Interview with Clint Eastwood

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Interview with Clint Eastwood

Author:John Sammon

I did an interview with actor Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is a worldwide celebrity, who rarely grants interviews. He graciously consented to talk about his early career, golf, including the annual U.S. Open golf tournament, his Mission Ranch development, and the frustrations of water and politics in his hometown of Carmel.

Clint Eastwood, actor, producer and Carmel’s former mayor - has been involved in the game of golf for nearly five decades. Eastwood relates his feelings about golf and his attitude toward a few other subjects. Here are the questions and Eastwood’s responses.

Question. Mr. Eastwood. Let’s begin with some background. What was your childhood like?

Answer. I was born in San Francisco, but raised mostly in Oakland. My family moved a lot, and I lived in places like Redding and Spokane in Washington and Sacramento, and Pacific Palisades in California. During the World War II years, my dad worked for Bethlehem Steel in Oakland. I attended Glenview Grammar School. As a kid, I earned a little money selling Liberty and Colliers magazines. Both of these are out of print now. Every magazine I ever worked for went out of print. Then I took a job with the Oakland Tribune, a paper route.

After the war, my father went to work for California Container, a corrugated box company. Later on, Dad was transferred to Seattle, where he became a plant manager. I graduated from high school and joined my parents up there for a while. I was trying to get into Seattle University on a music program, but I applied too late. I was drafted into the U.S. Army at the time of the Korean War, 1951. I came to Fort Ord. That’s how I got used to the Carmel area. I got to spend time in Monterey, Carmel, Pebble Beach and Salinas.

I even used to come to Mission Ranch when I was a soldier earning $75 a month.

Question. Did you dream that one day you would own Mission Ranch?

Answer. No. Back then, I didn’t plan on owning too much of anything. After I got out of the service, I went to Los Angeles where I attended Los Angeles City College, studying business administration. I started taking acting classes in the evening. After I landed a steady job on Rawhide (a 1950s TV western), I came up to the Monterey Peninsula and bought a little house across from the Monterey Peninsula Country Club. A tiny house with all the furniture inside. I’d been coming up periodically at that time, and stayed wherever I could. I loved that house. It was the first home I ever owned. I paid $20,000, and later sold it for $25,000.

Question. When was the first time you played golf at Pebble Beach?

Answer. I used to play over in Pacific Grove where there was a nine hole course. When a friend returned from Korea, we celebrated by playing Pebble. It was overwhelming, a much more difficult course than Pacific Grove, much longer. But Pebble was such a beautiful layout. You knew you were playing on a first-class course. I was 21 years old and I wasn’t very good. My friend and I just went out and tried to hit the ball as hard as we could. The ball would go in a lot of different directions. But we had a good time.

Later, I traipsed over the courses during the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, so I knew what they looked like. I didn’t play too much after that. A lot of years, I’d play once a year, or not at all, because I was busy trying to get a career going. It never gave me much of a chance to be a player.

Question. You bought the Mission Ranch in 1986. One of the proposals at the time was to turn the site into condominiums?

Answer. Yes. The Ranch was approved to be torn down in order to put in sixty-six condos. There were a bunch of owners at the time, guys and their ex-wives, their girlfriends…you name it. In fact, fourteen people had to sign off when I bought this place. They had to meet a lot of conditions to put up these condos, so I offered them some dough. They agreed on a price, and I had to go and get these fourteen signatures, and sort them all out. Mission Ranch had once been a farm and a dairy. One of the buildings, the bunkhouse, dates back to 1852.

The floors had to be replaced. We just went through the place piece by piece, redoing everything. Like the barn for instance. They used to joke that the only thing holding it up were termites holding hands. The site has also been an auto court (motel), and during World War II, an officer’s club for all branches of the service. When I bought the property, the big barn had a low ceiling. I took the ceiling out and saw that all the windows were painted black. I asked Maggie Denault, who had been the owner, how come the windows were black? She said that during the war years, they used to have dances in there. They were worried about Japanese submarines off the coast so they painted the windows to block the light from showing.

