birth name	Eugene Allen Hackman
birth date	January 30, 1930
birth place	San Bernardino, California, U.S.
nationality	American
alma mater	University of Southern California
occupation	Actor
spouse	Faye Maltese(m. 1956–1986, divorced)Betsy Arakawa(m. 1991–present)
years active	1961–2004, 2006 }}

Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is a retired American actor and novelist.

Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned four decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in ''Bonnie and Clyde''. His major subsequent films include ''I Never Sang for My Father'' (1970); his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in ''The French Connection'' (1971) and its sequel ''French Connection II'' (1975); ''The Poseidon Adventure'' (1972); ''The Conversation'' (1974); ''Young Frankenstein'' (1974); ''A Bridge Too Far'' (1977); his role as arch-villain Lex Luthor in ''Superman'' (1978), ''Superman II'' (1980), and ''Superman IV: The Quest for Peace'' (1987); ''Under Fire'' (1983); ''Twice in a Lifetime'' (1985); ''Hoosiers'' (1986); ''No Way Out'' (1987); ''Mississippi Burning'' (1987); ''Unforgiven'' (1992); ''The Firm'' (1993); ''Wyatt Earp'' (1994); ''The Quick and the Dead'', ''Crimson Tide'' and ''Get Shorty'' (all 1995); ''The Birdcage'' (1996); ''Antz'' (1998); ''Enemy of the State'' (1998); ''The Royal Tenenbaums'' (2001); ''Behind Enemy Lines'' (2001); and his final film role before retirement, in ''Welcome to Mooseport'' (2004).

Early life

Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Lyda (née Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman. He has a brother, Richard. Hackman's family moved frequently, until finally settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of his English-born maternal grandmother Beatrice, and where Hackman's father operated the printing press for the ''Commercial-News'', a local paper. Hackman's parents divorced in 1943, and his father subsequently left the family. Gene lived briefly in Storm Lake, Iowa and his sophomore homeroom photo is in the 1945 Storm Lake High School "Breeze" yearbook. At 16, Hackman left home to join the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served four-and-a-half years as a field radio operator. After his discharge, he moved to New York, working in several minor jobs. His mother died in 1962 as a result of a fire she accidentally set while smoking.

Career

1960s

In 1956, Hackman began pursuing an acting career; he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California. It was there that he forged a friendship with another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman. Already seen as outsiders by their classmates, Hackman and Hoffman were later voted "The Least Likely To Succeed." Determined to prove them wrong, Hackman hopped on a bus bound for New York City. A 2004 article in ''Vanity Fair'' described how Hackman, Hoffman and Robert Duvall were all struggling actors and close friends while living in New York City in the 1960s. Hackman was working as a doorman when he ran into an instructor whom he had despised at the Pasadena Playhouse. Reinforcing "The Least Likely To Succeed" vote, the man had said, "See, Hackman, I told you you wouldn't amount to anything."

Hackman began performing in several Off-Broadway plays. In 1964, he had an offer to co-star in the play ''Any Wednesday'' with actress Sandy Dennis. This opened the door to film work. His first role was in ''Lilith'', with Warren Beatty in the leading role. In 1967, Hackman appeared in an episode of the television series ''The Invaders'' entitled ''The Spores''. Another supporting role, Buck Barrow in 1967's ''Bonnie and Clyde'', earned him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. In 1968, he appeared in an episode of "I Spy", in the role of "Hunter", in the episode "Happy Birthday...Everybody". In 1969, he played a ski coach in ''Downhill Racer'' and an astronaut in ''Marooned''. Also in that year, he played the role of a member of a barnstorming skydiving team that entertained mostly at county fairs: ''The Gypsy Moths''. He nearly accepted the role of Mike Brady for the upcoming TV series, ''The Brady Bunch'', but was advised by his agent to decline in exchange for a more promising role, which he did.

1970s

In 1971, he was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award again, this time for 1970's ''I Never Sang for My Father'', working alongside Melvyn Douglas and Estelle Parsons. The next year, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as New York City Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in ''The French Connection'', marking his graduation to leading man status.

He followed this with leading roles in the disaster film ''The Poseidon Adventure'' (1972) and Francis Ford Coppola's ''The Conversation'' (1974), which was nominated for several Oscars. That same year, Hackman appeared in what became one of his most famous comedic roles as the blind hermit in ''Young Frankenstein''.

He later appeared as one of Teddy Roosevelt's former Rough Riders in the Western horse-race saga ''Bite the Bullet'' (1975), as well as in that year's sequel ''French Connection II'' and the star-studded war film ''A Bridge Too Far'' (1977), as Polish General Stanislaw Sosabowski. Hackman showed a talent for both comedy and the "slow burn" as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor in ''Superman: The Movie'' (1978), as he would in its 1980 and 1987 sequels.

1980s

By the end of the 1980s, Hackman alternated between leading and supporting roles, earning another Best Actor nomination for ''Mississippi Burning''. He had a memorable part as a Secretary of Defense trying to cover up a homicide in 1987's ''No Way Out'' opposite Kevin Costner.

During this decade Hackman also could be seen in ''Reds'', ''Under Fire'', ''Hoosiers'', ''Power'', ''Uncommon Valor'' and ''Bat*21''. A 2008 American Film Institute poll voted ''Hoosiers'' the fourth-greatest film of all time in the sports genre.

1990s

In 1990, the actor underwent heart surgery, which kept him from work for a while, although he found time for ''Narrow Margin''—a remake of ''The Narrow Margin'' (1952). In 1992, he played the sadistic sheriff "Little" Bill Daggett in the western ''Unforgiven'' directed by Clint Eastwood and written by David Webb Peoples which earned him a second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actor. The film won Best Picture.

Hackman co-starred with Tom Cruise as a corrupt lawyer in ''The Firm'' (1993) and appeared in a second John Grisham story in 1996, playing a convict on death row in ''The Chamber''.

In 1995, Hackman played an inept Hollywood producer in ''Get Shorty'' and the villainous fast-draw champion John Herrod in ''The Quick and the Dead'' opposite Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, as well as submarine Captain Frank Ramsey in the film ''Crimson Tide'' with Denzel Washington.

In 1996, he took a comedic turn as ultra-conservative Senator Kevin Keeley in ''The Birdcage'' with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. He also co-starred with Will Smith in the 1998 film ''Enemy of the State'', where his character was reminiscent of the one from ''The Conversation''.

He played a President of the United States who commits a murder in 1997's '' Absolute Power'', re-teaming with director-star Clint Eastwood.

2000s

Hackman starred in the David Mamet crime film ''Heist'', as an aging professional thief of considerable skill who is forced into one final job, and the comedy ''Heartbreakers'' alongside Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta and Jennifer Love Hewitt. He also had a leading role as the head of an eccentric family in the ensemble cast film ''The Royal Tenenbaums'' and in yet another Grisham legal drama, ''Runaway Jury'', at long last getting to make a picture with his longtime friend Dustin Hoffman.

In 2003 at the Golden Globes, Hackman was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field."

Present

Together with undersea archaeologist Daniel Lenihan, Hackman has written three novels: ''Wake of the Perdido Star'' (1999), ''Justice for None'' (2004), and ''Escape from Andersonville'' (2008).

On July 7, 2004, Hackman gave a rare interview to Larry King, in which Hackman announced that he had no future film projects lined up, and believes his acting career is over. In 2008, while promoting his third novel, Hackman confirmed that he had retired from acting. In 2011, Hackman appeared on the Fox Sports radio show, the Loose Cannons, where he discussed his career and novels with Pat O'Brien, Steve Hartman, and Vic "the Brick" Jacobs. His final film to date was ''Welcome to Mooseport'' (2004), a comedy with Ray Romano in which Hackman portrayed a former President of the United States.

Personal life

Hackman's first wife was Faye Maltese. They had three children, Christopher Allen, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne. The couple divorced in 1986 after 30 years of marriage. In 1991, Hackman married Betsy Arakawa. They live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Betsy is co-owner of an upscale retail home-furnishing store in Santa Fe called Pandora's, Inc.

Hackman competed in Sports Car Club of America races driving an open wheeled Formula Ford in the late seventies. In 1983, Hackman drove a Dan Gurney Team Toyota in the 24 Hours of Daytona Endurance Race. He also won the Long Beach Grand Prix Celebrity Race.

Hackman is an avid fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars and regularly attends Jaguars games as a guest of head coach Jack Del Rio. Hackman is friends with Del Rio from Del Rio's playing days at the University of Southern California.

Filmography

+ Film
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1961	''Mad Dog Coll''	Policeman	uncredited
1964		Norman
1966		Dr. John Whipple
1967		Tommy Del Gaddo
1967	''Community Shelter Planning''	Donald Ross—Regional Civil Defense Officer
1967	''''	Harmsworth
1967		Sgt. Tweed
1967		Buck Barrow	National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1968	''''	Detective Lt. Walter Brill
1969		Red Fraker
1969	''''	Joe Browdy
1969	''Downhill Racer''	Eugene Claire
1969		Buzz Lloyd
1970	''I Never Sang for My Father''	Gene Garrison	Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1971		Dr. Dave Randolph
1971	''''	Brandt Ruger
1971	''''	NYPD Det. Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle	Academy Award for Best ActorBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleGolden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorNational Board of Review Award for Best ActorNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1972	''Prime Cut''	Mary Ann
1972	''''	Reverend Frank Scott	BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1972	''Cisco Pike''	Sergeant Leo Holland
1973		Max Millan
1974	''''	Harry Caul	National Board of Review Award for Best ActorNominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaSant Jordi Award for Best Foreign Actor
1974	''Young Frankenstein''	The Blindman (Harold)
1974	''Zandy's Bride''	Zandy Allan
1975	''French Connection II''	NYPD Det. Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1975	''Lucky Lady''	Kibby Womack
1975		Harry Moseby	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1975		Sam Clayton
1977	''''	Roy Tucker
1977	''''	Maj Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski
1977		Maj. William Sherman Foster
1978		Lex Luthor	Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1980	''Superman II''	Lex Luthor
1981		George Dupler
1981		Pete Van Wherry
1983		Alex Grazier	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
1983		God	uncredited voice role
1983	''Uncommon Valor''	Col. Jason Rhodes, USMC (ret)
1984		Jack McCann
1984		Ned Rawley
1985		Harry MacKenzie	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1985		Walter Lloyd/Duncan (Duke) Potter
1986		Wilfred Buckley
1986	''Hoosiers''	Coach Norman Dale
1987		Defense Secretary David Brice
1987	''Superman IV: The Quest for Peace''	Lex Luthor / voice of Nuclear Man
1988	''Bat*21''	Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton, USAF
1988	''Mississippi Burning''	FBI Special Agent Rupert Anderson	National Board of Review Award for Best ActorSilver Bear for Best Actor at the 39th Berlin International Film FestivalNominated—Academy Award for Best ActorNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1988	''Another Woman''	Larry Lewis
1988	''Full Moon in Blue Water''	Floyd
1988	''Split Decisions''	Dan McGuinn
1989	''''	Sgt. Johnny Gallagher
1990	''Loose Cannons''	MacArthur Stern
1990		Lowell Kolchek
1990	''Narrow Margin''	Robert Caulfield
1991		Jedediah Tucker Ward
1991	''Company Business''	Sam Boyd
1992	''Unforgiven''	Little Bill Daggett	Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleBoston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActorGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion PictureKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting ActorLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActorNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActorNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
1993	''''	Avery Tolar
1993	''Geronimo: An American Legend''	Brig. Gen. George Crook
1994
1995	''''	John Herod
1995		Capt. Frank Ramsey
1995		Harry Zimm	Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
1996	''''	Senator Kevin Keeley
1996	''Extreme Measures''	Dr. Lawrence Myrick
1996	''''	Sam Cayhall
1997		President Allen Richmond
1998		Jack Ames
1998		Edward 'Brill' Lyle
1998	''Antz''	General Mandible	Voice only
1999	''''	Grant Ritchie
2000		Henry Hearst	Executive Producer
2000	''''	Jimmy McGinty
2001		William B. Tensy
2001		Joe Moore
2001	''''	Arnold Margolese (uncredited)
2001	''''	Royal Tenenbaum
2001		Admiral Leslie McMahon Reigart
2003	''Runaway Jury''	Rankin Fitch
2004	''Welcome to Mooseport''	Monroe Cole
2006	''Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut''	Lex Luthor

References

External links

Category:1930 births Category:Actors from California Category:American film actors Category:American novelists Category:American people of English descent Category:American stage actors Category:Art Students League of New York alumni Category:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners Category:Best Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Danville, Illinois Category:People from San Bernardino, California Category:United States Marines

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name	Denzel Washington
birth date	December 28, 1954
birth place	Mount Vernon, New York,United States
birth name
occupation	Actor, screenwriter, director, producer
years active	1977–present
spouse	Pauletta Pearson (1983–present) }}

Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, ''St. Elsewhere'', playing Dr. Philip Chandler for six years. He has received much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures, such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas, and Herman Boone.

Washington, has received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe awards, and a Tony Award. He is notable for winning the Best Supporting Actor for ''Glory'' in 1989; and the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001 for his role in the film ''Training Day''.

Early life

Denzel Washington was born in Mount Vernon, near New York City, on December 28, 1954. His mother, Lennis "Lynne", was a beauty parlor-owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem. His father, Reverend Denzel H. Washington, Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, served as an ordained Pentecostal minister, and also worked for the Water Department and a local department store, S. Klein.

Washington attended grammar school at Pennington-Grimes Elementary School in Mount Vernon until 1968. When he was 14, his parents' marriage fell apart and his mother sent him to a private preparatory school, Oakland Military Academy, in New Windsor, New York State. "That decision changed my life," Washington later said, "because I wouldn’t have survived in the direction I was going. The guys I was hanging out with at the time, my running buddies, have now done maybe 40 years combined in the penitentiary. They were nice guys, but the streets got them." After Oakland, Washington next attended Mainland High School, a public high school in Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1970–71. Washington was interested in attending Texas Tech University: "I grew up in the Boys Club in Mount Vernon, and we were the Red Raiders. So when I was in high school, I wanted to go to Texas Tech in Lubbock just because they were called the Red Raiders and their uniforms looked like ours." Washington earned a B.A. in Drama and Journalism from Fordham University in 1977. At Fordham he played collegiate basketball as a freshman guard under coach P. J. Carlesimo. After a period of indecision on which major to study and dropping out of school for a semester, Washington worked as a counselor at an overnight summer camp, Camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville, Connecticut. He participated in a staff talent show for the campers and a colleague suggested he try acting.

