame.

(Douglas) His Rawhide costar, Eric Fleming, was approached to star in an Italian western and he said that Clint might be the perfect person to do it.

His agent advised him not to do it and he said, "You can't make a western in Italy, it's ridiculous."

(narrator) Clint ignored his advice.

The working title was The Magnificent Stranger, to be shot on location in Spain and the Italian director was a then largely unknown Sergio Leone.

(Marc) He offers him $15,000 which to Clint, you know, a Depression kid is like a million dollars, plus he gets to go to Spain.

Everything no one else wanted to do, he wanted to do.

(narrator) Sergio Leone had found his lead, The Man With No Name and Marianne Koch was his costar.

She played a young mother whose son is terrorized by bandits.

Now nearly 90, Marianne is a radio host.

She gave us an exclusive audio interview about the filming.

This was Sergio Leone's first impression of Clint.

(Marianne) He answered, "I think I suddenly could understand the feelings Michelangelo must have had standing in front of the marble rock that was to become his famous sculpture of David."

(narrator) Clint Eastwood came ready to help this ultra low budget production.

(Neil) He brought with him a pair of black jeans, brown riding boots, he brought cigars and considering he doesn't smoke and has never smoked, that was quite a thing for him.

He also snuck out some props from the Rawhide set including the gun and the spurs.

(narrator) And right from the start, he wanted input on the script.

(Neil) He went through the script with Sergio and crossed out most of the lines of dialogue and he said, "No, no, no, no," he says, "you don't need this."

(Professor Frayling) Clint Eastwood's one of the few actors in the history of the movies who fought for less lines.

He realized you get more mystery from the central character if you prune the script.

(narrator) Marianne herself did not detect his star quality right away.

(Marianne) He just stood there, mumbled his lines and then we thought, "Oh my God.

If this man is to be the hero of the film, what's going to happen?"

(narrator) Marianne's doubts were soon removed.

(Marianne) He had this amazing screen presence which you can't learn.

It's a gift, it's a talent.

His thoughts and moves projected directly to the audience.

(narrator) The shy, mumbling young actor Clint had transformed into a nameless, near wordless hero.

(Douglas) The dialogue didn't really matter 'cause there was a nod, a smile, a glance.

Not just silent, you know, strong and silent type, he's downright uncommunicative.

(narrator) Blurring the boundaries between the fictional Man with No Name and Clint Eastwood himself.

(Marc) He's a macho guy but he's soft-spoken because real macho guys don't have to show you that they're tough guys.

(narrator) On a budget of just $200,000, Sergio Leone had created one of the first ever Spaghetti Westerns, as these European cowboy movies came to be known.

(James) Because Leone was making these movies in Spain and Italy, they're outside of Hollywood, I think it really influenced Clint as a Hollywood outsider as well.

(narrator) And Leone was fast becoming a mentor to Clint.

(Marianne) I remember that he said, "I'm going to be a director one day."

It was almost a bit ridiculous because he was a no-name actor at that time.

There was a very decisive part in him that knew what he wanted to do with himself during his lifetime.

He learned very, very quickly from Leone how to make the best of a small budget and your resources that you had.

This was invaluable, absolutely invaluable.

(narrator) They made a sequel, another smash hit in Europe and followed up with a global sensation, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

(Marc) Everybody wants to see this film and Clint Eastwood, they can't sell tickets fast enough.

(narrator) The final showdown of the film is considered by many as masterclass in cinema.

It's an extraordinary scene and it's a model example of editing.

Faces staring at each other, hands.

(intense music) Eyes, and then you think that it's all over and we're starting again.

(narrator) Followed by a showdown off screen, Clint and Leone fell out over money and never worked together again.

This was the final outing for The Man with No Name but just the beginning for the macho persona that Clint Eastwood would inhabit over a lifetime in film.

(Bidisha) Clint Eastwood embodies everything audiences in general but I think white male American audiences in particular really wish they were: self-contained, capable, but emotionless.

(Douglas) This man who made his own rules, lived by his own rules, survived by his own rules, was what a lot of people aspired to be.

(narrator) Clint wanted to live by his own rules too.

(Marc) This was his time to make his move.

He wanted to be more like Leone who produced his own films and delivered them.

