Clint Eastwood

He'll receive the Lifetime Achievement Award Sunday at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Eastwood found an audience in spaghetti westerns such as A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Stardom came with his role in a number of films as police inspector Harry Callahan, title character of Dirty Harry. He directed and starred in Play Misty for Me and the Oscar-winning Unforgiven. Eastwood is an avid jazz fan; he also directed Bird, starring Forest Whitaker as Charlie Parker, and he produced Straight No Chaser a documentary about Thelonious Monk.

Invictus director Clint Eastwood and star Morgan Freeman — who was Nelson Mandela's pick to portray him — talk about telling the story of one pivotal public gesture the former South African president made shortly after his election, hoping to make a big statement that would help ease decades of racial bitterness and injustice in his nation.

Once best known as a western and action star, Clint Eastwood has shown he is just as capable a director. He stars as a disgruntled, racist war veteran in the new film Gran Torino.

Two veteran directors adapted the Broadway shows to film. And while many such translations are too stage-bound, critic David Edelstein says Clint Eastwood and Roman Polanski got the balance right.