Returning to Fordham that fall with a renewed purpose and focus, he enrolled at the Lincoln Center campus to study acting and was given the title roles in both Eugene O'Neill's ''The Emperor Jones'' and Shakespeare's ''Othello''. Upon graduation he was given a scholarship to attend graduate school at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where he stayed for one year before returning to New York to begin a professional acting career.

Career

Early work

Washington spent the summer of 1976 in St. Mary's City, Maryland in summer stock theater performing ''Wings of the Morning'', the Maryland State play. He also filmed a series of commercials in the Fruit of the Loom ensemble, as Grapes. Shortly after graduating from Fordham, Washington made his professional acting debut in the 1977 made-for-television film ''Wilma'' with his first Hollywood appearance in the 1981 film ''Carbon Copy''. Washington shared a 1982 Distinguished Ensemble Performance Obie Award for playing Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Off-Broadway Negro Ensemble Company production ''A Soldier's Play'' which premiered November 20, 1981.

A major career break came when he starred as Dr. Phillip Chandler in the television hospital drama ''St. Elsewhere'' which ran from 1982 to 1988 on NBC. He was one of only a few African American actors to appear on the series for its entire six-year run. Washington also appeared in several television, film and stage roles such as the films ''A Soldier's Story'' (1984), ''Hard Lessons'' (1986) and ''Power'' (1986). In 1987 Washington starred as South African anti-apartheid political activist Steven Biko in Richard Attenborough's ''Cry Freedom'' for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 1989 Washington won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a defiant self-possessed ex-slave soldier in the film ''Glory''. Also that year he appeared in the film ''The Mighty Quinn'', and as the conflicted and disillusioned Reuben James, a British soldier who, despite a distinguished military career, returns to a civilian life where racism and inner city life leads to vigilantism and violence in ''For Queen and Country''.

1990s

1990, Washington starred as Bleek Gilliam in the Spike Lee film ''Mo' Better Blues''. In 1992, he starred as Demetrius Williams in the romantic drama ''Mississippi Masala''. Washington was reunited with Lee to play one of his most critically acclaimed roles as the title character of 1992's ''Malcolm X''. His performance as the black nationalist leader earned him another nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The next year he played the lawyer of a homosexual man with AIDS in the 1993 film ''Philadelphia''. During the early and mid 1990s, Washington starred in several successful thrillers, including ''The Pelican Brief'' and ''Crimson Tide'', as well as in comedy ''Much Ado About Nothing'' and alongside Whitney Houston in the romantic drama ''The Preacher's Wife''.

In 1998, Washington starred in Spike Lee's film, ''He Got Game''. Washington played a father serving a six year prison term who is propositioned by the warden to a temporary parole on the terms that he must convince his top-ranked high-school basketball player son (Ray Allen), into signing with the governor's alma mater, Big State. The film also marked the third time that Spike Lee and Washington worked on a film together.

In 1999, Washington starred in ''The Hurricane'' a film about boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter whose conviction for triple murder was overturned after he had spent almost 20 years in prison. A former reporter who was angry at seeing the film portray Carter as innocent despite the overturned conviction began a campaign to pressure Academy Award voters not to award the film Oscars. Washington did receive a Golden Globe Award in 2000 and a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for the role.

He also presented the Arthur Ashe ESPY Award to Loretta Claiborne for her courage and appeared as himself in the end of ''The Loretta Claiborne Story'' film.

2000s

In 2000, Washington appeared in the Disney film ''Remember the Titans'' which grossed over $100 million at the United States box office.

When Washington won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Movie in 2000, as he noted: "No African-American has won best actor in the Golden Globes since Sidney Poitier, until I did". That made him the first Black actor to win the award in 36 years.

He won an Academy Award for Best Actor in his next film, the 2001 cop thriller ''Training Day'' as Detective Alonzo Harris, a rogue Los Angeles cop with questionable law-enforcement tactics. Washington was the second African-American performer to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, the first being Sidney Poitier who happened to receive an Honorary Academy Award the same night that Washington won. Washington holds the record (five so far) for most Oscar nominations by an actor of African descent, along with Morgan Freeman since 2009.

After appearing in 2002's box office success, the health care-themed ''John Q.'', Washington directed his first film, a well-reviewed drama called ''Antwone Fisher'', in which he also co-starred.

Between 2003 and 2004, Washington appeared in a series of thrillers that performed generally well at the box office, including ''Out of Time'', ''Man on Fire'', and ''The Manchurian Candidate''. In 2006, he starred in ''Inside Man'', a Spike Lee-directed bank heist thriller co-starring Jodie Foster and Clive Owen, and ''Déjà Vu'' released in November 2006.

In 2006, Denzel worked alongside multi-talented Irish off-rock band The Script on their new project combining music and Hollywood. The hybrid of genres was critically acclaimed but didn't receive much mainstream attention due to a legal conflicts between The Script's record label and Denzel's studio commitments.

In 2007, he co-starred with Russell Crowe in ''American Gangster''. Washington directed and starred in the drama ''The Great Debaters'' with Forest Whitaker. Washington next appeared in the 2009 film ''The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3'', a remake of the '70s thriller ''The Taking of Pelham One Two Three'', directed by Tony Scott as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber opposite John Travolta.

Return to theater

Washington was last seen onstage in the summer of 1990 in the title role of the Public Theater's production of Shakespeare's ''Richard III'' and in 2005, after a 15-year hiatus, he appeared onstage again in another Shakespeare play as Marcus Brutus in ''Julius Caesar'' on Broadway. The production's limited run was a consistent sell-out averaging over 100% attendance capacity nightly despite receiving mixed reviews.

2010s

In February 2009, Washington began filming ''The Book of Eli'' a post-Apocalyptic drama set in the near future which was released in January 2010. Also the same year, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film ''Unstoppable'', about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying a dangerous cargo. The film was directed by Tony Scott, and was the fifth collaboration between the two, after previous films ''Crimson Tide'' (1995), ''Man on Fire'' (2004), ''Déjà Vu'' (2006) and ''The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3'' (2009).

On June 13, 2010, Washington won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his role in the play ''Fences''.

Personal life

On June 25, 1983, Washington married Pauletta Pearson, whom he met on the set of his first screen work, the television film ''Wilma''. The couple have four children: John David (b. July 28, 1984), who signed a football contract with the St. Louis Rams in May 2006 and is currently playing with the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League (John David also played college football at Morehouse); Katia (b. November 1987), who is attending Yale University; and twins Olivia and Malcolm (Malcolm attends the University of Pennsylvania). In 1995, the couple renewed their wedding vows in South Africa with Archbishop Desmond Tutu officiating.

Washington is a devout Christian, and has considered becoming a preacher. "A part of me still says, ‘Maybe, Denzel, you’re supposed to preach. Maybe you’re still compromising.’ I’ve had an opportunity to play great men and, through their words, to preach. I take what talent I’ve been given seriously, and I want to use it for good.” In 1995 he donated 2.5 million dollars to help build the new West Angeles Church of God in Christ facility in Los Angeles.

Washington has served as the national spokesperson for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1993. As such, he has been featured in several public service announcements and awareness campaigns for the organization. In addition, he has served as a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1995.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia named Washington as one of three people (the others being directors Oliver Stone and Michael Moore) with whom they were willing to negotiate for the release of three defense contractors that the group had held captive from 2003 to 2008.

On May 18, 1991, Washington was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Fordham University, for having "impressively succeeded in exploring the edge of his multifaceted talent". He also was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities from Morehouse College on May 20, 2007..

In 2008, Washington visited Israel with a delegation of African American artists in honor of the Jewish state's 60th birthday.

In 2011, Washington received an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania, serving as the keynote speaker for commencement.

Filmography

! Year	! Film	! Role	! Notes
1977	'' Wilma''	Robert Eldridge	(television film)
1981		Roger Porter
		Martin Sawyer	(television film)
''''	Pfc. Melvin Peterson
	''The George McKenna Story''	George McKenna	(U.S. title – ''Hard Lessons'', television film)
	Arnold Billings	NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
1987	''Cry Freedom''	Steve Biko	Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
	''''	Xavier Quinn
''For Queen and Country''	Reuben James	Festival du Film Policier de Cognac Award for Best Actor
	Pvt. Trip	Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion PictureNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion PictureKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
		Napoleon Stone
''Mo' Better Blues''	Bleek Gilliam
1991		Nicholas Styles
	''Mississippi Masala''	Demetrius Williams	NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
	Malcolm X	Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorKansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorMTV Movie Award for Best Performance - MaleNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion PictureNew York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActorSilver Bear for Best Actor – 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best ActorNominated—Academy Award for Best ActorNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
		Don Pedro of Aragon
''''	Gray Grantham	Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male
	Joe Miller	Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Tom Hanks
		Lt. Commander Ron Hunter	NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion PictureNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
''Virtuosity''	Lt. Parker Barnes
	Easy Rawlins
	''Courage Under Fire''	Lt. Colonel Nathaniel Serling	NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion PictureLone Star Film & Television Award for Best ActorSoutheastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
''''	Dudley
		Detective John Hobbes
''He Got Game''	Jake Shuttlesworth
''''	Special Agent Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard FBI
	''''	Lincoln Rhyme
''''	Rubin "Hurricane" Carter
	''Remember the Titans''	Coach Herman Boone	BET Awards#Acting
''''	Himself
2001	''[[Training Day''	Detective Alonzo Harris	Academy Award for Best ActorAmerican Film Institute Awards 2001
	''[[John Q''	John Quincy Archibald
	Dr. Jerome Davenport	Also Producer/DirectorBlack Reel Award for Best DirectorNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion PictureProducers Guild of America Stanley Kramer AwardWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best DirectorNominated—Black Reel Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated—Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best DirectorNominated—Satellite Award for Best Director
2003		Police Chief Matthias Lee Whitlock
		John Creasy	Nominated—NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
''''	Major Ben Marco
	''Inside Man''	Detective Keith Frazier
	Special Agent Doug Carlin
			Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - MaleNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture DramaNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
''''	Melvin B. Tolson''
2009		Walter Garber
	''''	Eli	Also ProducerNominated—Saturn Award for Best Actor
	Frank Barnes
		Tobin Frost	Filming
	Brandon Scofield	Pre-production

References

External links

Denzel Washington at Moviefone.com

Category:1954 births Category:Actors from New York Category:African-American Christians Category:African American film actors Category:African American film directors Category:African American basketball players Category:African American television actors Category:American Christians Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American Pentecostals Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:Basketball players from New York Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:English-language film directors Category:Fordham Rams men's basketball players Category:Living people Category:Members of the Church of God in Christ Category:Obie Award recipients Category:People from Westchester County, New York Category:Point guards Category:Tony Award winners

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Name	Robyn Hitchcock
Background	solo_singer
Birth date	March 03, 1953
Instrument	Guitar, piano
Genre	Alternative rock, Jangle pop, Psych folk
Occupation	Musician, actor
Associated acts	Soft BoysRobyn Hitchcock and the EgyptiansThe Venus 3
Website	http://robynhitchcock.com }}

Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano and bass guitar.

Coming to prominence in the late 1970s with The Soft Boys, Hitchcock afterward launched a prolific solo career. Hitchcock's musical and lyrical styles have been influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Syd Barrett. Hitchcock's lyrics tend to include surrealism, comedic elements, characterisations of English eccentrics, and melancholy depictions of everyday life.

He was signed to two major American labels (A&M; Records, then Warner Brothers) over the course of the 1980s and '90s, but mainstream success has been limited. Still, he has maintained a loyal cult following and has often earned strong critical reviews over a steady stream of album releases and live performances.

Biography

Early life and recording career

Born Robyn Hitchcock in London, England and educated at Winchester College, he began his recording career in 1976 with the Cambridge-based punk/New Wave band The Soft Boys, a local group with an interest in the odd concept of 'psychedelic punk'. After the group broke up in 1981, Hitchcock began recording as a solo artist.

1980s

Hitchcock released his solo debut, ''Black Snake Diamond Röle'' in 1981, which more or less replicated the sound of his previous band, as it featured instrumental backing by several former Soft Boys. He followed it in 1982 with the generally critically maligned ''Groovy Decay'', a record which he would ultimately disown. Following his solo acoustic album ''I Often Dream Of Trains'' in 1984, he formed a new band, The Egyptians, comprising former members of The Soft Boys (Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor, supplemented at first by early keyboardist Roger Jackson), resulting in their 1985 debut ''Fegmania!'', which featured typically surrealist Hitchcock songs such as "My Wife and My Dead Wife" and "The Man with the Lightbulb Head". (A live album, ''Gotta Let This Hen Out!'', was released at the end of that year.) Their popularity grew with the 1986 album ''Element of Light'' and they were subsequently signed to A&M; Records in the U.S. The album ''Globe of Frogs'', released in 1988, further expanded their reach, as the single "Balloon Man" became a college radio and MTV hit, followed in 1989 by "Madonna Of The Wasps" from their ''Queen Elvis'' album. In 1989 they also teamed up with Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Peter Holsapple of The dB's, playing two gigs as Nigel and the Crosses, mostly covers. The Crosses also had their cover of "Wild Mountain Thyme" included on a Byrds tribute album, though Hitchcock always alluded to the Bryan Ferry version when performing it live with the Egyptians.

1990s

At the beginning of the decade, Hitchcock took a break from the Egyptians and A&M; Records to release another solo acoustic album, ''Eye'', then resumed with the band's ''Perspex Island'' release in 1991. 1993's ''Respect'', influenced a great deal by his father's death, marked the last Egyptians release and the end of his association with A&M; Records. Early in 1994, after disbanding the Egyptians, he embarked on a short reunion tour with The Soft Boys. His work received a slight boost in 1995 when his back catalogue (including both solo releases and Egyptians albums) were re-packaged and re-issued in the United States by the respected Rhino Records label. For the rest of the decade he continued recording and performing as a solo artist, releasing several albums on Warner Brothers Records, such as 1996's ''Moss Elixir'' (which featured the contributions of violinist Deni Bonet and guitarist Tim Keegan), and the soundtrack from the Jonathan Demme-directed concert film ''Storefront Hitchcock'' in 1998. The 1999 release ''Jewels for Sophia'', also on Warner, featured cameos from Southern California-based musicians Jon Brion and Grant-Lee Phillips, both of whom often shared the stage with Hitchcock when he played Los Angeles nightclub Largo. An album of outtakes from the Sophia sessions called ''A Star For Bram'', released on Hitchcock's own label, followed, and his subsequent albums appeared on a variety of independent labels.

2000s

In 2001, Hitchcock reunited and toured with Kimberley Rew, bassist Matthew Seligman, and Morris Windsor for the Soft Boys' re-release of their best-known album, 1980's ''Underwater Moonlight''. The following year they recorded and released a new album, ''Nextdoorland'', which was accompanied by a short album of outtakes, ''Side Three''. The reunion proved to be short-lived, although they did re-form again in 2006 to perform a live concert of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd covers in London, benefiting Médecins Sans Frontières.