(Douglas) Hollywood at that time especially was into giant budgets.

It was a limousine type filmmaking, whereas he was more into a pickup truck kind of attitude.

(narrator) So along with business partner Irving Leonard, in 1967, Clint Eastwood launched his own company, Malpaso Productions, named after a creek near his home.

(Professor Basinger) It's not the first thing that you think a lot of movie stars would do, take the first good money and set up a production company instead of buying a beautiful house or a big car.

(narrator) Malpaso's debut film was another western, Hang 'Em High.

(Douglas) He cashed in on the cult following of the Spaghetti Westerns and it brought it to an American western audience.

Sounds like a Spaghetti, looks like a Spaghetti but it's nothing like a Spaghetti.

(narrator) In a nod to A Fistful Of Dollars, the film opens with a hangman's noose.

(dramatic music) What's this all about?

(laughing) Hang him.

It starts off with where he gets hanged.

That was never done before in Hollywood.

You could never hang somebody because of the morals code.

(narrator) And a dashing last minute rescue.

With this scene, Clint established himself as a risk-taker, someone who wouldn't be told no.

But it's a great opening and it, you know, it just like, it shocks people because like Janet Leigh in Psycho, I mean, here's the star of the film and they're killing him in the opening shot.

What about the nine just men who hung me?

Justice is my province, Marshal, mine and mine alone.

(narrator) It paid off.

Hang 'Em High bagged United Artists' biggest opening weekend to that date.

(Douglas) So it created Malpaso as a real player in Hollywood, a powerhouse.

(solemn music) (narrator) From now on, Clint set a pattern of making, on average, a film a year throughout his life.

And another repeating pattern of Clint's alleged affairs with his leading ladies.

First with Inger Stevens.

(Douglas) Having lots of glamorous girls about.

He likes the attention and he gets a lot of attention.

(narrator) Again a year later on Paint Your Wagon.

He was enamored by Jean Seberg and they had quite an intense affair.

It didn't seem to bother Clint or infringe on his marital status.

(narrator) To complicate matters, he and Maggie now had their own son, Kyle, and there was his daughter, Kimber, from his ongoing affair with Roxanne Tunis.

It does appear to have been a semi-open marriage.

Whether everyone knew everything that was going on I don't know.

(narrator) He's even said to have added The Beguiled costar Jo Ann Harris to a growing list of secret entanglements.

He played by Clint's rules.

He lived his life, he lived his lifestyle.

(Marc) With Clint, I think pursuit probably was more exciting and the constant turnover of new.

(intense music) (narrator) As the '70s rolled into town, Clint was established as a favorite with audiences who knew nothing about his tangled private life.

He was offered and rejected the highly coveted role of James Bond when Sean Connery stepped down because he had other ambitions.

He pitched Play Misty For Me to Universal with himself attached as director, and got the job.

But Clint knew he needed help to direct.

He took advice from Don Siegel who he'd worked with on Malpaso's second film, Coogan's Bluff.

(Professor Frayling) Don Siegel makes economical, sharp movies, very strong sense of story editing.

(narrator) With Siegel on set taking a cameo role, production got underway.

(Marc) When Clint was on screen, Don Siegel was behind the camera and when Clint was off screen, Siegel was right next to him, mentoring him.

(narrator) On a budget of less than a million dollars, so money was tight.

(Professor Frayling) It's one thing to make a small budget film with other actors but to cast yourself in the lead in your first film as a director is a very brave thing to do.

He really kind of plays second fiddle to this extraordinarily dramatic performance by Jessica Walter.

-Nobody asked you to wait for-- -You're not jumping me, -buster blue eyes.

-Get off my back, Evelyn.

(narrator) A role in stark contrast to his usual granite-jawed macho man.

(Carrie) He's not the hard man in that.

He's the victim in that and he has to outwit his stalker.

He's a philanderer and he gets exactly what he deserves, being stalked by the crazy woman that he cheated on his girlfriend with.

(Professor Frayling) Some have argued that it's all about what an attractive man he had become and people are throwing themselves at him all the time and maybe there was an autobiographical element in this stalker wandering around.

I don't know about that.

(narrator) Today, the message of the film is more contentious than ever.

(Bidisha) The whole film is basically saying, "Look at this poor man and aren't women mad?"

