Clint Eastwood just made Mitt Romney’s day.
The Dirty Harry star and Oscar-winning director of Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby endorsed the Republican US presidential candidate on Friday night during a Sun Valley fundraiser.
“I think the country needs a boost,” Eastwood told reporters as he joined other Romney supporters for the private campaign event.
In February, Eastwood told Fox News that he was not supporting any politician at that time. Some saw the “halftime in America” ad he made for the Super Bowl as a nod toward US President Barack Obama. Eastwood responded then by saying he was not “politically affiliated” with the president.
“Now more than ever do we need Governor Romney. I’m going to be voting for him,” Eastwood told Romney supporters.
“He just made my day,” Romney said. “What a guy.”
Standing at Romney’s side, Eastwood said he was filming Mystic River in Massachusetts almost a decade ago when he first saw political advertisements featuring Romney, who was running for governor at the time.
“I said, ‘God, this guy, he’s too handsome to be governor, but he does look like he could be president,’” Eastwood said. “As the years have gone by I began to think even more so about that.”
Eastwood, 82, said he hoped Romney would restore “a decent tax system that we need badly ... so that there’s a fairness and people are not pitted against one another as who’s paying taxes and who isn’t.”
The actor and director instantly became Romney’s highest-profile celebrity supporter. Romney has also earned the endorsement of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and rock star Kid Rock.
A campaign spokesman could not immediately say whether Eastwood would play an active role in the campaign.
About 325 people paid as much as US$25,000 apiece to attend the event.
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