During a short tour with Grant-Lee Phillips of Grant Lee Buffalo, Hitchcock co-produced and co-starred in a concert film of the tour shot in Seattle titled ''Elixirs & Remedies''.

The 2002 double album ''Robyn Sings'' comprised cover versions of Bob Dylan songs, including a live re-creation (performed in 1996) of Dylan's so-called ''Live at the Royal Albert Hall'' 1966 concert. Hitchcock celebrated his 50th birthday in 2003 with a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London at which his then-new solo acoustic album ''Luxor'' was given away as a gift to all those attending, and an original poem of his was read by actor Alan Rickman. He continued collaborating with a series of different musicians, as on the album ''Spooked'', which was recorded with country/folk duo (and longtime Hitchcock fans) Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. In 2006 ''Olé! Tarantula'' was released with The Venus 3, a band which consisted of longtime friends and collaborators R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Young Fresh Fellows' frontman Scott McCaughey, as well as Ministry's Bill Rieflin (by then also R.E.M.'s full-time drummer). The song "'Cause It's Love (Saint Parallelogram)" was written with Andy Partridge of XTC.

In 2007, he was the subject of a documentary ''Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death... and Insects'' directed by John Edginton, shown on the U.S. Sundance Channel and in the UK on BBC Four (and later released on DVD). "Food, sex and death are all corridors to life if you like. You need sex to get you here, you need food to keep you here and you need death to get you out and they’re the entry and exit signs."

The filmmaker eavesdrops on Hitchcock at work on his latest collection of songs with contributors including Nick Lowe, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Peter Buck and Gillian Welch. The film culminates with Hitchcock and the band taking the songs on the road in America. A live EP with The Venus 3, ''Sex, Food, Death... and Tarantulas'', was released in conjunction with the documentary. The film also includes candid interviews with Hitchcock, who reveals much about the source of his work: "At heart I'm a frightened angry person. That's probably why my stuff isn’t totally insubstantial. I'm constantly, deep down inside, in a kind of rage."

Late in 2007, Hitchcock's music was again re-packaged and re-released in the U.S., as Yep Roc Records began an extensive reissue campaign with three early solo releases and a double-CD compilation of rarities, which would be available separately or as part of a new boxed set release, ''I Wanna Go Backwards''.

In 2008, that boxed set was followed up with ''Luminous Groove'', a boxed set of three early Egyptians releases and two further discs of rarities. In 2009, the electro-pop artist and remixer Pocket released an EP featuring Hitchcock called "Surround Him With Love", while Hitchcock released an entirely separate new album, ''Goodnight Oslo'', with the Venus 3. At the end of the year, a live album called ''I Often Dream Of Trains In New York'' documented the late-2008 onstage re-creation of his acclaimed 1984 acoustic album (a limited-edition deluxe version also included the materials to construct a kind of moving-image generator called a phenokistoscope).

2010s

Concurrent with the redesign of his official website in early 2010, Hitchcock began to offer an occasional series of "Phantom 45s" as downloads, each "45" being two newly-recorded songs that would initially be offered as a free download. He also released the ''Propellor Time'' album, containing new material partially based on the "Sex, Food, Death" sessions shown in the 2007 documentary, but mainly featuring the Venus 3. In 2011, he released ''Tromsø, Kaptein'', an album of songs written in Norway, and released physically only in that country. Robyn was chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform "I Often Dream Of Trains" at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, to be curated by Mangum in March 2012 in Minehead, England.

Interests

Additionally, Hitchcock has an interest in acting, literature and art. He writes short stories, paints (often in a whimsical, surrealist style) and draws in the cartoon-strip mode. Many of Hitchcock's album covers bear his paintings or drawings, and his albums' liner notes sometimes include a printed short story. His live concerts usually include a considerable amount of story-telling, in the form of imaginative and surreal ad-libbed monologues in his lyrical style.

Hitchcock collaborated with director Jonathan Demme in 1998 for a live concert and film ''Storefront Hitchcock'', and later appeared in Demme's 2004 remake of ''The Manchurian Candidate'', in which he played double agent Laurent Tokar. He also appeared in Demme's ''Rachel Getting Married'' in 2008, singing and playing guitar in the wedding-party band.

In September 2008 Hitchcock joined the Disko Bay Cape Farewell expedition to the West Coast of Greenland. Cape Farewell is a UK based arts organisation that brings artists, scientists and communicators together to instigate a cultural response to climate change. Other voyagers on the trip included musicians Jarvis Cocker, KT Tunstall and Martha Wainwright.

Personal

Robyn is the son of novelist Raymond Hitchcock and the brother of artist Lal Hitchcock. He is not related to Alfred Hitchcock.

Album discography

Releases marked "with the Egyptians" are credited on the album as by "Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians". Similarly, releases marked "with the Venus 3" are credited on the album as by "Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3". Others are credited as solo albums, although they may contain some group recordings.

Original studio albums

''Black Snake Diamond Röle'', 1981

''Groovy Decay'', 1982

''I Often Dream of Trains'', 1984

''Fegmania!'', 1985 (with the Egyptians)

''Element of Light'', 1986 (with the Egyptians)

''Globe of Frogs'', 1988 (with the Egyptians)

''Queen Elvis'', 1989 (with the Egyptians)

''Eye'', 1990

''Perspex Island'', 1991 (with the Egyptians)

''Respect'', 1993 (with the Egyptians)

''Moss Elixir'', 1996

''Jewels for Sophia'', 1999

''Luxor'', 2003

''Spooked'', 2004

''Olé! Tarantula'', 2006 (with the Venus 3)

''Goodnight Oslo'', 2009 (with the Venus 3)

''Propellor Time'', 2010 (with the Venus 3)

''Tromsø, Kaptein'', 2011

Compilations of rarities, demos, alternate takes and out-takes

''Groovy Decoy'' (A re-worked version of ''Groovy Decay'', featuring demo versions of many of that album's songs), 1985

''Invisible Hitchcock'' (Outtakes and rarities, 1980–1986), 1986

''Gravy Deco'' (A compilation of the ''Groovy Decay'' and ''Groovy Decoy'' sessions), 1995

''You & Oblivion'' (Outtakes and rarities, 1981–1987), 1995

''Mossy Liquor'' ("Outtakes and prototypes" from ''Moss Elixir''), 1996

''A Star for Bram'' (Outtakes from ''Jewels for Sophia''), 2000

''Obliteration Pie'' (Japan-only collection of live tracks, rarities, and new studio re-recordings), 2005

''I Wanna Go Backwards'' (Boxed set of reissues and rarities), 2007

''Shadow Cat'' (Outtakes and rarities, 1993–1999), 2008

''Luminous Groove'' (Boxed set of reissues and rarities), 2008

Live albums

''Gotta Let This Hen Out!'', 1985 (with the Egyptians)

''Give It To The Thoth Boys - Live Oddities'', 1993 (Cassette only release sold on tour 1993) (with the Egyptians)

''The Kershaw Sessions'', 1994 (with the Egyptians)

''Storefront Hitchcock'', 1998

''Storefront Hitchcock L.P.'', 1998

''Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival'', 1998 (with the Egyptians)

''Robyn Sings'', 2002 (Double live album of Bob Dylan cover songs)

''This is the BBC'', 2006

''Sex, Food, Death... and Tarantulas'' (Live EP), 2007

''I Often Dream of Trains in New York'', (CD+DVD), 2009

Best-of compilations

''Robyn Hitchcock'', 1995

''Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians: Greatest Hits'', 1996 (with the Egyptians)

''Uncorrected Personality Traits'' (Rhino Records best-of compilation of solo material), 1997

Compilation appearances

''Time Between - A Tribute to The Byrds'' (Imaginary Records), 1989

''Pave The Earth'' (A&M; Records), 1990

''More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album'' (Birdman Records), 1999

''Ernie: Songs of Ernest Noyes Brookings'' (Gadfly Records), 2001

''Listen To What The Man Said - Popular Artists Pay Tribute to the Music of Paul McCartney'' (Oglio Records), 2001

''Wig in a Box'' (Off Records), 2003

''Terry Edwards Presents Queer Street'' (Sartorial Records), 2004

''I Want You (She's So Heavy) - Abbey Road Now!'' (Mojo Magazine Free CD), Oct 2009

''Dark Globe'' - The Madcap Laughs Again! (Mojo Magazine Free CD), Mar 2010

References

Further reading

"Robyn Hitchcock: I wanna go Backwards" — an article at ''Crawdaddy!''.

"The Barrett/Hitchcock Connection" — an article at Perfect Sound Forever.

Interview with Robyn Hitchcock with Andy Carvin in 1993.

External links

The Museum of Robyn Hitchcock (official site)

The Asking Tree: Robyn Hitchcock Discography and Gigography Database

Otmoor Productions Documentary ''Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death... and Insects''

fegMANIA! - Robyn Hitchcock news and information listserv

The Glass Hotel - comprehensive site including "Glass Flesh" tribute project

Robyn Hitchcock collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive

Category:1953 births Category:Alternative rock musicians Category:English male singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English songwriters Category:K Records artists Category:Living people Category:Old Wykehamists Category:Music in Cambridge Category:The Minus 5 members Category:Live Music Archive artists

de:Robyn Hitchcock it:Robyn Hitchcock nl:Robyn Hitchcock pl:Robyn Hitchcock fi:Robyn Hitchcock

{{infobox historical event |event name

The French Revolution |Image_Name Prise de la Bastille.jpg |Image_Caption The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 |Participants French society |Location France |Date 1789–1799 |Result Abolition and replacement of the French monarchy with a radical democratic republic. Radical social change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte Armed conflicts with other European countries }}

The French Revolution (; 1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from left-wing political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.

The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a right-wing monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed. After the fall of the Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies and the invention of total war all mark their birth during the Revolution. Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of the monarchy and two additional revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, France would be governed at one point or another as a republic, constitutional monarchy and two different empires (the First and Second).

Causes

Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the ''Ancien Régime'' as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included hunger and malnutrition in the most destitute segments of the population, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a four-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789), after several years of poor grain harvests. Bad harvests (caused in part by extreme weather from El Niño along with volcanic activity at Laki and Grímsvötn), rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system that hindered the shipment of bulk foods from rural areas to large population centers contributed greatly to the destabilization of French society in the years leading up to the Revolution.

Another cause was the state's effective bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of previous wars, particularly the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to some 1,000–2,000 million livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the loss of France's colonial possessions in North America and the growing commercial dominance of Great Britain. France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation. To obtain new money to head off default on the government's loans, the king called an Assembly of Notables in 1787.

Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was seen as being isolated from, and indifferent to, the hardships of the lower classes. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. Those who were opposed to Louis' policies further undermined royal authority by distributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) that criticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion against the monarchy.

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Church's influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger toward the King for firing finance minister Jacques Necker, among others, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.

Pre-revolution

Financial crisis

Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income. This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolutionary War. In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he failed to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant. Necker realized that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden, while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy. He argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the ''parlements''. This was not received well by the King's ministers and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Comptrollership. Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and proposed a new tax code. The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. In response, the King announced the calling of the Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.

Estates-General of 1789

The Estates-General was organized into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France. On the last occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate held one vote, and any two could override the third. The ''Parlement'' of Paris feared the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to rig the results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in 1614. The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies, where each member had one vote and third estate membership was doubled. For example, in the Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per estate. The "Committee of Thirty," a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign." Necker convened a Second Assembly of Notables, which rejected the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333. The King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General itself.

Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males only, at least 25 years of age, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes.

''Pour être électeur du tiers état, il faut avoir 25 ans, être français ou naturalisé, être domicilié au lieu de vote et compris au rôle des impositions.''

Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles, 300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate." To lead delegates, "Books of grievances" (''cahiers de doléances'') were compiled to list problems. The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare. Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship. The Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet ''Qu'est-ce que le tiers état?'' ("What is the Third Estate?"), published in January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something." The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker. The Third Estate demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members internally; negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this. The commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the king was to act as arbitrator." Negotiations with the other two estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.

National Assembly (1789)

On 10 June 1789, Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the ''Communes'' (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June. Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.

National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)

Storming of the Bastille

By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker as financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker published an inaccurate account of the government's debts and made it available to the public, the King fired him, and completely restructured the finance ministry at the same time.

Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent another eviction from their meeting place. Paris was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of some of the French Guard, who were armed and trained soldiers. On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of royal power. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ''Ancien Régime''. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the ''prévôt des marchands'' (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and butchered him.

The King, alarmed by the violence, backed down, at least for the time being. The Marquis de la Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the ''commune''. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolore cockade, to cries of ''Vive la Nation'' ("Long live the Nation") and ''Vive le Roi'' ("Long live the King").

Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour.

As civil authority rapidly deteriorated, with random acts of violence and theft breaking out across the country, members of the nobility, fearing for their safety, fled to neighboring countries; many of these ''émigrés'', as they were called, funded counter-revolutionary causes within France and urged foreign monarchs to offer military support to a counter-revolution.

By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France. In rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as ''"la Grande Peur"'' ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.

Working toward a constitution

On 4 August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (although at that point there had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism already), in what is known as the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.

On 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.

Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 ''départements,'' uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.

Amid the Assembly's preoccupation with constitutional affairs, the financial crisis had continued largely unaddressed, and the deficit had only increased. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.

Women's March on Versailles

Fueled by rumors of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789 at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns. The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.

Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards. La Fayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.

On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.

Revolution and the Church

The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the ''Ancien Régime'', the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10% of the land in the kingdom. The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, while it levied a tithe—a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops—on the general population, which it then redistributed to the poor. The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented by some groups. A small minority of Protestants living in France, such as the Huguenots, wanted an anti-Catholic regime and revenge against the clergy who discriminated against them. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy. As historian John McManners argues, "In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."

This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May 1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body. The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation." They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy, caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned. In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25% in two years. In autumn 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved. Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage did eventually marry.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome over the French Church. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy. This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope. Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath. Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors." Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France. During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the Cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianization. These events led to a widespread disillusionment with the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianization by attacking revolutionary agents and hiding members of the clergy who were being hunted. Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign, replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a counter-revolution known as the Revolt in the Vendée, whose suppression is considered by some to be the first modern genocide.

Intrigues and radicalism

Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or ''monarchiens'', allied with Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the British constitutional model; they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.

The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left. In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies. The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the ''Ancien Régime''— armorial bearings, liveries, etc. – which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the ''émigrés''. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the ''Fête de la Fédération''; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; the King and the royal family actively participated.

The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the ''communes'' had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau prevailed, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.