I don't think there's any argument you could make that he's somehow some kind of feminist; he's not.

He's obviously not.

(solemn music) (narrator) Clint rejected studio production in favor of filming near his home at Carmel.

He likes to shoot on location.

If you read a script and it says "Interior, closet," in Hollywood we build a closet, we put it on a sound stage, and it's got moveable walls and we can shoot all the angles.

Clint will shoot in a closet.

(narrator) Which would become a staple for his career.

He's also a fan of naturalistic acting.

(Neil) He never does more than three takes.

If he can, he'll get it in the first take.

To watch him work on set is unbelievable.

The set itself is so chill and relaxed.

Nobody's angry, nobody's uptight, nobody's anxious.

(David Valdes) It was almost like sacred space.

(narrator) His calm, quiet economy, in such contrast to the complications of his private life, worked.

Production wrapped four days early and came in under budget.

It wasn't marvelous flourishes of artistic genius, it was straightforward but it was very effective, dramatic filmmaking.

(narrator) The film earned $10 million at the box office and a Golden Globe nomination for Jessica Walter but nothing for rookie director Clint, now on the hunt for his next project.

(Marc) It's very difficult to find a vehicle that fits what you want to do, so while you're searching for that you go out, get a big paycheck, keep your name out there, and entertain the people.

(eerie music) (movie narrator) This is about a movie about a couple of killers.

(narrator) And the role he took would entertain the people for years to come... (gasping) (movie narrator) The one with the badge is Harry.

Halt!

(narrator) ...with the return of Clint's hyper-macho persona.

(gun shots) (Marc) Dirty Harry is a contemporary version of The Man with No Name.

It is a Spaghetti Western set in San Francisco.

Send Inspector Callahan in.

(Professor Basinger) Harry is dirty because he has to be violent because he's going to take vengeance if he has to.

(narrator) But this time, Harry was taking on more than just the bad guys.

An American version of The Man With No Name plays to the politics of resentment.

We don't like pen pushers, we don't like bureaucracy, we don't like being pushed around.

-Let's have it.

-Have what?

(man) Your report, what have you been doing?

(Clint) Oh, well for the past three-quarters of an hour I've been sitting on my ass in your outer office, waiting on you.

(narrator) An idea that resonated across America.

(dramatic music) (James) There's a lot of social unrest in America, we're getting frustrated and they just thought, if only just one person could just go, "I don't care what the law says, I'm going to clean this place up."

(Bonnie) Dirty Harry was the white people's answer to the Black Power movement.

I mean, we were on the streets, we were anti-war students, anti-Vietnam War, Black Power, and so Dirty Harry was the white guy who sorted us out and everybody knew it.

My boyfriends were Black, they loved it.

So this was the thing that was so funny, they know it but, like, they love it.

(Professor Frayling) So very, very cleverly it balances, you know, rightwing people can get high on this cop blasting everyone to kingdom come, and more leftwing people can say, "Well, actually it's a misuse of due process," very clever film.

(narrator) Dirty Harry was one of the highest grossing films of 1971 and includes one of the most quoted lines in cinema history.

I know what you're thinking.

"Did he fire six shots or only five?"

Well, to tell you the truth in all this excitement I've kind of lost track myself, but being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?"

Well, do you, punk?

(narrator) Even at the moment of crisis, Dirty Harry is like Clint himself, ice cool.

(James) We can see him as a hero, we can see him as a baddie, anti-hero, and everything in between.

He's a charismatic blank page and that's a skill, that's what makes him so special.

(dramatic piano music) ♪ (intense music) ♪ (narrator) Clint's career was soaring.

But when he took a role in The Outlaw Josey Wales... (Professor Frayling) It was developed and directed for the first few days by Phil Kaufman and something went wrong.

(narrator) ...Clint found it hard to relinquish control.

(Douglas) Philip Kaufman is a real perfectionist and would always take the extra moment, the extra hour to do an extra take which really did not dovetail with Clint Eastwood's way of making movies.

(gun shots) (man) Well, not a hard man to track, leaves dead men where he goes.

(narrator) It was a rivalry which extended beyond their directing styles.

Clint's decade-long affair with Roxanne Tunis was over.

Now he had eyes for the film's lead, Sondra Locke, but so did Kaufman.

