Clint Eastwood turns 95 this month…see how Hollywood’s ultimate tough guy looks now

Legendary tough guy actor and director Clint Eastwood is waging the one battle even he can’t win.

‘Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it,’ he declared in an interview 10 years ago, when he was a relatively spry 84-year-old.

His 95th birthday is now just over two weeks away, May 31, and locals who have seen him in recent months in his hometown Carmel-by-the-Sea say he’s now a frail old man, rarely making it out in public these days.

But when he does, he’s still engaged and seems to be enjoying himself, slowing down but at peace in the place he loves after a year of both celebration and grief.

The Daily Mail has obtained photographs showing some of the most recent images of Eastwood, taken in October at Mission Ranch, the hotel and restaurant he purchased in the 1980s. 

Sporting unkempt hair and a scruffy beard, he is seen chatting amiably while hanging out in the bar area. He is with a fellow piano player and has his arm around the general manager of the historic ranch, located just blocks from Carmel Beach.

Other photos show Eastwood sitting at the piano celebrating his 93rd birthday and enjoying an evening there in February 2024.

A few months later, on June 15, he attended the wedding of his youngest child, Morgan Eastwood, 27 in the same spot and was seen playfully rubbing her pregnant belly.

Last year also saw the release of what many believe to be his final movie, Juror #2, a legal thriller he directed and co-produced.

But 2024 also came with great hardship, the death on July 18 of his longtime partner Christina Sandera at age 61. 

Sandera, a former hostess at Mission Ranch, died of a cardiac arrhythmia, having suffered from atherosclerotic coronary artery disease.

Asked how he was coping after their tragic loss, Clint’s son Scott Eastwood told E! News that his father was ‘doing OK’.

Eastwood, never much a talker to the press, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that ‘Christina was a lovely, caring woman,’ and that ‘I will miss her very much’.

A Warner Bros spokesperson told the outlet no further information would be given as Clint wants to privately grieve.

The four-time Academy Award winner has been spending much of his time in his home in Tehama, a gated, 2,000-acre community he developed in the 1980s in the hills above Carmel.

But people around town still get a true thrill from seeing him when he ventures out, driving himself to get groceries at Whole Foods, stopping by the Carmel Drug Store to get a newspaper or visiting the restaurant at Mission Ranch.

Eastwood has been Carmel’s favorite son for decades and made his mark not just as a local Hollywood icon, but as an active member of the community.

Discovering the area during the Korean War when he was stationed at nearby Fort Ord, he later ran for Carmel’s mayor and won in a landslide in the mid-1980s, drawing such big crowds that meetings had to be moved from City Hall to the nearby women’s club.

He also owned the Hog’s Breath Inn, a rustic pub in downtown Carmel, for 27 years before selling it in the late 1990s.

Lee Morcus, the current owner who considers Clint a friend, is now renovating the restaurant in a way he says ‘honors Clint’s legacy and his commitment and contributions to the community’.

‘Ninety-five, that’s a hell of a milestone, a heck of a run,’ Morcus, 67, told the Daily Mail last week.

‘He’s one of the smartest men I’ve ever met,’ he continued. ‘He understands the human condition as well as anybody, which is why his movies are so successful.

‘But he’s also just a regular guy, just an amazing guy,’ he said. 

‘When we played golf, he’d give us the needle just like anybody else, and we’d kind of throw it back at him too. He’s got an amazing sense of humor, very dry, wicked and sly.

‘I remember one night we were having a glass of wine together, and I’d just seen Million Dollar Baby,’ he told the Daily Mail. 

‘I told him that movie made me cry and he smiled because he knew it made everybody cry. 

‘He said, “Well I’m working on another movie that’s going to be a little more uplifting”. 

‘And I said, “Yeah, you’ll probably make me f**king cry with that one too,” and he just smiled.’

His next movie was Gran Torino, where Eastwood’s character, a grisly old Korean War veteran, gets killed defending his Hmong neighbors from a gang.

He said that when Clint opened Hog’s Breath Inn, it was one of the nation’s first celebrity restaurants, but that ‘he didn’t do it to create a celebrity restaurant. He did it because he wanted a place to hang out.’

Clint purchased Mission Ranch to save it from a condo project, but made it his regular haunt.

Despite his celebrity, he managed to keep his relationship with the hostess and indeed much of his personal life out of the spotlight, with help from locals who have respected his privacy.

When he heads out of his home, he’ll sometimes stop by the on-site golf club at Tehama to chat with staff. 

Private members and their guests are told to give him space, though he’ll often indulge his fans with autographs. He is said to particularly enjoy interacting with children, none more so than his new baby granddaughter, Morgan’s daughter, born in October.

But Clint’s casual outings in Carmel have become increasingly rare.

A worker at Mission Ranch said Clint briefly stopped by the property earlier this month. However, regulars there told the Daily Mail they hadn’t seen him since the fall.

People around town, who have spotted him repeatedly over the years, say the same, which has raised concerns for his health.

And when he does make the rounds, some describe feeling a sense of melancholy over the inevitable signs of aging of the quintessential strong man. 

He’s renowned for starring in spaghetti westerns and action films, from the Dirty Harry series to his Oscar-winning film Unforgiven, which he directed and starred as an aging gunslinger taking on a sadistic sheriff played by Gene Hackman.

‘There was no finer actor than Gene,’ Eastwood said in a statement after Hackman’s death in February at age 95. ‘He was also a dear friend whom I will miss very much.’

Whereas Hackman lived a mostly reclusive life on a ranch outside Santa Fe, Eastwood’s absence for any extended period is more notable in his community, where he’s maintained ties with his expansive family and locals.

Ross Arnold, owner of Carmel Drug Store, told the Daily Mail that he last saw Eastwood around November.

‘He’s always been a big, strapping strong man in movies and in person,’ Arnold told the Daily Mail. ‘You see him aging, but he still has that presence. He’s still Clint Eastwood.’

At Mission Ranch, staff and guests have seen Eastwood stop by a couple times a month, often coming into the restaurant and sitting down at the piano bar for dinner – his favorite the King Salmon dish with a special wild rice dish he picked for the menu. 

He’ll also occasionally play the piano, and enjoy the friendly vibes of an establishment attracting a mostly older set.

Last week, Gennady Loktionov, the piano player, seen in the photo with Eastwood last year, sat down to play Billy Joel’s Piano Man.

Marshall Harris, a regular sipping a cocktail at the bar, said he last saw Eastwood at the restaurant late last year, shortly before Sandera’s death.

‘We shook hands, and he seemed healthy,’ Harris said. ‘He takes good care of himself. I hope I’m doing as well as he is when I turn 95.’

Kathy Stone, another patron, described Eastwood as gracious but ‘always quiet, never standing out,’ which she appreciated.

‘He doesn’t seem to care about being famous,’ she said. ‘He’s just a regular person, a mellow guy. He’s old, but he’s still Clint.’

Rose Mary O’Brien, another regular, proudly gushed to the Daily Mail that, ‘Clint made this a place people could come and have a good time.

‘This is my refuge, my second home,’ said O’Brien, swaying to the music. ‘I’m just happy he’s made it possible for us to be here and enjoy ourselves.’

But she’s also concerned knowing that this birthday, like any other for a person his age, could be his last.

‘To see him in the shape he’s in, he can’t stand up straight, and he shuffles around,’ she said. ‘He’s just so old. I don’t want to see him go.’