Question. Did you get the site on the historical register?

Answer. No. I didn’t put it on the Historical Register. We wanted to keep the site historically accurate, however, so I went ahead restoring from what I knew about the place. Maggie was my source of information. She’d owned the property for many years. We took this false ceiling out and scraped the paint off the windows. The roofs have all been replaced. We went from a shake roof to fire-proof roofing materials. We moved some units out, five little cottages that were built in the 1950s. They looked like agricultural buildings, and they’re out in the (Carmel) Valley now. They’ve been painted and fixed up pretty nicely, I think. We used the space to build a four-plex that looks like it goes with the area. The tennis club had a 1950s type building sort of flat and low. I took that out and replaced it with a building that looks like it belongs here, an early American style farm.

There used to be a swimming pool there. We’ve got pictures of gals sitting around the pool during the 1930s, and they had a big polo field farther out. We’ve preserved those areas as wetlands. That way it can’t be built on. I’d like to see it stay like it is, forever.

Question. When did you start the Hog’s Breath Inn in Carmel?

Answer. That would be in 1972. Malcolm Moran owned the building, and one day he was showing it to me, and he said, “wouldn’t this make a great place for a saloon?” One thing led to another. Walter Becker and I started the business as sort of a lark.

Question. Didn’t you buy the building housing the Hog’s Breath Inn during the 1980s?

Answer. Yes. Malcolm was moving (to Port Townsend), so he sold me the building.

Question. You done some things with other properties that a lot of people aren’t familiar with. I believe you owned a piece of land with James Garner. Is it true you gave that land away?

Answer. James Garner and I had 360 acres up in Carmel Valley. We owned that for some time. He loved the area, and I think he thought about moving here. We had donated some money to save Jack’s Peak from development. Finally, we decided to give the property to the County Housing Authority for a senior housing program. Pacific Meadows they’ve named it. A beautiful property. Very pristine. I owned that and another piece called Canada Woods.

There's also more than 200 acres down the coast that’s been permanently preserved, Odello East too with all the artichoke fields. The Big Sur Land Trust holds a big portion, and the county has some. It’s agricultural use only.

Question. Outside of preserving a lot of property, the only thing you’re really developed is Tehama Golf Course (mid-Carmel Valley)? And Tehama is an 18-hole golf course, with 34 units?

Answer. It was contiguous to a piece of property in Canada Hills that I had in the Valley. The property was approved by the people who owned it, for 139 units, which I thought was rather dense. My business manager, who doesn’t play golf, asked, “what about a golf course?” I said, yeah, that sounds interesting. We checked out the feasibility, bought the property from my neighbors, extinguished plans for the 139 units, and put up the golf course.

Question. So Canada Woods now has a modest development density?

Answer. Yeah. Forever.

Question. Even though you had the right to build more than 200 units?

Answer. We reduced that number considerably. That property is interesting. Years ago, they talked about a county road through there. They thought the road would take heat off Highway 1 for people coming from Monterey, but then they got rid of that idea. When I was mayor of Carmel, we offered the county the property to build a holding reservoir for water. At that time, everybody was concerned about the water issue, as they are today. But water is such a tricky issue. The objections to improving water situations are usually based on trying to suppress development, and they sometimes get off track and don’t stay on the track of preserving water for everybody who needs it. Everybody worried about increasing the amount of water for more development in the area, so water became a political football.

I thought the reservoir was a good idea, and we offered to give the property to the county for that purpose. They studied and surveyed it a little bit and said, “yeah, you could put a dam across there, and pull water in.” But nobody bit. The pro-dam people didn’t want it because they thought it might discourage building a big dam, and the anti-dam people didn’t want it because they didn’t want to improve the water supply…period. The proposal got meshed in there with desalinization and all the other things that went down the tube.