(Marc) She's blonde, she's outdoorsy and she's gutsy, she's gutsy and you know, Clint loves that gutsy thing.

Clint who is married to Maggie and by then has two children, Kyle and Alison, with Maggie nevertheless develops an instant relationship with Sondra Locke.

They become a couple within days of starting filming together.

(narrator) Clint won her affections but carried on his feud with Kaufman, who he fired, taking over as the film's director.

(Professor Frayling) Which went down very badly with the Directors Guild which actually did a ruling.

To protect the tenure of directors and not leave them open to the control of producer as powerful as Clint.

(Professor Frayling) It's still known as the Eastwood Ruling.

Actors cannot fire directors and then take over the direction themselves, that just isn't on.

Whenever I get to liking someone they ain't around long.

I noticed when you get to disliking someone they ain't around for long either.

(narrator) The Outlaw Josey Wales was a triumph.

So highly respected that the U.S. Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

It also marked a huge change in Clint's personal life.

(Douglas) Clint and Sondra very much became a couple in Hollywood and it was kind of common knowledge but Clint's marriage carried on as far as anybody in the public eye knew.

(narrator) His affair with Sondra stayed under the radar for two years.

(David) This is the point of their relationship where they were very much in love.

(narrator) In Sondra, he had found a partner whose ambitions would match his own.

(Bidisha) Clint Eastwood might've been attracted to Sondra Locke but that's not the same as being a good partner to an intelligent woman.

(narrator) And she would influence his movie choices in a surprising new direction.

(David Valdes) Before 1980, Clint Eastwood's most successful movie was not Dirty Harry, it was people having a rollicking good time with an orangutan.

♪ (narrator) In 1977, Clint Eastwood's star was on the rise both as an actor and a director.

He had fathered four children by three mothers after numerous secret affairs.

The latest, with Sondra Locke, resulted in the end of his marriage to Maggie.

Now deeply involved with Locke, he cast her in his next film, The Gauntlet.

-I'm going in.

-Why?

At least someone will know I tried.

-Who?

Blakelock?

-No, me.

The chemistry was certainly there on screen.

All set?

(Professor Frayling) It was a very deep relationship for Clint Eastwood and a very longstanding one.

(explosion) (gun shots) (dramatic music) (David) I was just thrilled because she was up 50/50 with the big guy on the screen, giving him everything, as much as he gave her she gave it back.

(Professor Frayling) They were really close soulmates for a time and you sense there's a kind of tenderness in the relationship between them.

(narrator) Sondra began to influence Clint's choices, convincing him to take on a surprising and risky new role.

(move narrator) No joke, it's Eastwood like you've never seen him before in a new film called.... (male singer) ♪ Every which way but loose ♪♪ (Professor Basinger) Nobody in the business, his agent or anybody, thought these films would be a good idea for him.

(David) Before 1980, Clint Eastwood's most successful movie was not Dirty Harry, it was Every Which Way But Loose.

It was people having a rollicking good time with an orangutan.

(narrator) Clyde the orangutan was everything Clint admired in an actor.

(Professor Frayling) 'Cause he'd only do it once.

And he'd put his hands up or he'd eat something.

He'd do it once, you had to get it in one take.

That's the sort of actor that Clint Eastwood likes.

(dramatic music) (narrator) Every Which Way But Loose earned nearly $90 million in the U.S. and Canada alone and was his highest grossing film to date.

I don't know how many actors in Hollywood would've accepted a script where you're costarring with an orangutan and Clint really understood his audience.

(narrator) The secret behind his audience awareness was simple.

(Professor Frayling) He said, "I'll go to a cinema in Monterey or Carmel-by-the-Sea perhaps in dark glasses, perhaps in disguise and I'll watch for the reaction of audiences to what they're seeing on the screen."

It's my privilege and honor to present to you this evening the greatest trick shooter.

(gun shots) (narrator) A year later, Clint, again influenced by Sondra Locke, picked a script about a man playing cowboy.

(Professor Frayling) Bronco Billy is one of the most personal films he ever made.

You really sense the difference between Clint Eastwood the person, and Clint Eastwood the actor.

He takes his western character and he turns him into a shoe salesman who is a fantasist and wants to become a western hero.

