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JOANNE MacDONNELL 1937-2004 |
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MacDonnell Party with Clint Eastwood (Really, I Didn't!) |
 We swear this is NOT a photo of Clint and Joanne from that party, although Jessica Walter could pass for Joanne in the right light. |
To Her, Clint Really was
'the man with no name'
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By JOANNE MacDONNELL
of TheColumnists.com
ALTHOUGH it has
been more than 30 years now, I still can't look at Clint Eastwood
objectively.
It all happened in the early `70s in Monterey when I accompanied
my late husband, who was covering the Laguna Seca road races
for the newspaper where he was a sportswriter and I was a society
writer.
We were staying at a hotel in Carmel and had our three children--his,
mine and ours--with us.
At the time, there was a crew staying at the same hotel that
was shooting the film "Play Misty for Me."
Since our children were young, my husband and I had to take turns
going to dinner so someone would be in the room to watch the
children.
On this evening, I was the first to go down to dinner.
The "Misty" film crew was in the dining room/lounge
talking shop talk and I found the conversations fascinating,
as would any newspaper person.
I recall that one of them mentioned that the director and star,
Clint Eastwood, was there and offered to introduce me to him,
but since at that time I had no idea who Clint Eastwood was,
I wasn't interested.
Unbeknownst to me, one of my husband's fellow sportswriters had
been in the lounge at the same time and decided it would be a
grand idea to play a little joke on my husband.
So, he went to our room and announced to my unsuspecting husband,
"Your wife is downstairs partying with Clint Eastwood."
In order to appreciate this, you must understand that 1) my husband
was well aware of who Clint Eastwood was, and 2) my husband did
not take kindly to his wife partying with anyone--much less Clint
Eastwood.
The next thing I remember was my husband suddenly appearing in
the lounge, not smiling, and saying something like "go to
your room."
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for Me," Clint looks pretty disconsolate. Perhaps he had just learned that Joanne had never heard of him. |
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I did, and, if I recall correctly, we had one of our most animated arguments ever.
"What do you mean," he demanded. "You don't know who Clint Eastwood is?"
When I got back to work the following Monday, I asked my co-workers if they knew who Clint Eastwood was.
They all knew.
So, when it came out, I saw "Play Misty for Me" and finally got to see who this Clint Eastwood was.
In later years, as my late husband got to know me better, I think he realized that if they had been shooting "Zorba the Greek," he would have had something to base his suspicions on--and I would have been in real trouble.
Even then, I definitely knew who Anthony Quinn was.
© 2001 by Joanne MacDonnell. The photos from "Play Misty for Me" are © Universal Pictures.
You can comment on this column or contact Joanne MacDonnell with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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