Like most superstars Clint Eastwood's success can be attributed to equal parts good fortune tenacity and talent. Eastwood may have been too young to fight in World War II but he managed to miss out on action in Korea too. On leave as a G.I. his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and steely-eyed Clint swam three miles to shore. He later was made boot camp swimming instructor and missed out on action in Korea (confined to base). Encouraged to try acting by two of his Army buddies David Janssen and Martin Milner he landed a contract at Universal Studios in 1954 earning 75 USD a week playing bit parts in B-grade movies like Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955). He was dropped when some studio execs decided his Adam's apple was too big. The determined Eastwood swallowed his pride and over the next few years he dug swimming pools between playing bit parts in movies and on TV. While visiting a friend at CBS Eastwood was spotted by a network exec who cast him as cattle driver Rowdy Yates in the long-running western series "Rawhide" (1959). That in turn led to spaghetti stardom in a string of Sergio Leone westerns beginning with Per un pugno di dollari (1964) ("A Fistful of Dollars").he number one box-office star in the world subsequently earning critical acclaim as a director. His production company Malpaso crafts moderate-budget features that range from the bluntly commercial to the impressively personal and ambitious. Eastwood is not entirely part of the Hollywood establishment; his business is run out of Carmel California on the Monterey Peninsula where he has served as mayor and run a restaurant.