(gun shots) (whimsical music) (narrator) Bronco Billy was Clint and Sondra's fourth film together and Clint has named it as one of his favorite films.

As well as guiding his script choices, Sondra had introduced him to cinematographer David Worth.

I did a feature film called Death Game that starred Sondra Locke and she kept nudging Clint on my behalf and that was my entree.

(narrator) Both were fans of naturalistic lighting.

He had a big fight with his cinematographer because he wouldn't shoot by campfire light.

I said, "What?"

I had a meeting with Clint and I said what I want to do is I want to build all the lighting into the sets, I want to have it all pre-lit so I can shoot 360 degrees and not change the light.

(narrator) This practical approach enabled many scenes to be shot in one day.

The job was his.

We welcome you this evening to the greatest, the most authentic, Wild West show in America.

♪ (narrator) But the cameraman's guild had other ideas.

(David) I hadn't come up through the ranks and they hated that.

I was a self-taught cinematographer and they hated that, and Clint Eastwood wanted to work with me and they hated that.

(Professor Frayling) Clint Eastwood is prepared to fight for this decision to bring in David Worth, to battle the unions, because he believed in this person.

(narrator) Clint would not be dictated to.

So he found a workaround solution and got his way.

(David) He dug his heels in, he stuck by me, and as a result he calls me tomorrow and I crawl to Hollywood on my knees because of what he went through.

(narrator) A type of loyalty that he has demonstrated to crews working with his company Malpaso throughout his career.

(Professor Frayling) Clint Eastwood sort of assembles a group of friends and colleagues as he goes along.

(David Valdes) So the crew knew Clint and Clint knew the crew and there was a familiarity with the way that he worked and what was expected.

The company values are Clint's values.

They're cowboy values, they're old fashioned values.

My word is my bond.

(narrator) Though Clint and Sondra both loved Bronco Billy, box office takings were disappointing.

(dramatic music) In all, Clint and Sondra made six films together but now cracks were starting to show in their relationship.

(Douglas) And at that point, their romantic relationship, their private life, was very strained and tense.

(narrator) As ever with Clint, the tensions were implicit.

His breakups took on a familiar pattern, he cooled then he strayed.

(Bidisha) Clint Eastwood might've been attracted to Sondra Locke but that's not the same as being a good partner to an intelligent women.

(narrator) Clint's reported affair with Tightrope actress Jamie Rose followed and then a series of others kept secret from Sondra.

On top of that, after five years of separation, Clint and Maggie's divorce was finalized in 1984.

(Douglas) Under California law, community property is split 50/50 so it was a bit of a kick in the back buns for Clint.

Are you finished with your little speech?

Yeah, I'm finished!

(narrator) And the battle took its toll on him and Sondra.

(Professor Frayling) Sondra Locke is married in a platonic relationship with her husband who's gay and the story goes, allegedly, that Clint Eastwood agrees to divorce Maggie but Sondra Locke does not agree to divorce her husband.

(narrator) Behind her back, Clint had begun yet another affair with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves which would last ten years.

Clint was seeing other women, having affairs, and really there was no hope for the relationship.

(narrator) Despite his success, in his personal life, Clint was still publicity shy.

(Marc) Clint is intensely private.

That's why he lives in Carmel and not in Hollywood or Beverly Hills.

(narrator) And it was to Carmel that he now turned his attention.

(Professor Frayling) There were some things locally that got on his nerves in the same way that police bureaucracy got on Dirty Harry's nerves.

(Eileen) Women couldn't wear heels on the streets of Carmel, you couldn't chew gum because it would catch on your shoes and then you could fall.

It was all about whether somebody would sue the city.

(narrator) Exactly the type of red tape that Clint hated.

It prompted him to take action and run for mayor.

Clint approached Eileen Padberg to be his campaign manager.

(Eileen) One of the things he said to me was, "If you don't tell me how to do a movie, I won't tell you how to run a campaign" and I said, "Deal."

(narrator) Eileen was surprised by how little celebrity meant to Clint.

(Eileen) I won't say he's cheap but he wore the same pants for years.

I made him go and buy new corduroys when we first met.

He's very frugal.

(Professor Frayling) His famous tightness and leanness probably goes back to his time growing up in the Depression.