In late 1790, the French army was in considerable disarray. The military officer corps was largely composed of noblemen, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain order within the ranks. In some cases, soldiers (drawn from the lower classes) had turned against their aristocratic commanders and attacked them. At Nancy, General Bouillé successfully put down one such rebellion, only to be accused of being anti-revolutionary for doing so. This and other such incidents spurred a mass desertion as more and more officers defected to other countries, leaving a dearth of experienced leadership within the army.

This period also saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics. Foremost among these was the Jacobin Club; 152 members had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. The Jacobin Society began as a broad, general organization for political debate, but as it grew in members, various factions developed with widely differing views. Several of these fractions broke off to form their own clubs, such as the Club of '89.

Meanwhile, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.

In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time, legislation against the ''émigrés''. The debate pitted the safety of the Revolution against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau prevailed against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco". But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791 and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly adopted this draconian measure.

Royal flight to Varennes

Louis XVI, egged on by Marie Antoinette and other members of his family, opposed the course of the Revolution, but rejected the potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe. He cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791, the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace dressed as servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.

However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes (in the Meuse ''département''). He and his family were brought back to Paris under guard, still dressed as servants. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When they returned to Paris, the crowd greeted them in silence. The Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard.

Completing the constitution

As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he was forced to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to abdication.

However, Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people.

In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's ''L'Ami du Peuple''. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.

Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the King's brother Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions. The French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely hastened their militarisation.

Even before the "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. With this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on 30 September 1791.

Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none."

Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)

Failure of the constitutional monarchy

Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot." The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction. Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the ''émigrés'' with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.

Constitutional crisis

On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents and popular militias, supported by the revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries Palace and massacred the Swiss Guards who were assigned for the protection of the king. The royal family ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.

What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until the Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new ''de facto'' government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.

War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)

The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. The King, many of the Feuillants and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France. The forces opposing war were much weaker. Barnave and his supporters among the Feuillants feared a war they thought France had little chance to win and which they feared might lead to greater radicalization of the revolution. On the other end of the political spectrum, Robespierre opposed war, preferring to consolidate and expand the Revolution at home. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792. France preemptively declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw.

The new-born Republic followed up on this success with a series of victories in Belgium and the Rhineland in the fall of 1792. The French armies defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November, and had soon taken over most of the Austrian Netherlands. This brought them into conflict with Britain and the Dutch Republic, which wished to preserve the independence of the southern Netherlands from France. After the king's execution in January 1793, these powers, along with Spain and most other European states, joined the war against France. Almost immediately, French forces faced defeat on many fronts, and were driven out of their newly conquered territories in the spring of 1793. At the same time, the republican regime was forced to deal with rebellions against its authority in much of western and southern France. But the allies failed to take advantage of French disunity, and by the autumn of 1793 the republican regime had defeated most of the internal rebellions and halted the allied advance into France itself.

The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic French victories. They defeated the allied army at the Battle of Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the beginning of 1795, conquering Holland itself. The House of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too, made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and Austria remained at war with France. It was during this time, that ''La Marseillaise'', originally ''Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin'' ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"), was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792 and adopted in 1795 as the nation's first anthem.

National Convention (1792–1795)

Execution of Louis XVI

In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. This made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. 17 January 1793 saw Louis condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions. The former Louis XVI, now simply named ''Citoyen Louis Capet'' (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the ''Place de la Révolution'', former ''Place Louis XV'', now called the Place de la Concorde. Royalty across Europe was horrified and many heretofore neutral countries soon joined the war against revolutionary France.

Economy

When war went badly, prices rose and the ''sans-culottes'' — poor labourers and radical Jacobins – rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary ''coup'', backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian ''sans-culottes''. An alliance of Jacobin and ''sans-culottes'' elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders. This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods. Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"

Reign of Terror

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.

On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the ''enragés'' ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert – took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to ''sans-culottes'' alone. With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to persuade the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the ''revolutionary dictatorship''. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric — by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.

Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.

War in the Vendée

In Vendée, peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription. This became a guerrilla war, known as the War in the Vendée. North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).

After the defeat at Savenay, when regular warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general Francois Joseph Westermann penned a letter to the Committee of Public Safety stating

"There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."''

However, some historians doubt the authenticity of this document and others point out that the claims in it were patently false — there were in fact thousands of (living) Vendean prisoners, the revolt had been far from crushed, and the Convention had explicitly decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated humanely. It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic, that may have been Westermann's attempt to exaggerate the intensity of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being purged for his incompetent military leadership and for his opposition to ''sans-culotte'' generals (he failed to avoid that, since he was guillotined together with Danton's group).

The revolt and its suppression (including both combat casualties and massacres and executions on both sides) are thought to have taken between 117,000 and 250,000 lives (170,000 according to the latest estimates). Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide". This description has become popular in the mass media, but it has attracted much criticism in academia as being unrealistic and biased.

Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the ''levée en masse'', which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.

The result was a policy through which the state used violent repression to crush resistance to the government. Under control of the effectively dictatorial Committee, the Convention quickly enacted more legislation. On 9 September, the Convention established ''sans-culottes'' paramilitary forces, the ''revolutionary armies'', to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the ''Law of Suspects'' was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with vaguely defined crimes against liberty. On 29 September, the Convention extended price-fixing from grain and bread to other household goods and declared the right to set a limit on wages.

The guillotine as a symbol

The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.

At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the ''Noyades'' ("drownings") he organized in Nantes; his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.

Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Republican Calendar on 24 October 1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November. The Reign of Terror enabled the revolutionary government to avoid military defeat. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with younger soldiers who had demonstrated their ability and patriotism. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy.

In the spring of 1794, both extremist ''enragés'' such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard ''indulgents'' such as Danton were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June Robespierre, who had previously condemned the ''Cult of Reason'', advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".

Thermidorian Reaction

On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and other leading Jacobins. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.

In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against. The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.

The Constitutional Republic: The Directory (1795–1799)

The new constitution created the ''Directoire'' () and the first bicameral legislature in French history. The parliament consisted of two houses: the ''Conseil des Cinq-Cents'' (Council of the Five Hundred), with 500 representatives, and the ''Conseil des Anciens'' (Council of Elders), with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the ''Conseil des Anciens'' from a list submitted by the ''Conseil des Cinq-Cents''. Furthermore, the universal suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property.

With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to restore the monarchy and the ''Ancien Régime'' by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the First Coalition. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. However, many French citizens distrusted the Directory, and the directors could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even when the elections that they rigged went against them, the directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell dissent. Moreover, to prolong their power the directors were driven to rely on the military, which desired war and grew less and less civic-minded.

Other reasons influenced them in the direction of war. State finances during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.

The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value.

The new régime met opposition from remaining Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually gained total power.

On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the ''coup of 18 Brumaire'' which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as ''Empereur'' (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.

Symbolism in the French Revolution

The French Revolution was a time of upheaval, especially towards traditional ideology, in almost every sense: the current monarch, King Louis XVI, was executed; the Catholic Church was all but abolished; a new calendar was created; and a new Republican government was established. In order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instill in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.

Fasces

Fasces, likes many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fasces symbolized the power of magistrates who could order the beating of a criminal, representing union and accord with the Roman Republic. The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity. During the French Revolution the fasces image is seen in conjunction with many other symbols. This is seen with many emblems of the French Revolution. Though seen throughout the French Revolution, perhaps the most well known French reincarnation of the fasces is the Fasces surmounted by a Phrygian cap. This image has no display of an axe or a strong central state; rather, it symbolizes the power of the liberated people by placing the Liberty Cap on top of the classical symbol of power.

Liberty cap

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. The cap was originally worn by ancient Romans and Greeks. The cap implies ennobling effects, as seen in its association with Homer’s Ulysses and the mythical twins, Castor and Pollux. The emblem’s popularity during the French Revolution is due in part to its importance in ancient Rome: its use alludes to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty. The Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus incited the slaves to insurrection by displaying a pileus as if it were a standard. The pileus cap is often red in color. This type of cap was worn by revolutionaries at the fall of the Bastille. According to the Revolutions de Paris, it became "the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign for unification of all the enemies of despotism." The pileus competed with the Phrygian cap, a similar cap that covered the ears and the nape of the neck, for popularity. The Phrygian cap eventually supplanted the pileus and usurped its symbolism, becoming synonymous with republican liberty.

Liberty Tree

The Liberty Tree, officially adopted in 1792, is a symbol of the everlasting Republic, national freedom, and political revolution. It has historic roots in revolutionary France as well as America, as a symbol that was shared by the two nascent republics. The tree was chosen as a symbol of the French Revolution because it is a symbol of fertility in French folklore, which provided a simple transition from revering it for one reason to another. The American colonies also used the idea of a Liberty Tree to celebrate their own acts of insurrection against the British, starting with the Stamp Act riot in 1765. The riot culminated in the hanging in effigy of two Stamp Act politicians on a large elm tree. The elm tree began to be celebrated as a symbol of Liberty in the American colonies. It was adopted as a symbol that needed to be living and growing, along with the Republic. To that end, the tree is portrayed as a sapling, usually of an oak tree in French interpretation. The Liberty Tree serves as a constant celebration of the spirit of political freedom.

Hercules

The symbol of Hercules was first adopted by the Old Regime to represent the monarchy. Hercules was an ancient Greek hero who symbolized strength and power. The symbol was used to represent the sovereign authority of the King over France during the reign of the Bourbon monarchs. However, the monarchy was not the only ruling power in French history to use the symbol of Hercules to declare its power.

During the Revolution, the symbol of Hercules was revived to represent nascent revolutionary ideals. The first use of Hercules as a revolutionary symbol was during a festival celebrating the National Assembly’s victory over federalism on 10 August 1793. This Festival of Unity consisted of four stations around Paris which featured symbols representing major events of the Revolution which embodied revolutionary ideals of liberty, unity, and power. The statue of Hercules, placed at the station commemorating the fall of Louis XVI, symbolized the power of the French people over their former oppressors. The statue’s foot was placed on the throat of the Hydra, which represented the tyranny of federalism which the new Republic had vanquished. In one hand, the statue grasped a club, a symbol of power, while in the other grasping the fasces which symbolized the unity of the French people. The image of Hercules assisted the new Republic in establishing its new Republican moral system. Hercules thus evolved from a symbol of the sovereignty of the monarch into a symbol of the new sovereign authority in France: the French people. This transition was made easily for two reasons. First, because Hercules was a famous mythological figure, and had previously been used by the monarchy, he was easily recognized by educated French observers. It was not necessary for the revolutionary government to educate the French people on the background of the symbol. Additionally, Hercules recalled the classical age of the Greeks and the Romans, a period which the revolutionaries identified with republican and democratic ideals. These connotations made Hercules an easy choice to represent the powerful new sovereign people of France.

During the more radical phase of the Revolution from 1793 to 1794, the usage and depiction of Hercules changed. These changes to the symbol were due to revolutionary leaders believing the symbol was inciting violence among the common citizens. The triumphant battles of Hercules and the overcoming of enemies of the Republic became less prominent. In discussions over what symbol to use for the Seal of the Republic, the image of Hercules was considered but eventually ruled out in favor of Marianne. Hercules was on the coin of the Republic. However, this Hercules was not the same image as that of the pre-Terror phases of the Revolution. The new image of Hercules was more domesticated. He appeared more paternal, older, and wiser, rather than the warrior-like images in the early stages of the French Revolution. Unlike his 24 foot statue in the Festival of the Supreme Being, he was now the same size as Liberty and Equality. Also the language on the coin with Hercules was far different than the rhetoric of pre-revolutionary depictions. On the coins the words, "uniting Liberty and Equality" were used. This is opposed to the forceful language of early Revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of the Bourbon monarchy. By 1798, the Council of Ancients had discussed the "inevitable" change from the problematic image of Hercules, and Hercules was eventually phased out in favor of an even more docile image.

Role of women

Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they couldn’t vote or hold any political office. They were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the political sphere. The ''Encyclopédie'', published by a group of philosophers over the years 1751–1777, summarized French male beliefs of women. A woman was a "failed man," the fetus not fully developed in the womb. "Women’s testimony is in general light and subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than that of men" as opposed to men, upon whom "Nature seems to have conferred… the right to govern." In general, "men are more capable than women of ably governing particular matters". Instead, women were taught to be committed to their husbands and "all his interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation." A woman’s education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens.

When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." Throughout the Revolution, women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and rioted.

Even before Léon, some liberals had advocated equal rights for women including women's suffrage. Nicolas de Condorcet was especially noted for his advocacy, in his articles published in the ''Journal de la Société de 1789'', and by publishing ''De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité'' ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790.

Feminist agitation

The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women. Women were, nonetheless, "denied political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793)."

Pauline Léon, on 6 March 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319 women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military invasion. Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the privilege of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was denied. Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the creation of "legions of amazons" in order to protect the revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear arm would transform women into citizens.

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s residence." Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.

The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on 10 May 1793. The goal of the club was "to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic." Up to 180 women attended the meetings of the Society. Of special interest to the Society was "combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and inflation."

Later, on 20 May 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793." When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."

Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile. Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publicly flogged and then spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".

These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of French feminists was bold and particularly significant in Paris.

Women writers

While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others chose to influence events through writing, publications, and meetings. Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t stop them from equality under the law. In her "Declaration on the Rights of Woman" she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror, Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym "Polyme" calling him the Revolution’s "infamy and shame." She warned of the Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were "preparing new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver." Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied. In addition to these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789.

Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women "could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great significance" if given the chance. As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped to finish her writings and several editions were published posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.

Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.

Legacy

The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterized as falling along ideological lines, with liberal, conservative, communist, and anarchist scholars—among others—disagreeing over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution. Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance. Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints. Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasized the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a gigantic class struggle. In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyzes the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, and the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500, is traditionally attributed to the onset of the French Revolution in 1789. The Revolution is, in fact, often seen as marking the "dawn of the modern era". Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage they sustained. After the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterized the period, with one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organizations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option." Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution. Outside France, the Revolution captured the imagination of the world. It had a profound impact on the Russian Revolution and its ideas were imbibed by Mao Zedong in his efforts at constructing a communist state in China.

See also

Related pages

Biens nationaux

Dual revolution

History of democracy

Jean-Nicolas Pache – Liberté, égalité, fraternité

La Révolution française (film)

List of people granted honorary French citizenship during the French Revolution

List of revolutions and rebellions

Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleonic code

Rise of nationalism in Europe

Timeline of the French Revolution

Audio files

Other revolutions or rebellions in French history

Camisard Rebellion, French Huguenots (1710–1715)

Haitian Revolution, Haiti colony (1791–1804)

July Revolution (1830)

Canut revolts of the July Monarchy

French Revolution of 1848

Resistance to the coup of 1851

Paris Commune of 1871

French Army Mutinies (1917)

French Resistance during World War II

May 1968 in France, a noteworthy rebellion, though not quite a revolution

References

Works cited

Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. "Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).

