Of course, Clint Eastwood has had a stellar career as an actor and director. Before the success, though, he did spend time as a life guard.
What was that like for the future Dirty Harry actor? Let’s see with some help from the Monterey Herald.
Eastwood was a life guard at the Fort Ord pool in 1951-52. “I actually lived down at that pool,” he said. So, Clint Eastwood finished basic training in the U.S. Military at Fort Ord.
Clint Eastwood Found Himself Working at Swimming Pool
He and another soldier were assigned to Division Faculty. That’s where the military organizes instruction and teaching for weapons, communications, and other training, to ask for a job. At the time, he thought, “If we got a job, maybe we won’t get sent to Korea,”.
Now, a Division Faculty captain wrote down Eastwood and his buddy’s name. They were leaving and a man said, “They need three or four guys down at the pool.” But Eastwood thought it meant the motor pool. He said, “So we were thinking this will be good. We’ll go to the motor pool, we’ll drive some cars and keep our mouths shut.
“That would be cool,” Clint Eastwood said. “We won’t be going to Korea but we will be in the motor pool.” But the guy was really talking about the swimming pool. This made the future actor’s eyes light up.
Future Actor Was Able To Sleep A Little More Than Others
He ended up being there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There was a little room that Eastwood convinced the company commander to allow him to live there. He told him that he could “take care and watch over the pool.”
“While everybody else was getting up at five in the morning, in the cold air, I was sleeping,” Eastwood told the publication. “I didn’t have classes until about 10 or 11 o’clock or whatever they were that day. It was a good life for me.”
What did he do at the pool? It was his job to make sure soldiers knew how to swim. He would line up a dozen or so soldiers in their swim trunks next to the diving boards. And he would then tell them to jump in.
Now, imagine the surprise of those guys years later when they would look up on movie screens. They could tell their families, “Hey, that’s the guy who taught me how to swim.” Clint Eastwood does appear to keep on moving even at the age of 91 years old. His work ethic is one that people might simply ignore but it’s hard to do so. Eastwood has made his name in movies and keeps his focus there.
