Clint Eastwood is a veteran among the grand masters of contemporary American cinema, whose rise through the system took a highly unusual form. After playing iconic roles in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns of the 1960s, he returned to Hollywood and underwent a controversial reincarnation as the ultraviolent cop Harry. In the 1970s Eastwwod began to direct and, in the style of the great directors of the past, made masterpieces in the genres ranging from the western (Unforgiven) to film noir (Mystic river)