Marquise de Maintenon "Instruction to the Nuns of St. Louis," in Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women. ed. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H Winn. (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000), 321.

Scott, Joan Wallach. "A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).

Walker, Leslie H. "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland" Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Revolutionary Culture (2001): 403–419.

"Women." The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. University of Michigan Library, n.d. Web. 10/29/09. < http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/>.

Further reading

Baker, Keith M. ed. ''The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture'' (Oxford, 1987–94) ''vol 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime,'' ed. K.M. Baker (1987); ''vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution,'' ed. C. Lucas (1988); ''vol. 3: The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848,'' eds. F. Furet & M. Ozouf (1989); ''vol. 4: The Terror,'' ed. K.M. Baker (1994). excerpt and text search vol 4

Blanning, T.C.W. ''The French Revolutionary Wars 1787–1802'' (1996).

Censer, Jack R. "Amalgamating the Social in the French Revolution." ''Journal of Social History 2003'' 37(1): 145–150. Issn: 0022-4529 Fulltext: in Project Muse and Ebsco

Doyle, William. ''The Oxford History of the French Revolution'' (1989). online complete edition; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Doyle, William. ''The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.'' (2001), 120pp; online edition

Doyle, William. ''Origins of the French Revolution'' (3rd ed. 1999) online edition

Dunne, John. "Fifty Years of Rewriting the French Revolution: Signposts Main Landmarks and Current Directions in the Historiographical Debate," ''History Review.'' (1998) pp 8+ online edition

Englund, Steven. ''Napoleon: A Political Life.'' (2004). 575 pages; the best political biography excerpt and text search

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. ed. ''The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History'' (ABC-CLIO: 3 vol 2006)

Frey, Linda S. and Marsha L. Frey. ''The French Revolution.'' (2004) 190pp online edition

Furet, François. ''The French Revolution, 1770–1814'' (1996) excerpt and text search

Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. ''A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution'' (1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; conservative perspective; stress on history of ideas excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Hunt, Lynn. ''The Family Romance of the French Revolution.'' (1992)

Hunt, Lynn. "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution." (1984)

Germani, Ian and Robin Swayles. ''Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution''. University of Regina Publications. 1998. ISBN 9780889771086

Griffith, Paddy. ''The Art of War of Revolutionary France 1789–1802,'' (1998); 304 pp; excerpt and text search

Jones, Colin. ''The Longman Companion to the French Revolution'' (1989)

Jones, Colin. ''The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon'' (2002) excerpt and text search

Kates, Gary. ''The French Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2005), 308pp; essays by scholars; excerpts and online search from Amazon.com

Lefebvre, Georges. ''The French Revolution'' (2 vol 1957) classic Marxist synthesis. complete online edition vol 1; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Neely, Sylvia. '' A Concise History of the French Revolution'' (2008)

Palmer, Robert R. ''The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800.'' (2 vol 1959), highly influential comparative history; vol 1 online

Paxton, John. ''Companion to the French Revolution'' (1987), hundreds of short entries.

Rothenberg, Gunther E. "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon," ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History,'' Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 771–793 in JSTOR

Rude, George F. and Harvey J. Kaye. ''Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815'' (2000), scholarly survey excerpt and text search

Schroeder, Paul. ''The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848.'' 1996; Thorough coverage of diplomatic history; hostile to Napoleon; online edition

Schwab, Gail M., and John R. Jeanneney, eds. ''The French Revolution of 1789 and Its Impact'' (1995) online edition

Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus. ''Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789–1799'' (2 vol 1984), short essays by scholars

Schama, Simon. ''Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution'' (1989), highly readable narrative by scholar excerpt and text search

Sutherland, D.M.G. ''France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2003, 430pp excerpts and online search from Amazon.com

External links

"French Revolution" in the ''Catholic Encyclopedia''

Open University course

Entry on Encyclopedia.com from the Columbia Encyclopedia

Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York)

The Origins of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789–1792, and The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792–1794, three essays from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History

Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.

english.republique.de A large collection of links

Category:Republicanism in France Category:18th-century rebellions Category:18th-century revolutions

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alt	A headshot of an older man is looking to the left while smiling
birth name	Clinton Eastwood, Jr.
birth date	May 31, 1930
birth place	San Francisco, California, U.S.
nationality	American
occupation	Actor, director, producer, composer, politician
years active	1955–present
spouse	Maggie Johnson (1953–84; two children)Dina Ruiz (1996–present; one child)
domesticpartner	Frances Fisher (1990-95; one child)
children	Kimber TunisKyle EastwoodAlison EastwoodScott ReevesKathryn ReevesFrancesca Fisher-EastwoodMorgan Eastwood }}

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member the TV series ''Rawhide'' (1959–1965). He rose to fame for playing the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's ''Dollars'' Trilogy of spaghetti westerns (''A Fistful of Dollars'', ''For a Few Dollars More'', and ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'') during the 1960s, and as San Francisco Police Department Inspector Harry Callahan in the ''Dirty Harry'' films (''Dirty Harry'', ''Magnum Force'', ''The Enforcer'', ''Sudden Impact'', and ''The Dead Pool'') during the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, along with several others in which he plays tough-talking no-nonsense police officers, have made him an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.

Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor, for his work in the films ''Unforgiven'' (1992) and ''Million Dollar Baby'' (2004). These films in particular, as well as others including ''Play Misty for Me'' (1971), ''The Outlaw Josey Wales'' (1976), ''Pale Rider'' (1985), ''In the Line of Fire'' (1993), ''The Bridges of Madison County'' (1995), and ''Gran Torino'' (2008), have all received commercial success and critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been ''Every Which Way but Loose'' (1978), its sequel ''Any Which Way You Can'' (1980), and ''Bronco Billy'' (1980); despite being widely panned by critics, the "Any Which Way" films are the two highest-grossing films of his career after adjusting for inflation.

Eastwood has directed most of his own star vehicles, but he has also directed films in which he did not appear such as ''Mystic River'' (2003) and ''Letters from Iwo Jima'' (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations and ''Changeling'' (2008), which received Golden Globe Award nominations. He has received considerable critical praise in France in particular, including for several of his films which were panned in the United States, and was awarded two of France's highest honors: in 1994 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal and in 2007 was awarded the Légion d'honneur medal. In 2000 he was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.

Since 1967, Eastwood has run his own production company, Malpaso, which has produced the vast majority of his films. He also served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from 1986 to 1988. Eastwood has seven children by five different women, although he has only married twice.

Early life

Eastwood was born in San Francisco to Clinton Eastwood, Sr. (1906–70), a steelworker and migrant worker, and Margaret Ruth (née Runner; 1909–2006), a factory worker. He was nicknamed "Samson" by the hospital nurses as he weighed at birth. After his father died in 1970, Eastwood's mother remarried to John Belden Wood (1913–2004) in 1972, and they remained married until his death 32 years later. Eastwood is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry and was raised in a middle class home with his younger sister, Jean (born 1934). His family relocated often as his father worked at different jobs along the West Coast, including at a pulp mill. The family settled in Piedmont, California, where Eastwood attended Piedmont Junior High School and Piedmont Senior High School, taking part in sports such as basketball, football, gymnastics, and competitive swimming. He later transferred to Oakland Technical High School where the drama teachers encouraged him to enroll in school plays, but he was not interested. As his family moved to different areas he held a series of jobs including lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, forest firefighter, and golf caddy.

In 1950, Eastwood began a one-year stint as a lifeguard for the United States Army during the Korean War and was posted to Fort Ord in California. While on leave in 1951 Eastwood was a passenger onboard a Douglas AD bomber that ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean near Point Reyes. After escaping from the sinking aircraft he and the pilot swam to safety.

Eastwood later moved to Los Angeles and began a romance with Maggie Johnson, a college student. He managed an apartment house in Beverly Hills by day and worked at a gas station by night. He enrolled at Los Angeles City College and married Johnson shortly before Christmas 1953 in South Pasadena.

Film career

1950s

Early career struggles

According to the CBS press release for ''Rawhide'', Universal Studios, known then as the Universal-International film company, was shooting in Fort Ord when an enterprising assistant spotted Eastwood and arranged a meeting with the series' director. According to Eastwood's official biography the key figure was a man named Chuck Hill, who was stationed in Fort Ord and had contacts in Hollywood. Later, in Los Angeles, Hill became reacquainted with Eastwood and managed to sneak him into one of Universal's studios, where he showed him to cameraman Irving Glassberg. Glassberg arranged for an audition with Arthur Lubin who, although impressed with Eastwood's appearance and frame, initially questioned his acting skills remarking, "He was quite amateurish. He didn't know which way to turn or which way to go or do anything". Lubin suggested he attend drama classes and arranged for his initial contract in April 1954 at $100 (US$}} in dollars) per week. After signing Eastwood was initially criticized for his stiff manner, his squint and with hissing his lines through his teeth, a feature that would become a life-long trademark.

In May 1954 Eastwood auditioned for his first role in ''Six Bridges to Cross'', but was rejected by Joseph Pevney. After many unsuccessful auditions he eventually landed a minor role as a laboratory assistant in director Jack Arnold's ''Revenge of the Creature'', a sequel to ''The Creature from the Black Lagoon''. He then worked for three weeks on Lubin's ''Lady Godiva of Coventry'' in September 1954, then won a role in February 1955 as a sailor in ''Francis in the Navy'' as well as appearing uncredited in another Jack Arnold film, ''Tarantula'', in which he played a squadron pilot. In May 1955 Eastwood had a brief appearance in the film ''Never Say Goodbye'', during which he shared a scene with Rock Hudson. Universal presented him with his first television role on July 2, 1955, in NBC's ''Allen in Movieland'', which starred Tony Curtis and Benny Goodman. Although he continued to develop as an actor Universal terminated Eastwood's contract on October 23, 1955.

Eastwood then joined the Marsh Agency and although Lubin landed him his biggest role to date in ''The First Traveling Saleslady'' (1956) and later hired him for ''Escapade in Japan'', without a formal contract Eastwood struggled. He met financial advisor Irving Leonard, who would later arguably take most responsibility for launching his career in the late 1950s and 1960s, whom Eastwood described as being "like a second father to me". On Leonard's advice Eastwood switched talent agencies to the Kumin-Olenick Agency in 1956 and to Mitchell Gertz in 1957. He landed several small roles in 1956 as a temperamental army officer for a segment of ABC's ''Reader's Digest'' series, and as a motorcycle gang member on a ''Highway Patrol'' episode. Eastwood had a minor uncredited role as a ranch hand in his first western film, ''Law Man'', in June 1956. The following year he played a cadet in the ''West Point'' television series and a suicidal gold prospector in ''Death Valley Days''. In 1955 he played a Navy lieutenant in a segment of ''Navy Log'' and in early 1959 he made a notable guest appearance on ''Maverick'', opposite James Garner, as a cowardly villain intent on marrying a rich girl for money. Eastwood had a small part as an aviator in the French picture ''Lafayette Escadrille'' and took on a major role as an ex-Confederate renegade in ''Ambush at Cimarron Pass'', a film which Eastwood viewed as disastrous and the lowest point of his career.

Rawhide

In a long sought after career breakthrough, Eastwood was cast as Rowdy Yates for the CBS hour-long western series ''Rawhide'' in 1958, although he was not especially happy with his role. By now, aged almost 30, he felt that his character Rowdy was too young and too cloddish for him to feel comfortable with the part. Filming began in Arizona in the summer of 1958 and on release it took just three weeks for ''Rawhide'' to reach the top 20 in the TV ratings. Although the series never won an Emmy it was a major success for several years, reaching its peak at number six in the ratings between October 1960 and April 1961. The ''Rawhide'' years (1959–65) were some of the most grueling of Eastwood's career. He often filmed for six days a week at an average of twelve hours a day, yet some directors still criticized him for not working hard enough. By late 1963 ''Rawhide'''s popularity had declined. Lacking freshness in the scripts, it was canceled in the middle of the 1965–66 television season. Eastwood made his first attempt at directing when he filmed several trailers for the show, although he was unable to convince producers to let him direct an episode. In the show's first season Eastwood earned $750 (US$}} in dollars) an episode. At the time of its cancellation he received a $119,000 (US$}} in dollars) compensation package.

1960s

In late 1963 Eastwood's co-star on ''Rawhide'', Eric Fleming, rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made western called ''A Fistful of Dollars''; to be directed in a remote region of Spain by Sergio Leone who was relatively unknown at the time. Other actors, including Charles Bronson, Steve Reeves, Richard Harrison, Frank Wolfe, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, and Ty Hardin, were also considered for the role. Knowing that he could play a cowboy convincingly Harrison suggested Eastwood, who in turn saw the film as an opportunity to escape from ''Rawhide''. He signed a contract for $15,000 (US$}} in dollars) in wages for eleven weeks' work with a bonus of a Mercedes automobile upon completion and arrived in Rome in May 1964 Eastwood later spoke about the transition from a television western to ''A Fistful of Dollars'': "In ''Rawhide'' I did get awfully tired of playing the conventional white hat. The hero who kisses old ladies and dogs and was kind to everybody. I decided it was time to be an anti-hero." Eastwood was instrumental in creating the Man with No Name character's distinctive visual style and although a non-smoker, Leone insisted he smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the "mask" he was attempting to create with the loner character.

Some interior shots for ''A Fistful of Dollars'' were done at the Cinecittà studio on the outskirts of Rome, before production moved to a small village in Andalusia, Spain. The film became a benchmark in the development of spaghetti westerns, with Leone depicting a more lawless and desolate world than in traditional westerns; meanwhile challenging stereotypical American notions of a western hero by replacing him with a morally ambiguous antihero. The film's success meant Eastwood became a major star in Italy and he was re-hired by Leone to star in ''For a Few Dollars More'' (1965), the second film of the trilogy. Through the efforts of screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni, the rights to the film and the final film of the trilogy (''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'') were sold to United Artists for roughly $900,000 (US$}} in dollars).

In January 1966 Eastwood met with producer Dino De Laurentiis in New York City and agreed to star in a non-western five-part anthology production named ''Le streghe'' ("The Witches") opposite De Laurentiis' wife, actress Silvana Mangano. Eastwood's nineteen-minute installment only took a few days to shoot but his performance did not go down well with the critics, with one saying "no other performance of his is quite so 'un-Clintlike' ". Two months later Eastwood began work on the third ''Dollars'' film, ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'', in which he again played the mysterious Man with No Name. Lee Van Cleef returned to play a ruthless fortune seeker, while Eli Wallach portrayed the cunning Mexican bandit Tuco. The storyline involves the search for a cache of Confederate gold buried in a cemetery. One day during filming of a scene where a bridge was to be dynamited Eastwood, suspicious of explosives, urged Wallach to retreat to the hilltop saying, "I know about these things. Stay as far away from special effects and explosives as you can." Minutes later crew confusion, over the word "Vaya!", resulted in a premature explosion which could have killed the co-star, while necessitating rebuilding of the bridge.

