CLINT EASTWOOD

Banal bio from Thompson (Madonna Revealed, 1991—not reviewed), stitched together from interviews the author has conducted with Eastwood over the years. (Typical sentence: ``But clichÇs and stereotypes aside, Eastwood enjoyed magic moments, the good, the bad and the ugly of movie-making.'') Thompson underlines the silent, self-effacing, loner-stud aspect of Eastwood's career. The star was a California kid whose father was a bonds salesman who pumped gas during the Depression. Eastwood himself had many outdoor jobs early on, including wielding a logger's axe, and even today, he enjoys ``cars, motorbikes, playing pool, hanging out in bars and jazz clubs, camping, skiing, golfing, riding and pumping iron.'' The actor was, of course, mayor for two years of his beloved Carmel, California, a town now dubbed ``Clintville,'' where the boutiques sell ``Make My Night'' panties. Eastwood married Maggie Johnson, a fellow college student, at age 23, in an apparently ``open marriage'' that lasted 31 years, with Eastwood often seriously chasing his costars. He began acting in B- pictures, had a seven-year lead in TV's Rawhide, and smashed to the top in three Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. On the set, when directing, he's a soft-spoken, friendly control-freak with ``a kind of third eye open all the time.'' His sets are very ``Zen.'' Less Zen was an out-of-court settlement of a palimony suit by Sondra Locke—his pal for 13 years, who never divorced her first husband- -for an undisclosed figure in the many millions, which saved Eastwood much ink about his hippety-hop love life. Interviews with various Eastwood cohorts keep the pages lively, but the more lasting taste is rather ashy—or trashy. (Thirty-four b&w photographs)