Clint Eastwood's complicated love life, 'addictive' affairs exposed in new biography

Fox News

03-07-2025

Clint Eastwood is a man of many layers.
In a new biography written by filmmaker Shawn Levy, "Clint: The Man and The Movies," the legendary actor's life behind the camera is examined through past quotes from Eastwood and various peers who shed insight into his extensive romantic past and "addictive" affairs he had while married to his first wife, Maggie Johnson, and other partners.
"His affairs, he later admitted to Richard Schickel, 'just became … I don't know … addictive … like you have to have another cigarette,'" Levy wrote in the book, quoting Eastwood.
Eastwood married Johnson in 1953. Throughout their 21-year marriage, Eastwood had many affairs with various women and fathered multiple children.
"There were many other women, some from the ranks of classmates, some encountered at the nightspots and jazz clubs that he frequented, some from among his neighbors at the apartment complex in Studio City, near Universal, to which he and Maggie had moved when he first went under contract to the studio," Levy wrote in the book.
"The atmosphere of that small apartment building — which, naturally, was centered around a swimming pool — not only encouraged sexual adventures but facilitated them; several of Clint's friends from Oakland, Seattle, and Fort Ord moved into the place or similar places nearby, meaning that there were always apartments readily available for a quick tryst — and buddies willing to help him cover his tracks."
According to Levy, Eastwood was always upfront about his behavior and allegedly had an "understanding" with Johnson.
"It wasn't entirely evident, though, that he needed such help. As a friend put it, 'Clint goes where he wants, does what he wants — goes to dinner with a girl if he wants. Maggie doesn't say a thing. Clint is the undisputed boss.' He referred to himself half-jokingly as a 'married bachelor,' but there were significant hints that his wife knew the score and was okay with it," Levy wrote.
"'Maggie and I have an understanding,' he was quoted as saying. 'I'm independent, a vagabond, and she accepts me as I am and doesn't strangle me with female possessiveness.' Speaking more broadly, he declared, 'Maggie doesn't chain me. The worst thing is owning people. I don't want to be owned by anybody — maybe shared, but not lock, stock, and barrel.
"Love is respecting privacy, accepting faults. But I don't believe it's a one-way street. The sophisticated woman accepts that chances are a guy's not being 100 percent faithful. If she talks about it, it only makes it worse.'"
Eastwood allegedly said of his relationship with Johnson, "There's no ownership in this marriage. My soul is my own. Maggie knows this. Possession is the worst thing. I'm hard to live with. … I'm moody, and lots of the time I'd rather be alone. … It took Maggie a while, but she learned."
Though Johnson was aware of the trysts, Levy wrote, it's unclear if she knew just how extensive the affairs were.
"Their private life was another matter, as Maggie admitted some years later when she told an interviewer, 'We're not advocates of the total togetherness theory.' It's not clear that she was aware of just how many liberties Clint took, or, for that matter, whether she availed herself of any.
"But they stayed together through these lean years, despite living near enough to her family for her to make other choices, so she either didn't know or didn't care about his sexual entanglements — or she believed that they were his business and nobody else's, not even hers," Levy wrote.
"It seemed to some who knew the couple that she thrived. 'She's got more steel than a hardware store,' a friend noted. 'Clint talks to her about everything.' And Clint himself admitted, 'She is the very best friend I have. She loved me when no one else did.'"
A representative for Eastwood did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The couple, who had two children together during their marriage, got divorced in 1984. Eastwood and stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis welcomed a daughter, Kimber Lynn, in 1964, while he was still married to Johnson.
Eastwood married Dina Ruiz in 1996, and the couple divorced in 2014. He also had long-term relationships with actresses Sondra Locke and Frances Fisher.
The award-winning actor and director is a father of eight: Laurie Murray, Kimber Eastwood, Kyle Eastwood, Alison Eastwood, Scott Eastwood, Kathryn Eastwood, Francesca Eastwood and Morgan Eastwood.
In July 2023, Eastwood announced his girlfriend of ten years, Christina Sandera, had died.
"Christina was a lovely, caring woman, and I will miss her very much," he said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter at the time.
A few days later, his daughter Morgan shared a photo with the couple, noting the "devastating" loss.
"A devastating loss for our whole family," Morgan wrote of Sandera, who died at the age of 61 July 18. "Thank you Christina for being a good partner to my Dad. You will be missed."
Sandera's cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, the Monterey, California, County Department of Health said in a death certificate obtained by Fox News Digital.
Two years after his loss, he said he had no plans to slow down professionally.
In a recent interview with the Austrian newspaper Kurier, the director, who turned 95 in May, revealed he is in pre-production on a new movie, dispelling rumors that 2024's "Juror #2" would be his final film.
"There's no reason why a man can't get better with age," he explained. "And I have much more experience today. Sure, there are directors who lose their touch at a certain age, but I'm not one of them."