Born in 1930 during the Great Depression in San Francisco, Clint Eastwood, Hollywood’s longest-running movie star, faced numerous family relocations due to his father’s work in the steel industry. He was given the name Samson at birth and weighed an astounding 11 pounds, 6 ounces. He eventually grew to a height of 6 feet 4 inches.
After completing high school, he relocated to Seattle, where he worked as a lifeguard before enlisting in the American Army in 1950.
What many people are unaware of is that at the age of 21, Eastwood was a passenger on a naval plane from World War II that crashed in the Pacific.
In an interview, Eastwood described the incident: “I was catching a free ride from Seattle down to Almeda. It was stormy, and we went down off of Point Reyes, California, in the Pacific. I found myself in the water, swimming a few miles towards the shore. I remember thinking, ‘well, 21 is not as long as a person wants to live.'”
After hours of swimming through kelp beds in the Pacific, Eastwood finally reached the shore and scaled a bluff to send out a distress call. This experience proved to be quite valuable when he directed the biographical film “Sully: Miracle on the Hudson,” starring Tom Hanks, in 2016.