Since then, the county has spent a horrendous amount of money, and we’re back where we started. I guess I’m naïve. I just thought it would be interesting to have a better quality water supply, not just more.

Question. How did you come to purchase the Pebble Beach Company?

Answer. The company was owned by the Sumitomo Company of Japan, and had been through quite a few different owners and situations. I always expressed an interest. There were rumors they were going to sell, but nobody had much faith in the rumors. Peter Uberroth (former baseball commissioner) and I discussed the situation. Peter called and asked if I could stop by and visit. We sat and talked. He said there’s a little bit of interest on the part of the Japanese owners. He said it’s probably a long shot, probably won’t happen. But he said he wanted me to be part of the deal if I was interested. I said I was.

Our philosophy was that we didn’t want to get into a bidding war, but just to put together a proposal. One day Peter came and said, “it looks like it’s coming together.” I said fine, tell me where and when. He did a splendid job, and had the idea of getting together a group who really like Pebble Beach, and who were in a position not to have to roll the company over and take the first offer that came flying along.

Everybody understood this would be a long-term deal, maybe somebody’s great granddaughter or son would see some profit some day, but all the other people would enjoy taking part anyway. They’re people who love the area.

We could of built up to 890 housing units there. The former owners presented a plan that would have had 315 lots, and put in a golf course. Our compromise eliminates the 315 lots, and has us staying in the visitor service business. The plan will include an 18-hole golf course, approximately 60 additional hotel rooms (at the 161-room lodge at Pebble Beach), and another 80 rooms at the 270-room Inn at Spanish Bay, and 38 residential lots averaging two acres each, to be sold to private buyers in the Pebble Beach, Poppy Hills and Pescadero Canyon areas. In addition, the project would install a golf cottage of 24 suites, 60 housing units for employees of the lodges, and 425 acres of permanent open space. Approximately 54 units deemed as more affordable will be located in Pajaro.

I believe this is better for the county. It increases the tax base, diminishes traffic, and uses less water. One politician who heard the proposal said, “are you crazy? You’re giving up 898 lots at the prices they’re going for today?"

Question. You played Pebble Beach at 23 years old, and you had to scrape together some cash just to get on the course. And here you are, one of the owners. How did you do it?

Answer. You hang around and a lot of stuff happens. You just outlive everybody.

Question. In 1916, Pebble Beach was known as the icon of American golf. At that time, the Big Four in San Francisco were gentlemen named Huntington, Stanford, Crocker, and Hopkins. Today, the Big Four are Richard Ferris, Clint Eastwood, Peter Uberroth and Arnold Palmer. Your careers were all different, but you all made it to the top, right?

Answer. We made it each in our own odd ways. Ferris is a Bay Area self-made guy. Uberroth went to San Jose State. Palmer is self-made. I went to Los Angeles City College. Who knows where you will end up in life. I think this must be fate driven.

Question. What changes have you noticed over the years?

Answer. In 1991, they changed the rough to rye grass. Some complain about how hard it is to get out of the rough, don’t they? I’ve played the course, and when you get in the rough, you might as well hit the ball out in this (Mission Ranch Hotel) empty field. The guy who can keep the ball in the fairway does the best. The fairways and the greens are great. But the rough. That’s tough.

Question. What would you consider the best part of your game?

Answer. The best part of my game is realizing that nothing comes easy. When I’m on my game, chipping is the best part. But that’s a very fleeting romance. It can leave you quick.

Question. What are your final thoughts on the U.S. Open?

Answer. It’s gotten to be really big. The enthusiasm is there. It’s a much bigger business than it once was. It was a nice tournament, sort of sedate. But golf has increased in popularity because of Payne Stewart and his involvement, and Tiger Woods. There’s a lot of interest among people in Central California. This means a lot to our economy. I’m glad to be a part of it.

© Copyright 2007 by SammonSays.com

Posted on Sunday, October 21 @ 14:02:29 EDT by Rose

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