The ''Dollars'' trilogy was not shown in the United States until 1967 when ''A Fistful of Dollars'' opened in January, ''For a Few Dollars More'' in May, and ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' in December. All the films proved successful in cinemas, particularly ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' which eventually earned $8 million (US$}} in dollars) in rental earnings and turned Eastwood into a major film star. All three films received generally bad reviews and marked the beginning of Eastwood's battle to win the respect of American film critics. Judith Crist described ''A Fistful of Dollars'' as "cheapjack", while ''Newsweek'' considered ''For a Few Dollars More'' as "excruciatingly dopey". Renata Adler of ''The New York Times'' remarked that ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' was "the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre", despite the fact that it is now widely considered one of the finest films in the history of cinema. ''Time'' magazine highlighted the film's wooden acting, especially Eastwood's, although critics such as Vincent Canby and Bosley Crowther of ''The New York Times'' praised Eastwood's coolness in playing the tall, lone stranger. Leone's unique style of cinematography was widely acclaimed, even by some critics who panned the acting.

Stardom brought more "tough guy" roles for Eastwood. He signed for the American revisionist western ''Hang 'Em High'' (1968), in which he featured alongside Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle, Dennis Hopper, Ed Begley, Bruce Dern, and James MacArthur. A cross between ''Rawhide'' and Leone's westerns, the film brought him a salary of $400,000 (US$}} in dollars) and 25% of its net earnings. He plays a man who seeks revenge after being lynched by vigilantes and left for dead. Using money earned from the ''Dollars'' trilogy Leonard helped establish Eastwood's production company, Malpaso Productions, named after the Malpaso Creek on Eastwood's property in Monterey County, California. Leonard arranged for ''Hang 'Em High'' to be a joint production with United Artists and, when it opened in July 1968, the film became the biggest United Artists opening in history — its box office receipts exceeding all the James Bond films of the time. It was widely praised by critics; including Archer Winsten of the ''New York Post'' who described ''Hang 'Em High'' as, "a western of quality, courage, danger and excitement".

Before the release of ''Hang 'Em High'' Eastwood had already begun work on the film ''Coogan's Bluff'', about an Arizona deputy sheriff tracking a wanted psychopathic criminal (Don Stroud) through the streets of New York City. He was reunited with Universal Studios for the project after receiving an offer of $1 million (US$}} in dollars)—more than double his previous salary. Jennings Lang arranged for Eastwood to meet Don Siegel, a Universal contract director who later became one of Eastwood's close friends, with the two forming a close partnership that would last for more than ten years over five films. Filming began in November 1967, before the full script had been finalized. The film was controversial for its portrayal of violence, with Eastwood's role creating the prototype for what would later become the macho cop of the ''Dirty Harry'' films. ''Coogan's Bluff'' also became the first collaboration with Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the jazzy score to several of Eastwood's films in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly the ''Dirty Harry'' film series.

Eastwood was paid $850,000 (US$}} in dollars) in 1968 for the war epic ''Where Eagles Dare'', about a World War II squad parachuting into a Gestapo stronghold in the mountains. Richard Burton played the squad's commander with Eastwood as his right-hand man. He was also cast as Two-Face in the ''Batman'' television show, but the series was canceled before filming could commence.

Eastwood then branched out to star in the only musical of his career, ''Paint Your Wagon'' (1969). Eastwood and fellow non-singer Lee Marvin play gold miners who share the same wife (portrayed by Jean Seberg). Bad weather and delays plagued the production while its budget eventually exceeded $20 million (US$}} in dollars), extremely expensive for the time. The film was not a critical or commercial success, although it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

1970s

In 1970 Eastwood starred in the western ''Two Mules for Sister Sara'' with Shirley MacLaine and directed by Don Siegel. The film follows an American mercenary who gets mixed up with a whore disguised as a nun and ends up helping a group of Juarista rebels during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Eastwood once again played a mysterious stranger—unshaven, wearing a serape-like vest, and smoking a cigar. Although the film received moderate reviewsthe film is listed in ''The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made''. Later the same year Eastwood starred as one of a group of Americans who steal a fortune in gold from the Nazis in the World War II film ''Kelly's Heroes'' with Donald Sutherland and Telly Savalas. ''Kelly's Heroes'' was the last film in which Eastwood appeared that was not produced by his own Malpaso Productions. Filming commenced in July 1969 on location in Yugoslavia and in London. The film received mostly a positive reception and its anti-war sentiments were recognized. In the winter of 1969–70, Eastwood and Siegel began planning his next film, ''The Beguiled'', a tale of a wounded Union soldier held captive by the sexually repressed matron of a southern girl's school. Upon release the film received major recognition in France and is considered one of Eastwood's finest works by the French. However, it grossed less than $1 million (US$}} in dollars) and, according to Eastwood and Lang, flopped due to poor publicity and the "emasculated" role of Eastwood.

Eastwood's career reached a turning point in 1971. Before Irving Leonard died he and Eastwood had discussed the idea of Malpaso producing ''Play Misty for Me'', a film that was to give Eastwood the artistic control he desired and his debut as a director. The script was about a jazz disc jockey named Dave (Eastwood) who has a casual affair with Evelyn (Jessica Walter), a listener who had been calling the radio station repeatedly at night asking him to play her favorite song—Erroll Garner's "Misty". When Dave ends their relationship the fan becomes violent and murderous. Filming commenced in Monterey in September 1970 and included footage of that year's Monterey Jazz Festival. The film was highly acclaimed with critics such as Jay Cocks in ''Time'', Andrew Sarris in the ''Village Voice'', and Archer Winsten in the ''New York Post'' all praising the film, as well as Eastwood's directorial skills and performance. Walter was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Actress Award (Drama) for her performance in the film.

The script for ''Dirty Harry'' (1971) was written by Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink. It is a story about a hard-edged New York City (later changed to San Francisco) police inspector named Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means. ''Dirty Harry'' is arguably Eastwood's most memorable character and has been credited with inventing the "loose-cannon cop genre", which is still imitated to this day. Author Eric Lichtenfeld argues that Eastwood's role as Dirty Harry established the "first true archetype" of the action film genre. His lines (quoted at left) have been cited as among the most memorable in cinematic history and are regarded by firearms historians, such as Garry James and Richard Venola, as the force which catapulted the ownership of .44 Magnum pistols to unprecedented heights in the United States; specifically the Smith & Wesson Model 29 carried by Harry Callahan. ''Dirty Harry'' proved a phenomenal success after its release in December 1971, earning some $22 million (US$}} in dollars) in the United States and Canada alone. It was Siegel's highest-grossing film and the start of a series of films featuring the character of Harry Callahan. Although a number of critics praised his performance as Dirty Harry, such as Jay Cocks of ''Time'' magazine who described him as "giving his best performance so far, tense, tough, full of implicit identification with his character", the film was widely criticized and accused of fascism.

Following Sean Connery's announcement that he would not play James Bond again Eastwood was offered the role but turned it down because he believed the character should be played by an English actor. He next starred in the loner Western ''Joe Kidd'' (1972), based on a character inspired by Reies Lopez Tijerina who stormed a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, in June 1967. Filming began in Old Tucson in November 1971 under director John Sturges, but Eastwood suffered symptoms of a bronchial infection and several panic attacks during filming. ''Joe Kidd'' received a mixed reception, with Roger Greenspun of ''The New York Times'' writing that the film was unremarkable, with foolish symbolism and sloppy editing, although he praised Eastwood's performance.

In 1973 Eastwood directed his first western, ''High Plains Drifter'', in which he starred alongside Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill, Billy Curtis, ''Rawhide'''s Paul Brinegar and Geoffrey Lewis. The film had a moral and supernatural theme, later emulated in ''Pale Rider''. The plot follows a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) who arrives in a brooding Western town where the people hire him to defend the town against three felons who are soon to be released. There remains confusion during the film as to whether the stranger is the brother of the deputy, whom the felons lynched and murdered, or his ghost. Holes in the plot were filled with black humor and allegory, influenced by Leone. The revisionist film received a mixed reception from critics, but was a major box office success. A number of critics thought Eastwood's directing was "as derivative as it was expressive", with Arthur Knight of the ''Saturday Review'' remarking that Eastwood had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of society". John Wayne, who had declined a role in the film, sent a letter of disapproval to Eastwood some weeks after the film's release saying that "the townspeople did not represent the true spirit of the American pioneer, the spirit that made America great". Eastwood next turned his attention towards ''Breezy'' (1973), a film about love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. During casting for the film Eastwood met Sondra Locke for the first time, an actress who would play major roles in many of his films for the next ten years and would become an important figure in his life. Kay Lenz was awarded the part of Breezy because Locke, at 28, was considered too old. The film, shot very quickly and efficiently by Eastwood and Frank Stanley, came in $1 million (US$}} in dollars) under budget and was finished three days ahead of schedule. ''Breezy'' was not a major critical or commercial success; it barely reached the Top 50 before disappearing and was only made available on video in 1998.

Once filming of ''Breezy'' had finished, Warner Brothers announced that Eastwood had agreed to reprise his role as Detective Harry Callahan in ''Magnum Force'' (1973), a sequel to ''Dirty Harry'', about a group of rogue young officers (among them David Soul, Robert Urich and Tim Matheson) in the San Francisco Police Force who systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals. Although the film was a major success after release, grossing $58.1 million (US$}} in dollars) in the United States alone and a new record for Eastwood, it was not a critical success. ''The New York Times'' critic Nora Sayre panned the often contradictory moral themes of the film, while the paper's Frank Rich called it "the same old stuff".

In 1974 Eastwood teamed up with Jeff Bridges and George Kennedy in the buddy action caper ''Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'', a road movie about a veteran bank robber Thunderbolt (Eastwood) and a young con man drifter, Lightfoot (Bridges). On its release, in spring 1974, the film was praised for its offbeat comedy mixed with high suspense and tragedy but was only a modest success at the box office, earning $32.4 million (US$}} in dollars). Eastwood's acting was noted by critics but was overshadowed by Bridges who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Eastwood reportedly fumed at the lack of Academy Award recognition for him and swore that he would never work for United Artists again.

Eastwood's next film ''The Eiger Sanction'' (1975) was based on Trevanian's critically acclaimed spy novel of the same name. Eastwood plays Jonathan Hemlock in a role originally intended for Paul Newman, an assassin turned college art professor who decides to return to his former profession for one last sanction in return for a rare Pissarro painting. In the process he must climb the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland under perilous conditions. Once again Eastwood starred alongside George Kennedy. Mike Hoover taught Eastwood how to climb during several weeks of preparation at Yosemite in the summer of 1974 before filming commenced in Grindelwald on August 12, 1974. Despite prior warnings about the perils of the Eiger the film crew suffered a number of accidents, including one fatality. In spite of the danger Eastwood insisted on doing all his own climbing and stunts. Upon its release in May 1975 ''The Eiger Sanction'' was a commercial failure, receiving only $23.8 million (US$}} in dollars) at the box office, and was panned by most critics. Joy Gould Boyum of the ''Wall Street Journal'' dismissed the film as "brutal fantasy". Eastwood blamed Universal Studios for the film's poor promotion and turned his back on them to make an agreement with Warner Brothers, through Frank Wells, that has lasted to the present day.

''The Outlaw Josey Wales'' (1976), a western inspired by Asa Carter's eponymous 1972 novel, has lead character Josey Wales (Eastwood) as a pro-Confederate guerilla who refuses to surrender his arms after the American Civil War and is chased across the old southwest by a group of enforcers. Eastwood cast his young son Kyle Eastwood, Chief Dan George, and Sondra Locke for the first time, against the wishes of director Philip Kaufman. Kaufman was notoriously fired by producer Bob Daley under Eastwood's command, resulting in a fine reported to be around $60,000 (US$}} in dollars) from the Directors Guild of America—who subsequently passed new legislation reserving the right to impose a major fine on a producer for discharging a director and taking his place. The film was pre-screened at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities in Idaho during a six-day conference entitled ''Western Movies: Myths and Images''. Invited to the screening were: some 200 esteemed film critics, including Jay Cocks and Arthur Knight; directors such as King Vidor, William Wyler, and Howard Hawks; along with a number of academics. Upon release in August 1976 ''The Outlaw Josey Wales'' was widely acclaimed, with many critics and viewers seeing Eastwood's role as an iconic one that related to America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War. Roger Ebert compared the nature and vulnerability of Eastwood's portrayal of Josey Wales with his Man with No Name character in the ''Dollars'' westerns and praised the film's atmosphere. The film would later appear in ''Time''s "Top 10 Films of the Year".

Eastwood was then offered the role of Benjamin L. Willard in Francis Coppola's ''Apocalypse Now'', but declined as he did not want to spend weeks on location in the Philippines. He also refused the part of a platoon leader in Ted Post's Vietnam War film ''Go Tell the Spartans'' and instead decided to make a third ''Dirty Harry'' film ''The Enforcer''. The film had Harry partnered with a new female officer (Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay area group resembling the Symbionese Liberation Army. The film, culminating in a shootout on Alcatraz island, was considerably shorter than the previous ''Dirty Harry'' films at 95 minutes, but was a major commercial success grossing $100 million (US$}} in dollars) worldwide to become Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date.

In 1977 he directed and starred in ''The Gauntlet'' opposite Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and Mara Corday. He portrays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute that he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix, to testify against the mob. Although a moderate hit with the viewing public critics had mixed feelings about the film, with many believing it was overly violent. Eastwood's longtime nemesis Pauline Kael called it "a tale varnished with foul language and garnished with violence". Roger Ebert, on the other hand, gave it three stars and called it "...classic Clint Eastwood: fast, furious, and funny." In 1978 Eastwood starred in ''Every Which Way but Loose'' alongside Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, Ruth Gordon and John Quade. In an uncharacteristic offbeat comedy role, Eastwood played Philo Beddoe, a trucker and brawler who roams the American West searching for a lost love accompanied by his brother and an orangutan called Clyde. The film proved a surprising success upon its release and became Eastwood's most commercially successful film at the time. Panned by the critics it ranked high amongst the box office successes of his career and was the second-highest grossing film of 1978.

Eastwood starred in the atmospheric thriller ''Escape from Alcatraz'' in 1979, the last of his films to be directed by Don Siegel. It was based on the true story of Frank Lee Morris who, along with John and Clarence Anglin, escaped from the notorious Alcatraz prison in 1962. The film was a major success and marked the beginning of a period of praise for Eastwood from the critics; Stanley Kauffmann of ''The New Republic'' lauding it as "crystalline cinema" and Frank Rich of ''Time'' describing it as "cool, cinematic grace".

