Everything Clint Eastwood's Exes Have Said About Him
Clint Eastwood may have had an impeccable career, but his personal life was a lot less straightforward. The multi-award-winning actor and director has experienced no shortage of romantic partners, many of whom overlapped without the others' knowledge. He has also sired children with several of them. But given the tumultuous nature of many of his relationships and his own preference for privacy, the actual number of Clint Eastwood's kids has remained a mystery. As far as we know, Eastwood has only acknowledged eight children by six different women, but that's an official count.
Despite the number of relationships and children he had, the "Dirty Harry" star was married only twice. His marriage to Maggie Johnson spanned the early years of his career and served as no deterrent for Eastwood's womanizing ways. He wouldn't tie the knot again until the '90s, when he fell for Dina Ruiz. While his second marriage was largely controversy-free, the separation came with quite a bit of drama. Between the two walks down the aisle, Eastwood was in high-profile relationships with fellow actors Sondra Locke and Frances Fisher.
Many of his other affairs remained out of the spotlight but firmly in Eastwood's life for a considerable time. He seemingly couldn't stay away from women, but he also seemed equally unable to commit. "They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning," he once quipped (via The Telegraph). Despite his many affairs and infidelities, many of his partners still had positive things to say about him. Others, however, weren't afraid to show their disappointment.
Maggie Johnson fell for Clint Eastwood the moment she saw him
Clint Eastwood married Maggie Johnson in December 1953 before he rose to fame a few years later with his role in "Rawhide." It was the non-famous Eastwood that captured his first wife's heart. Even though Johnson had been seeing someone else, she agreed to go on a blind date on an invitation from a Berkeley friend who was going out with one of Eastwood's friends. Eastwood's friend convinced him to do the same. It wasn't meant to be serious.
But Johnson was pulled to him the moment she laid eyes on him. "I came down the stairs of the sorority house, and [Clint] had his back to me. When he turned around, I was amazed at what he looked like," she said, according to Richard Schickel's 1996 book "Clint Eastwood: A Biography." "Plus, he was understated, and that kind of appealed to me." But their relationship started on the wrong foot. By the time they exchanged vows a few months after meeting, Eastwood had gotten someone else pregnant.
That was just the first of his many infidelities, which included Eastwood's decades-long affair with Roxanne Tunis. Johnson accepted her husband for who he was, but it took a toll. "Whenever I saw Maggie Eastwood, I could tell that she was suffering dreadfully," Barbara Eden, a "Rawhide" guest star in 1963, wrote in her 2011 memoir, "Jeannie Out of the Bottle." Johnson and Eastwood separated in 1979 and divorced in 1984.
Sondra Locke believed Clint Eastwood was faithful to her
In the mid-70s, when he was still married to Maggie Johnson, Clint Eastwood entered into a relationship with the also-married Sondra Locke. They lived together while filming "The Outlaw Josey Wales" in Arizona, an arrangement they kept up after returning home. By then, Johnson stayed mostly at their home in Pebble Beach, and Eastwood was with Locke in their Sherman Oaks home. While they continued to deny their romance publicly, Eastwood and Locke's feelings for each other were real.
In fact, Locke was surprised by how strongly the star fell for her. "Clint seemed astonished at his need for me, even admitting that he'd never been faithful to one woman — because he'd 'never been in love before,' he confided," Locke wrote in her 1998 memoir, "The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey" (via Daily Express). He wrote a song about becoming monogamous after meeting her. "I would never doubt his faithfulness and his love for me," she wrote.
However, many in Eastwood's close circle claimed he continued to have affairs during the relationship. But others believed he was faithful, at least for a while. "It was absolute total, blind love," Fritz Manes told Patrick McGilligan in his "book, "Clint: The Life and Legend." Before he broke up with Locke in 1989, Eastwood had two children with Jacelyn Reeves in 1986 and 1988. In 1989, Locke sued Eastwood for palimony after he forced her out of their home.
Frances Fisher thought Clint Eastwood could be a family man
After breaking up with Sondra Locke, Clint Eastwood met Frances Fisher while filming the 1989 film "Pink Cadillac." Their relationship was seemingly casual at first, but it turned serious by the early '90s. In 1993, they welcomed a daughter, Francesca. Fisher thought Eastwood had finally become the perfect family man. "He cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for me. I'd be nursing the baby, and he'd be feeding me," she told Richard Schickel in "Clint Eastwood: A Biography."
It didn't last. In 1995, they split. But Fisher held no ill feelings toward her ex. "I'm not bitter, I'm not jaded ... We always do things for a reason," she told the Los Angeles Times. She concedes she was also at fault for failing to see the relationship for what it had become. "If you can't get past the honeymoon stage and get into the deeper meanings of why you're together ... you're doomed to just stop when things start getting tough," she said.
Fisher continued to have a positive relationship with Eastwood. "I believe when you have loved someone, if you don't destroy it with pettiness, then the love is always there," she told SFGate in 2004. They even became friends, with Fisher joining Eastwood and his now ex-wife Dina Ruiz on family vacations with their respective daughters. "I'll call their house and say, 'Hi, Clint. Is Dina there?' She and I are the ones who plan everything anyway," she detailed.
Dina Ruiz wasn't happy Clint Eastwood moved on with her friend
Clint Eastwood met Dina Ruiz, a journalist 35 years his junior, when he was with Frances Fisher. It's unclear when their relationship started, but they were married in 1996, a year after he left Fisher. They welcomed a daughter, Morgan, that same year. Ruiz was flattered Eastwood made her his wife, with his only other marriage happening before fame. "The fact that I'm only the second woman he has married really touches me," she told SFGate in 1996.
The marriage lasted 17 years. Ruiz filed for divorce in 2013, but they had already been separated. "Clint fell out of love with Dina a long time ago," a source told Us Weekly. There were no hard feelings, though. In her view, the marriage's demise had nothing to do with Eastwood. "It's other people around him [who] have done things that have blown me away and again my future ex-husband has done nothing [wrong]," she told E! News.
However, Ruiz had plenty of issues with what Eastwood did following their split. In late 2012, Eastwood reportedly started seeing Erica Fisher, the ex-wife of one of Ruiz's high school friends, Scott Fisher. She wasn't happy about that. "I am saddened to see photos of Clint with Ms. Tomlinson-Fisher. I look forward to new beginnings," she told Us Weekly. In a strange plot twist, she started seeing Scott, and that's who Dina Ruiz is married to now. It looks like she had her new beginning.