The Legend of Clint Eastwood

Revenge of the Creature, 1955
"Doc, could you come here a minute?" was Eastwood's first line in his only scene in Jack Arnold's sequel to the B-minus horror hit Creature from the Black Lagoon, as a lab assistant to star John Agar. A 23-year-old signed by Universal, Eastwood got nowhere playing bit parts: a jet pilot ordering a napalm drop on a giant spider in Arnold's Tarantula, a sailor buddy of Donald O'Connor and his talking mule in Francis in the Navy. None brought him acclaim, or even notice, until much later. On a 1997 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Crow T. Robot watches Clint's Revenge of the Creature performance and opines, "This guy's bad. This is his first and last movie."

• The Essence of Clint Eastwood