1980s

Eastwood directed the 1980 comedy ''Bronco Billy'' as well as playing the lead role in alongside Locke, Scatman Crothers, and Sam Bottoms. His children, Kyle and Alison, also had small roles as orphans. Eastwood has cited ''Bronco Billy'' as being one of the most affable shoots of his career and biographer Richard Schickel has argued that the character of Bronco Billy is Eastwood's most self-referential work. The film was a commercial failure but was appreciated by critics. Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' believed the film was "the best and funniest Clint Eastwood movie in quite a while", praising Eastwood's directing and the way he intricately juxtaposes the old West and the new. Later in 1980 Eastwood starred in ''Any Which Way You Can'', the sequel to ''Every Which Way but Loose''. The film received a number of bad reviews from critics, although Maslin described it as "funnier and even better than its predecessor". The film became another box office success and was among the top five highest-grossing films of the year.

In 1982 Eastwood directed and starred alongside his son Kyle in ''Honkytonk Man'', based on the eponymous Clancy Carlile's depression-era novel. Eastwood portrays a struggling western singer Red Stovall who suffers from tuberculosis, but has finally been given an opportunity to make it big at the Grand Ole Opry. He is accompanied by his young nephew (Kyle) to Nashville, Tennessee where he is supposed to record a song. Only ''Time'' gave the film a good review in the United States, with most reviewers criticizing its blend of muted humor and tragedy. Nevertheless the film received critical acclaim in France, where it was compared to John Ford's ''The Grapes of Wrath'', and it has since acquired the very high rating of 93% on ''Rotten Tomatoes''. In that same year Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed ''Firefox'' alongside Freddie Jones, David Huffman, Warren Clarke and Ronald Lacey. Based on a 1977 novel with the same name written by Craig Thomas, the film was shot before ''Honkeytonk Man'' but was released after it. Russian filming locations were not possible due to the Cold War, and the film had to be shot in Vienna and other locations in Austria to simulate many of the Eurasian story locations. With a production cost of $20 million (US$}} in dollars) it was Eastwood's highest budget film to date. ''People'' magazine likened Eastwood's performance to "Luke Skywalker trapped in Dirty Harry's Soul".

''Sudden Impact'', the fourth ''Dirty Harry'' film, was shot in the spring and summer of 1983 and is widely considered to be the darkest and most violent of the series. By this time Eastwood received 60% of all profits from films he starred in and directed, with the rest going to the studio. ''Sudden Impact'' was the last film which he starred in with Locke. She plays a woman raped, along with her sister, by a ruthless gang at a fairground and seeks revenge for her sister's now vegetative state by systematically murdering her rapists. The line "Go ahead, make my day", uttered by Eastwood during an early scene in a coffee shop, is often cited as one of cinema's immortal ones; famously quoted by President Ronald Reagan in a speech to Congress and used during the 1984 presidential elections. The film was the highest-earning of all the ''Dirty Harry'' films earning $70 million (US$}} in dollars). It received rave reviews with many critics praising the feminist aspects of the film, through its explorations of the physical and psychological consequences of rape.

''Tightrope'' (1984) had Eastwood starring opposite his daughter Alison, Geneviève Bujold, and Jamie Rose in a provocative thriller, inspired by newspaper articles about an elusive Bay Area rapist. Set in New Orleans, to avoid confusion with the ''Dirty Harry'' films, Eastwood played a single-parent cop drawn into his target's tortured psychology and fascination for sadomasochism. He next starred in the period comedy ''City Heat'' (1984) alongside Burt Reynolds, a film about a private eye and his partner who get mixed up with gangsters in the prohibition era of the 1930s. It grossed around $50 million (US$}} in dollars) domestically, but was overshadowed by Eddie Murphy's ''Beverly Hills Cop'' and failed to meet expectations.

Eastwood made his only foray into TV direction with the 1985 ''Amazing Stories'' episode "Vanessa In The Garden", which starred Harvey Keitel and Sondra Locke. This was his first collaboration with Steven Spielberg, who later co-produced ''Flags of Our Fathers'' and ''Letters from Iwo Jima''. Eastwood revisited the western genre when he directed and starred in ''Pale Rider'' (1985) opposite Michael Moriarty and Carrie Snodgress. The film is based on the classic 1953 western ''Shane'' and follows a preacher descending from the mists of the Sierras to side with the miners during the California Gold Rush of 1850. The title is a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of the pale horse is Death, and shows similarities to Eastwood's 1973 western ''High Plains Drifter'' in its themes of morality and justice as well as its exploration of the supernatural. ''Pale Rider'' became one of Eastwood's most successful films to date. It was hailed as one of the best films of 1985 and the best western in years with Gene Siskel of the ''Chicago Tribune'' remarking, "This year (1985) will go down in film history as the moment Clint Eastwood finally earned respect as an artist".

In 1986 Eastwood co-starred with Marsha Mason in the military drama ''Heartbreak Ridge'', about the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. He portrays an aging United States Marine Gunnery Sergeant and Korean War veteran. The production and filming of ''Heartbreak Ridge'' were marred by internal disagreements, between Eastwood and long-time friend and producer Fritz Manes as well as between Eastwood and the United States Department of Defense who expressed contempt for the film. At the time the film was a commercial rather than a critical success, only becoming viewed more favorably in recent times. The film was released in 1,470 theaters and grossed $70 million (US$}}) domestically.

Eastwood starred in ''The Dead Pool'' (1988), the fifth and final Dirty Harry film in the series. It co-starred Liam Neeson, Patricia Clarkson, and a young Jim Carrey who plays Johnny Squares, a drug-addled rock star and the first of the victims on a list of celebrities drawn up by horror film director Peter Swan (Neeson) who are deemed most likely to die, the so-called "Dead Pool". The list is stolen by an obsessed fan, who in mimicking his favorite director, systematically makes his way through the list killing off celebrities, of which Dirty Harry is also included. ''The Dead Pool'' grossed nearly $38 million (US$}}), relatively low receipts for a ''Dirty Harry'' film and it is generally viewed as the weakest film of the series, although Roger Ebert perceived it to be as good as the original.

Eastwood began working on smaller, more personal projects, and experienced a lull in his career between 1988 and 1992. Always interested in jazz he directed ''Bird'' (1988), a biopic starring Forest Whitaker as jazz musician Charlie "Bird" Parker. Alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and Spike Lee, son of jazz bassist Bill Lee and a long term critic of Eastwood, criticized the characterization of Charlie Parker remarking that it did not capture his true essence and sense of humor. Eastwood received two Golden Globes for the film, the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his lifelong contribution, and the Best Director award. However, ''Bird'' was a commercial disaster earning just $11 million, which Eastwood attributed to the declining interest in jazz among black people.

Carrey would again appear with Eastwood in the poorly received comedy ''Pink Cadillac'' (1989) alongside Bernadette Peters. The film is about a bounty hunter and a group of white supremacists chasing an innocent woman who tries to outrun everyone in her husband's prized pink Cadillac. The film was a disaster, both critically and commercially, earning barely more than ''Bird'' and marking the lowest point in Eastwood's career in years.

1990s

Eastwood directed and starred in ''White Hunter Black Heart'' (1990), an adaptation of Peter Viertel's ''roman à clef'', about John Huston and the making of the classic film ''The African Queen''. Shot on location in Zimbabwe in the summer of 1989, the film received some critical attention but with only a limited release earned just $8.4 million (US$}} in dollars). Later the same year Eastwood directed and co-starred with Charlie Sheen in ''The Rookie'', a buddy cop action film. Critics found the macho jiving between Eastwood and Sheen unconvincing and passed the film off as "blatant racial Hispanic stereotyping". An ongoing lawsuit filed by Stacy McLaughlin resulted in no Eastwood films showing in cinemas in 1991—the third time in his career. The suit was in response to Eastwood allegedly ramming McLaughlin's car while backing out of his parking space at Malpaso. Eastwood won the suit and agreed to pay McLaughlin's court fees if she did not appeal.

}} In 1992 Eastwood revisited the western genre in the self-directed film ''Unforgiven'', where he played an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime opposite Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, and his then girlfriend Frances Fisher. Scripts existed for the film as early as 1976 under titles such as ''The Cut-Whore Killings'' and ''The William Munny Killings'' but Eastwood delayed the project, partly because he wanted to wait until he was old enough to play his character and to savor it as the last of his western films. By re-envisioning established genre conventions in a more ambiguous and unromantic light the picture laid the groundwork for later westerns such as ''Deadwood''. ''Unforgiven'' was a major commercial and critical success, with nominations for nine Academy Awards including Best Actor for Eastwood and Best Original Screenplay for David Webb Peoples. It won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. Jack Methews of the ''Los Angeles Times'' described it as "the finest classical western to come along since perhaps John Ford's 1956 ''The Searchers''. In June 2008 ''Unforgiven'' was acknowledged as the fourth best American film in the western genre, behind ''Shane'', ''High Noon'', and ''The Searchers'', in the American Film Institute's "AFI's 10 Top 10" list.

Eastwood played Frank Horrigan in the Secret Service thriller ''In the Line of Fire'' (1993) directed by Wolfgang Petersen and co-starring John Malkovich and Rene Russo. Horrigan is a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent, haunted by his failure to react in time to save John F. Kennedy's life. As of 2011 it is the last time he acted in a film that he did not direct himself. The film was among the top 10 box office performers in that year, earning a reported $200 million (US$}} in dollars) in the United States alone. Later in 1993 Eastwood directed and co-starred with Kevin Costner in ''A Perfect World''. Set in the 1960s,Eastwood plays a Texas Ranger in pursuit of an escaped convict (Costner) who hits the road with a young boy (T.J. Lowther). Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' remarked that the film was the highest point of Eastwood's directing career and it has since been cited as one of his most underrated directorial achievements.

At the May 1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal then on March 27, 1995, he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awards. His next appearance was in a cameo role as himself in the 1995 children's film ''Casper'' and continued to expand his repertoire by playing opposite Meryl Streep in the romantic picture ''The Bridges of Madison County'' in the same year. Based on a best-selling novel by Robert James Waller and set in Iowa, ''The Bridges of Madison County'' relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for ''National Geographic'', who has a love affair with middle-aged Italian farm wife Francesca (Streep). The film was a hit at the box office and highly acclaimed by critics, despite unfavorable views of the novel and a subject deemed potentially disastrous for film. Roger Ebert remarked that "Streep and Eastwood weave a spell, and it is based on that particular knowledge of love and self that comes with middle age." ''The Bridges of Madison County'' was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture and won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film. Streep was also nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

As well as directing the 1997 political thriller ''Absolute Power'', Eastwood once again appeared alongside co-star Gene Hackman. Eastwood played the role of a veteran thief who witnesses the Secret Service cover up of a murder. The film received a mixed reception from critics and was generally viewed as one of his weaker efforts. Maitland McDonagh of ''TV Guide'' remarked, "The plot turns are no more ludicrous than those of the average political thriller, but the slow pace makes their preposterousness all the more obvious. Eastwood's acting limitations are also sorely evident, since Luther is the kind of thoughtful thief who has to talk, rather than maintaining the enigmatic fortitude that is Eastwood's forte. Disappointing." Later in 1997 Eastwood directed ''Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil'', based on the novel by John Berendt and starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law, a film which received a mixed response from critics.

Eastwood directed and starred in ''True Crime'' (1999), which also featured his young daughter Francesca Fisher-Eastwood. He plays Steve Everett, a journalist recovering from alcoholism given the task of covering the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (Isaiah Washington). The film received a mixed reception with Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' writing, "''True Crime'' is directed by Mr. Eastwood with righteous indignation and increasingly strong momentum. As in ''A Perfect World,'' his direction is galvanized by a sense of second chances and tragic misunderstandings, and by contrasting a larger sense of justice with the peculiar minutiae of crime. Perhaps he goes a shade too far in the latter direction, though." If some reviews for ''True Crime'' were positive, commercially it was a box office bomb—earning less than half its $55 million (US$}} in dollars) budget—and easily became Eastwood's worst performing film of the 1990s aside from ''White Hunter Black Heart'', which only had limited release.

2000s

In 2000 Eastwood directed and starred in ''Space Cowboys'' alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as one of a group of veteran "ex-test pilots" who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite. The original music score was composed by Eastwood and Lennie Niehaus. ''Space Cowboys'' was well-received and holds a 79% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The film received a moderately favorable review from Roger Ebert, "it's too secure within its traditional story structure to make much seem at risk — but with the structure come the traditional pleasures as well." The film grossed over $90 million in its United States release, more than Eastwood's two previous films combined. The following year he played an ex-FBI agent on the track of a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller ''Blood Work'', loosely based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Michael Connelly. The film was a failure, grossing just $26.2 million (US$}} in dollars) on an estimated budget of $50 million (US$}} in dollars), and received mixed reviews with a consensus at Rotten Tomatoes calling it "well-made but marred by lethargic pacing". Eastwood did, however, win the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the Venice Film Festival.

Eastwood directed and scored the crime drama ''Mystic River'' (2003), a film about murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse, set in Boston. Starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins, ''Mystic River'' was lauded by critics and viewers alike. The film won two Academy Awards, Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins, with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. Eastwood was named Best Director of the Year by the London Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. The film grossed $90 million (US$}} in dollars) domestically on a budget of $30 million (US$}} in dollars).

The following year Eastwood found further critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored, and starred in the boxing drama ''Million Dollar Baby'', playing a cantankerous trainer who forms a bond with female boxer (Hilary Swank) who he is persuaded to train by his lifelong friend (Morgan Freeman). The film won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Freeman). At age 74 Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners. He also received a nomination for Best Actor and a Grammy nomination for his score. A. O. Scott of ''The New York Times'' lauded the film as a "masterpiece" and the best film of the year.

In 2006 Eastwood directed two films about World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima. The first, ''Flags of Our Fathers'', focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and was followed by ''Letters from Iwo Jima'', which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members. ''Letters from Iwo Jima'' was the first American film to depict a war issue completely from the view of an American enemy. Both films received praise from critics and garnered several nominations at the 79th Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay for ''Letters from Iwo Jima''. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards Eastwood received nominations for Best Director in both films. ''Letters from Iwo Jima'' won the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Eastwood next directed ''Changeling'' (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s. Angelina Jolie stars as a woman who is reunited with her missing son only to realize that he is an impostor. After its release at several film festivals the film grossed over $110 million (US$}} in dollars), the majority of which came from foreign markets. The film was highly acclaimed, with Damon Wise of ''Empire'' describing ''Changeling'' as "flawless". Todd McCarthy of ''Variety'' described it as "emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed" and stated that ''Changeling'' was a more complex and wide-ranging work than Eastwood's ''Mystic River'', saying the characters and social commentary were brought into the story with an "almost breathtaking deliberation". Film critic Prairie Miller said that, in its portrayal of female courage, the film was "about as feminist as Hollywood can get" whilst David Denby argued that, like Eastwood's ''Million Dollar Baby'', the film was "less an expression of feminist awareness than a case of awed respect for a woman who was strong and enduring." Eastwood received nominations for Best Original Score at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, Best Direction at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards and director of the year from the London Film Critics' Circle.