(narrator) Armed with new pants, next she persuaded him to meet the voters.

He wasn't wild about that strategy.

Having him go to a voter's home with 20 or 30 people that he doesn't know was a stretch for him.

A very big stretch.

(narrator) But he did it, making two drop-ins a day throughout the campaign.

By mid-April 1986, he was declared Mayor.

(Eileen) And he said to me, "These are the 20 things.

If I accomplish them, I'm not running for reelection."

And he accomplished every one of his goals.

(narrator) His term in office over, Clint left politics behind and began to date a series of women including Barbra Streisand, Marisa Berenson, all while apparently still with Sondra Locke, until, after 14 years together, they parted.

While Sondra was away filming, Clint took drastic action.

(David) He put all of her things into cardboard boxes and put them out in the driveway and changed the locks on the door.

(narrator) Sondra fought back, seeking 50% of Clint's property plus damages.

(Professor Frayling) There's a palimony suit.

There's Sondra Locke saying that she wanted to have children but she was forced to have an abortion because Clint Eastwood didn't want children.

(narrator) Strenuously denied by Clint.

(Douglas) People started digging around much more about Clint's sort of life as a sexual cowboy.

They turned up the identity of his lovechild by Roxanne Tunis.

(narrator) And there was another bombshell.

A tabloid call to Sondra revealed that Clint had fathered two more children, this time by Jacelyn Reeves.

(Douglas) Of which no one outside a very inner circle knew anything about.

(narrator) To his horror, the skeletons were tumbling from the closet.

The drama of his personal life may have been splashed across the tabloids but Clint's output on film remained constant.

(Marc) Turmoil was one of the super fuels that projected film that came out of Clint.

Once turmoil came back to his life, he made one of the greatest films of his career.

(narrator) He revisited a script first given to him by another lover, script editor Megan Rose, seven years before.

(Professor Frayling) The key to Clint Eastwood's success, it's this extraordinary intuitive sense of when will a particular script work.

(narrator) The film's central theme is remorse.

It would become known as Unforgiven.

The thing that is great about this film is it's A Man with No Name 30 years later.

(Bidisha) You have a middle aged actor and he's saying to himself what happens if the cowboy gets old, do they have more nuance in their life?

(Carrie) When America and the world first saw Clint Eastwood, he shot first and answered questions later.

For the next 50 years, he's explored the ramifications of that violence.

(narrator) Filmed in just 39 days, Clint directed and starred in the film and composed the central melody.

(David Valdes) A few people started talking in hushed whispers about the possibility of an Oscar.

It was kind of dismissed.

(narrator) The whispers turned into a shout and after 39 years in the business, Clint was nominated for Unforgiven.

It's up for all these awards.

Nine Academy Awards.

Nine.

That's huge.

(narrator) The film was already doing stunningly well when the last Oscar for Best Picture was announced.

It, too, was awarded to Clint for Unforgiven.

(Carrie) It was a validation from the Hollywood community because he had always been a little bit outside it.

(narrator) At 62, Hollywood finally took Clint Eastwood seriously.

(James) That's really your peers and your community saying, "All right, you're the cream of the crop, you're the best out there."

(narrator) Unforgiven picked up a total of four Oscars, two Golden Globes, and a BAFTA.

(Professor Frayling) I'm not sure that the be-all to the end-all of his movie making is Oscars.

The be-all and the end-all of his moving making is the audience.

(David Valdes) Once Clint finishes a film, he's kind of dusted his hands from it, he's off and running off to the next project.

(narrator) Much as he is with the women in his life.

Just five months later, Clint's seventh child, Francesca, was born, this time with Unforgiven costar Frances Fisher.

(Douglas) An actress who he met on Pink Cadillac and he cast her in Unforgiven.

They seemed to have enjoyed a very warm, a very tight relationship.

(narrator) Until, six years on, they fell out over money.

Their breakup overlapped with his next love, Dina Ruiz, who he married in 1996.

She would soon bear his eighth child, Morgan.

With his love life in constant turmoil, romance was a subject he barely explored on screen but that was about to change.

We never see him in love stories and all of a sudden he does it and it's beautiful.

(tender music) (dramatic music) ♪ (narrator) Over seven decades in the movie industry, Clint Eastwood has starred in around 60 films, directed nearly 40 and made $4 billion for the industry, coining some of the most memorable lines in movie history.

