Clint Eastwood Had Two Separate Near-Death Experiences in the Ocean
Actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood has lived a long and fulfilling life. But back in his younger years, Eastwood came uncomfortably close to death twice. And both times involved the ocean.
Clint Eastwood directed the film ‘Hereafter’ because he was curious about near-death experiences
Hereafter was a 2010 movie directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Matt Damon. As its title suggests, the film follows a construction worker who has the ability to communicate with the dead.
What initially drew the Oscar-winner to the project was his own fascination with the afterlife. It’s a concept that he believed many people found interesting.
“The whole thing of near death experiences has always been a curiosity,” he once said in an interview with Reuters. “Because there have been so many people who have done that — who have died for a few minutes and then all of a sudden, resuscitated, or came back. They do report a similarity of things, whether it’s psychologically induced or pre-induced or whatever, I don’t know.”
As for Eastwood himself, he’s not sure if he buys the idea of life after death. But he’s open to the concept, especially after his own experiences with the supernatural.
“The only thing I have ever had that is sort of offbeat, that is I have watched Uri Geller spin the keys and things like that … I have seen that so I am a believer,” he said. “It was my house key and the only way I would be able to use it is get a hammer and beat it out back flat again. So there are certain energy things that are outside of the norm … But as far as people … to actually visualize the dead, maybe they do it, maybe it’s for real, or maybe you just guess a certain amount of things that are common to most people.”
Clint Eastwood had two separate near death experiences in the ocean
Eastwood has had his own personal brushes with death in his lifetime. Ironically, both times involved the ocean. Speaking to The Virginia Pilot, the Dirty Harry star opened up about nearly drowning when he was 12 years old.
“I still remember the blue of the water,” Eastwood said. “I was young. I hadn’t learned obscenities yet, but I remember it even today as being near death. I came to the surface.”
The second time came years later. Eastwood was in the navy when a plane he hopped a ride on malfunctioned.
“Everything went wrong. Radios went out, oxygen ran out and they finally… The pilot flew it around for quite a while and we ran out of fuel up around Point Reyes, California. And went in the ocean. So we went swimming. [LAUGHTER] It was a tough time of year in November and… I think it was November. Late October, November something,” Eastwood once told The Hollywood Reporter. “Very cold water. Found out many years later that it was a white shark breeding ground but I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time or I’d have just died, just had apoplexy or something.”
Clint Eastwood has always taken care of himself because he doesn’t want to check out early
Eastwood is still going strong at the age of 92. Back in a 2009 interview with GQ, the Rawhide actor shared that he took care of himself so he wouldn’t have to “check out early.” Although he’s careful about his diet because of his health, he asserted his meal-plan wasn’t anything special.
“The only thing special about it is I just try to watch the intake of saturated fats. I was blessed with a reasonable system that just never put on a lot of weight, so I always took advantage of that. I remember I had a friend who had been in the war in Korea and had been shot up a lot,” he said. “He came back and he became very religious, and he’d always preach, ‘God gives you one body; you should take care of it. God gives you one mind; you should take care of it.’ And I’ve never philosophized or expounded on philosophies that I’ve had, but I basically feel that way.”