After four years away from acting Eastwood ended his "self-imposed acting hiatus" with ''Gran Torino'', which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle and Jamie Cullum. Biographer Marc Eliot called Eastwood's role "an amalgam of the Man with No Name, Dirty Harry, and William Munny, here aged and cynical but willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose." Eastwood has said that the role will most likely be the last time he acts in a film. It grossed close to $30 million (US$}} in dollars) during its wide release opening weekend in January 2009, the highest of his career as an actor or director. ''Gran Torino'' eventually grossed over $268 million (US$}} in dollars) in theaters worldwide becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far, without adjustment for inflation.

His 29th directorial outing came with ''Invictus'', a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as rugby team captain François Pienaar. Freeman had bought the film rights to John Carlin's book on which the film is based. The film met with generally positive reviews; Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars and described it as a "very good film... with moments evoking great emotion", while ''Variety''s Todd McCarthy wrote, "Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion." Eastwood was nominated for Best Director at the 67th Golden Globe Awards.

2010s

}} In 2010, Eastwood directed the drama ''Hereafter'', again working with Damon, who portrayed a psychic. The film had its world premiere on September 12, 2010 at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival and was given a limited release on October 15, 2010. ''Hereafter'' received mixed reviews from critics, with the consensus at Rotten Tomatoes being, "Despite a thought-provoking premise and Clint Eastwood's typical flair as director, ''Hereafter'' fails to generate much compelling drama, straddling the line between poignant sentimentality and hokey tedium." In the same year, Eastwood served as executive producer for a Turner Classic Movies (TCM) documentary about jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, ''Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way'', to commemorate Brubeck's 90th birthday.

Eastwood's current project is a 2011 biopic of J. Edgar Hoover, entitled ''J. Edgar'', focusing on the former FBI director's scandalous career and controversial private life. It will star Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover, Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson, and Damon Herriman as Bruno Hauptmann. In January 2011, it was announced that Eastwood is in talks to direct Beyoncé Knowles in a fourth remake of the 1937 film ''A Star Is Born'', with a 2012 release likely.

Directing style

Beginning with the thriller ''Play Misty for Me'', Eastwood has directed over 30 films in his career; including westerns, action films, and dramas. From the very early days of his career, Eastwood had been frustrated by directors insisting that scenes be re-shot multiple times and perfected and when he began as a director in 1971 he made a conscious attempt to avoid any aspects of directing he had been indifferent to as an actor. As a result, Eastwood is renowned for his efficient film directing and to reduce filming time and to keep budgets under control. Eastwood usually avoids actors rehearsing and prefers most scenes to be completed on the first take. In preparation for filming Eastwood rarely uses storyboards for developing the layout of a shooting schedule. He also attempts to reduce script background details on characters to allow the audience to become more involved in the film, considering their imagination a requirement for a film that connects with viewers. Eastwood has indicated that he lays out a film's plot to provide the audience with necessary details, but not "so much that it insults their intelligence."According to ''Life'' magazine, "Eastwood's style is to shoot first and act afterward. He etches his characters virtually without words. He has developed the art of underplaying to the point that anyone around him who so much as flinches looks hammily histrionic."

Interviewers Richard Thompson and Tim Hunter note that Eastwood's films are "superbly paced: unhurried; cool; and [give] a strong sense of real time, regardless of the speed of the narrative" while Ric Gentry considers Eastwood's pacing to be "unrushed and relaxed". Many of Eastwood's films rely on low lighting to give his films a "noir-ish" feel. Reviewers have pointed out that the majority of his films are based on the male point-of-view, although female characters typically have strong roles as both heroes and villains.

Politics

Eastwood registered as a Republican to vote for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and later supported Richard Nixon's 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns. However, he later criticized Nixon's handling of the Vietnam War and his morality during Watergate. He expressed his disapproval of America's wars in Korea (1950–1953), Vietnam (1964–1973), and Iraq (2003–2010), believing that the United States should not be overly militaristic or play the role of global policeman. He considers himself too individualistic to be either right-wing or left-wing, describing himself as a "political nothing" and a "moderate" in 1974 and a libertarian in 1997. Eastwood has stated that while he does not see himself as conservative, he is not an "ultra-leftist" either. At times he has supported Democrats in California, including Representative Sam Farr in 2002 and Governor Gray Davis in 2003. A longtime liberal on social issues Eastwood has stated that he is pro-choice on abortion. He has endorsed the notion of allowing gays to marry and contributed to groups supporting the Equal Rights Amendment for women.

As a politician Eastwood has made successful forays into both local and state government. In April 1986 he was elected mayor for one term in his home town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California – a small, wealthy town and artist community on the Monterey Peninsula. During his term he tended towards supporting small business interests and advocating environmental protection. In 2001 Eastwood was appointed to the California State Park and Recreation Commission by Governor Davis, then reappointed in 2004 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the vice chairman of the commission, in 2005 along with chairman Bobby Shriver, he led the movement opposed to a six-lane extension of California State Route 241, a toll road that would cut through San Onofre State Beach. Eastwood and Shriver supported a 2006 lawsuit to block the toll road and urged the California Coastal Commission to reject the project, which it duly did in February 2008. In March 2008 Eastwood and Shriver's non-reappointment to the commission on the expiry of their terms prompted the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) to request a legislative investigation into the decision. Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Eastwood to the California Film Commission in April 2004. He has also acted as a spokesman for Take Pride in America, an agency of the United States Department of the Interior which advocates taking responsibility for natural, cultural, and historic resources.

During the 2008 United States Presidential Election Eastwood endorsed John McCain, whom he has known since 1973, but nevertheless wished Barack Obama well upon his subsequent victory. In August 2010 Eastwood wrote to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to protest the decision to close the UK Film Council, warning that the closure could result in fewer foreign production companies choosing to work in the UK.

Personal life

Relationships

Eastwood has fathered at least seven children by five different women and has been described as a "serial womanizer". According to biographers Eastwood has always had a strong sexual appetite and particularly so during the 1970s. He has had affairs with many women including actresses Catherine Deneuve, Peggy Lipton, Jean Seberg, Kay Lenz, Jamie Rose, Inger Stevens, Jo Ann Harris, Jill Banner, casting director Jane Brolin, script analyst Megan Rose, and swimming champion Anita Lhoest.

On December 19, 1953, Eastwood married model Maggie Johnson, six months after they had met on a blind date. The couple had two children: Kyle Eastwood (born May 19, 1968) and Alison Eastwood (born May 22, 1972). Eastwood filed for divorce in 1979 after a long separation, but the $25 million (US$}} in dollars) divorce settlement was not finalized until May 1984.

During an earlier separation from Johnson he fathered a daughter, Kimber (born June 17, 1964), with dancer Roxanne Tunis. Eastwood did not publicly acknowledge her until 1996. Kimber is the mother of Eastwood's oldest grandchild, Clinton, born on February 21, 1984.

He began a fourteen-year relationship with actress Sondra Locke in 1975. They co-starred in six films together: ''The Outlaw Josey Wales'', ''The Gauntlet'', ''Every Which Way but Loose'', ''Bronco Billy'', ''Any Which Way You Can'', and ''Sudden Impact''. During the relationship Locke had two abortions and a subsequent tubal ligation at his request. The couple separated acrimoniously in 1989; Locke filed a palimony suit against Eastwood after being evicted from the home which they shared. She sued him a second time, for fraud, regarding an alleged phony directing deal he gave her in settlement of the first lawsuit. Locke and Eastwood went on to resolve the dispute with a non-public settlement in 1999. Her memoir ''The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly'' includes an account of their years together.

During his cohabitation with Locke, Eastwood had an affair with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves. According to biographers they met at the premiere of ''Pale Rider'' where they conceived a son, Scott Reeves (born March 21, 1986). They also had a daughter, Kathryn Reeves (born February 2, 1988), although neither of them were publicly acknowledged until years later. Kathryn served as Miss Golden Globe at the 2005 ceremony where she presented Eastwood with an award for ''Million Dollar Baby''.

In 1990 Eastwood began living with actress Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of ''Pink Cadillac'' (1989). They co-starred in ''Unforgiven'' and had a daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (born August 7, 1993). The couple ended their relationship in early 1995, but remain friends and later appeared together in ''True Crime''. Eastwood met anchorwoman Dina Ruiz when she interviewed him in 1993 and they married on March 31, 1996, when Eastwood surprised her with a private ceremony at his home on the Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas. She is 35 years his junior and the couple's daughter, Morgan Eastwood, was born on December 12, 1996.

Leisure

Despite appearing to smoke in many of his films, Eastwood is a life-long non-smoker, has been conscious of his health and fitness since he was a teenager, and practices healthy eating and daily Transcendental Meditation. On July 21, 1970, Eastwood's father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 64. This profoundly altered Eastwood's lifestyle, encouraging him to adopt a vigorous health and exercise regime to ensure his longevity. He abstained from hard liquor, although he still favored cold beer, and opened an old English-inspired pub called the Hog's Breath Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1971. Eastwood eventually sold the pub and now owns the Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant, also located in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Eastwood is a keen golfer and owns the Tehàma Golf Club. He is also an investor in the world-renowned Pebble Beach Golf Links and donates his time every year to charitable causes at major tournaments. Eastwood was formerly a licensed pilot and often flew his helicopter to the studios to avoid traffic.

Music

Eastwood is an audiophile and has had a strong passion for music all his life. He particularly favors jazz and country and western music and is a pianist and composer. Jazz has played an important role in Eastwood's life from a young age and, although he never made it as a professional musician, he passed on the influence to his son Kyle Eastwood, a successful jazz bassist and composer. Eastwood developed as a ragtime pianist early on and had originally intended to pursue a career in music by studying for a music theory degree after graduating from high school. In late 1959 he produced the album ''Cowboy Favorites'', released on the Cameo label.

Eastwood has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Brothers, which has released all of the scores of Eastwood's films from ''The Bridges of Madison County'' onward. Eastwood co-wrote "Why Should I Care" with Linda Thompson and Carole Bayer Sager, which was recorded by Diana Krall. Eastwood composed the film scores of ''Mystic River'', ''Grace Is Gone'' (2007), and ''Changeling'', and the original piano compositions for ''In the Line of Fire''. He also wrote and performed the song heard over the credits of ''Gran Torino''. The music in ''Grace Is Gone'' received two Golden Globe nominations by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for the 65th Golden Globe Awards. Eastwood was nominated for Best Original Score, while the song "Grace is Gone" with music by Eastwood and lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager was nominated for Best Original Song. It won the Satellite Award for Best Song at the 12th Satellite Awards. ''Changeling'' was nominated for Best Score at the 14th Critics' Choice Awards, Best Original Score at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, and Best Music at the 35th Saturn Awards. On September 22, 2007, Eastwood was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music at the Monterey Jazz Festival, on which he serves as an active board member. Upon receiving the award he gave a speech claiming, "It's one of the great honors I'll cherish in this lifetime."

Awards and honors

colspan="2" Best Director Best Director Best Director

+ Academy Awards
Year !! Award !! Film !! W/N
	Academy Award for Best Director>Best Director	Unforgiven'' >
Academy Award for Best Picture	Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Actor	Best Actor	''Unforgiven''
1994	Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award || style="text-align: center"|Won
rowspan="2"	2003	|	Mystic River (film)>Mystic River''	Nominated
Best Picture	''Mystic River''
rowspan="3"	2004	|	''Million Dollar Baby''	Won
Best Picture
Best Actor	''Million Dollar Baby''
rowspan="2"	2006	|	''Letters from Iwo Jima''	Nominated
Best Picture	''Letters from Iwo Jima''

Eastwood has been recognized with multiple awards and nominations for his work in film, television, and music. His widest reception has been in film work, for which he has received Academy Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and People's Choice Awards, among others. Eastwood is one of only two people to have been twice nominated for Best Actor and Best Director for the same film (''Unforgiven'' and ''Million Dollar Baby'') the other being Warren Beatty (''Heaven Can Wait'' and ''Reds''). Along with Beatty, Robert Redford, Richard Attenborough, Kevin Costner, and Mel Gibson, he is one of the few directors best known as an actor to win an Academy Award for directing. On February 27, 2005, he became one of only three living directors (along with Miloš Forman and Francis Ford Coppola) to have directed two Best Picture winners. At age 74, he was also the oldest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Director. Eastwood has directed five actors in Academy Award–winning performances: Gene Hackman in ''Unforgiven'', Tim Robbins and Sean Penn in ''Mystic River'', and Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank in ''Million Dollar Baby''.

On August 22, 1984, Eastwood was honored at a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese theater to record his hand and footprints in cement. Eastwood received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1996 and received an honorary degree from AFI in 2009. On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Eastwood into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts. In early 2007, Eastwood was presented with the highest civilian distinction in France, Légion d'honneur, at a ceremony in Paris. French President Jacques Chirac told Eastwood that he embodied "the best of Hollywood". In October 2009, he was honored by the Lumière Award (in honor of the Lumière Brothers, inventors of the Cinematograph) during the first edition of the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France. This award honors his entire career and his major contribution to the 7th Art. In February 2010, Eastwood was recognized by President Barack Obama with an arts and humanities award. Obama described Eastwood's films as "essays in individuality, hard truths and the essence of what it means to be American."

Eastwood has also been awarded at least three honorary degrees from universities and colleges, including an honorary degree from University of the Pacific in 2006, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Southern California on May 27, 2007, and an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music at the Monterey Jazz Festival on September 22, 2007.

Filmography

Eastwood has contributed to over 50 films over his career as actor, director, producer, and composer. He has acted in several television series, most notably starring in ''Rawhide''. He started directing in 1971 and made his debut as a producer in 1982 with ''Firefox'' and ''Honkytonk Man''. Eastwood also has contributed music to his films, either through performing, writing, or composing. He has mainly starred in western, action, and drama films. According to the box office-revenue tracking website, Box Office Mojo, films featuring Eastwood have grossed a total of more than US$1.68 billion domestically, with an average of $37 million per film.

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Clint Eastwood at Rotten Tomatoes

Charlie Rose show: An hour with Clint Eastwood

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