Go ahead, make my day.

♪ (narrator) He provokes extreme, even polarized reactions in those who know him.

(Professor Basinger) Clint Eastwood is a person of great humor, grace, and generosity.

He is altogether a very likeable man.

(narrator) In his later years, one of his first loves, music, is more important to him than ever.

(humming) "Throw your arms around this honky-tonk man."

♪ Throw your arms around this honky-tonk man ♪ (narrator) So when jazz musician Joe Gransden sent Clint a CD of his music on spec, he was in for a surprise, a call from Dina.

She said, "We got your CD and we love it" and I heard Clint in the background say, in that famous Clint Eastwood voice, "Hello, Joe."

(Narrator) Clint invited Joe to Carmel for the weekend to perform at his golf club.

(Joe) The first time I met him we were going to play golf together.

I was a little bit starstruck and it was probably within five minutes that I was like this guy is a real sweet person.

(narrator) This softer side was seen in The Bridges of Madison County.

(Professor Basinger) He never plays romantic leading men.

We never see him in love stories and all of a sudden he does it and it's beautiful.

(Professor Frayling) Much more tender, much more passionate, much more giving of himself.

(narrator) Even so, there is something familiar about Clint's role.

(Lucy) He's a typical Eastwood character, a loner, a photographer making his own way in the world.

(Bidisha) And you can never have him.

You can enjoy him for a while but eventually, he's a wild animal and you have to let him go.

And towards the end of that film he looks like an old, broken, crying man in a scene that's incredibly moving.

And so he has tested himself as an actor.

(narrator) He went on to direct and star in Gran Torino in 2008 which was to push other boundaries for him.

He's playing a man who's older, a crabby old guy, a bigot really.

(Professor Frayling) He has Neanderthal views about immigrants and slowly he comes to love them and defend the boy who's about to go off the straight and narrow.

(narrator) For 15-year-old Bee Vang, this film was more than just his first acting gig.

I was excited at the prospect of a film that was going to, you know, focus on and feature the Hmong American community.

(narrator) Bee's first moment on a film set was also his first meeting with Clint.

(Bee) We jumped right into it and filmed the first scene.

When I approached him about guidance about my performance, he said, "Well, I would like for you to do that by yourself."

There was definitely a hands-off approach.

(narrator) In this film, Clint was tackling another subject he'd never addressed before.

He's holding up a mirror to American society and saying, "Is this really how you want to live?

Is this really the best way that we can be living?"

Having talked with a lot of mostly white audience members, many of them said, "I have a relative just like that and I want to believe that they can also change."

♪ (narrator) Change and endless evolution have propelled Clint's longevity and his musical achievements were awarded with a Grammy nomination, aged 75, for Best Score Album for Million Dollar Baby on which he collaborated with his musician son, Kyle.

His relationship with his children has been complex.

For years, he publicly denied paternity to at least three of them, but in private, he supported them and kept them close.

And finally, Clint appeared in public on the red carpet with all eight of his children for the first time, including his 64-year-old daughter, Laurie, who was given up for adoption.

While many are still actors, Kimber is now a producer and Alison has followed her dad into directing.

For a world-famous man, Clint has always been publicity shy.

(Professor Frayling) There were all sorts of things about Clint Eastwood that we didn't find out for many, many years.

(narrator) Amid all the turbulence of his private life, his work has helped shape and define our culture.

At 74, he picked up his second Oscar as Best Director, adding to an incredible list of wins and nominations, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and a fistful of Lifetime Achievement Awards, at least 13.

(Marc) I would put him with Chaplin, with Welles, Hitchcock, with Ford, the best directors in the history of Hollywood because he was able to sustain a vision.

(Professor Basinger) He's bringing out a new film this very year.

I mean, it's astonishing, it's amazing.

There will never be another career like this.

♪ (narrator) But perhaps the key to Clint Eastwood is this... (Douglas) He likes to be in charge of either making a big success or making a mistake and having no one else to blame but himself, that takes a lot of guts.

He knows who he is, his limitations, and attributes and I don't think there's anything in life that terrifies him.

If there is, I never saw it.

(bright orchestral music) ♪