
DATE: Thursday, November 20, 1997           TAG: 9711200063

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  181 lines

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY EASTWOOD IS TRYING ``SOMETHING DIFFERENT'' BY STAYING BEHIND THE CAMERA AS DIRECTOR

CLINT EASTWOOD, the man who often has spoken with bullets, was talking about the day he staged a highly social tea party and a debutantes ball in fashionable Savannah, Ga.

It doesn't sound like the familiar terrain of Dirty Harry Callahan or the cold-blooded Man With No Name of Eastwood's more-typical screen past. ``People are saying that this isn't familiar territory for me,'' Eastwood said with a soft-spoken kind of homespun shyness that is a good deal closer to Jimmy Stewart than John Wayne. ``I never like to repeat myself. I always try to do something different.''

That ``something different'' is the film version of John Berendt's best- selling novel, ``Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.'' It's the 20th film he's directed, but only the third of them in which he didn't star (the other two were ``Breezy'' with William Holden and ``Bird'' with Forrest Whitaker). The first film he directed was ``Play Misty for Me,'' and then there were ``High Plains Drifter, ``The Eiger Sanction,'' ``The Outlaw Josey Wales, ``The Gauntlet,'' ``Bronco Billy,'' ``Firefox,'' ``Honkytonk Man,'' ``Sudden Impact,'' ``Pale Rider,'', ``Heartbreak Ridge, ``White Hunter, Black Heart'' and ``The Rookie.''

The list reads like a chronicle of pop movie culture changes over the past three decades. He finally won the Oscar for directing the anti-violence Western ``Unforgiven.''

``Midnight,'' concerned with eccentric characters and voodoo conjuring, doesn't seem to fit the mold. ``I read the script before I read the book,'' Eastwood said, ``and I thought it was just plain, good story-telling. That's what I want in a movie - storytelling. I didn't cast myself in it because I, frankly, didn't think I was right for any of the parts. I do feel that my best performances have been in movies I directed. But the part wasn't here in this one.''

He cast Kevin Spacey as Jim Williams, a rich antiques dealer who, on the same night as his fashionable Christmas party, shoots to death his live-in lover, Billy Hanson (played by Jude Law). The ``incident'' sets Savannah society into a spin, but the movie is not primarily a murder case. It deals with the quirkiness of Savannah and its characters, including a man who walks an imaginary dog, a man who always has flies spinning around his head and a female impersonator known as The Lady Chablis.

This mint julep is a long way from a spaghetti Western.

Opening Friday, the movie has the blessing of book author Berendt, who recognizes that there are vast differences but admits that ``the movie would run 35 hours if it included everything. I don't think it's been changed. Savannah is still as quirky as ever. It's just condensed.''

Berendt, an editor of New York magazine and a columnist for Esquire, went to Savannah to do a color story for Town and Country Magazine and expanded the murder story into a novel. It's been on the New York Times best-seller list for more than three years.

Eastwood admits that he didn't worry unduly about literally translating the book. ``A movie is a different kind of storytelling,'' he said. ``Moviemaking is a very strange business. It's full of both fakery and intelligence. Sometimes the two mix.''

He ought to know. He's been making movies for four decades.

Eastwood, sitting in his suite at the Essex House, off Central Park South in Manhattan, feels he's gotten a bum rap for turning America on to anti-heroes. His forte became men who didn't hesitate to kill if it served their purposes, men who thought winning was the name of the game, no matter how they won.

``My action movies look pretty tame to what they're doing today,'' he said with a hint of defensiveness.

He bristles when he's reminded that Pauline Kael, the egghead critic of her day, once claimed his Dirty Harry character was fascist and supported a police-ruled state.

``I didn't really think in any terms like that. He was just a cop who believed in victim's rights,'' Eastwood answered, with the soft-spoken demeanor of someone who wouldn't hurt a fly, much less pull a gun.

Asked if he realizes that he is now an icon, he gives an ``aw shucks'' shrug and says, ``I guess if you stay around long enough, and you won't go away, they have to call you something.''

His ``Midnight. . . '' actors, many of whom were gathered in New York for an advance screening, were eager to sing his praises. John Cusack, who plays the writer who comes to Savannah as an outsider, said, ``I don't think `Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' is an odd pairing for Clint at all. I think it fits alongside `Bird' and `Unforgiven' in that it's exploring ambiguity in that the world is not black or white, but perhaps gray. Clint is a very funny, and gentle, man.''

Jack Thompson, the Australian actor cast as Jim Williams' lawyer, had the unusual prospect of having his real-life counterpart, Sonny Seiler, on the set every day. Sonny plays the judge in the murder trial - in real life, he was the defending lawyer.

``Clint gave me the feeling that he was running with me,'' Thompson said. ``He never says, `Action.' He says, `Whenever you're ready.' I think it comes from working with horses. In making Westerns, horses get to know the word `action' so that you know not to say it, because they get overly excited. There is a wonderful air of calm on a Clint Eastwood set. We never worked 10-hour days, and we knocked off early on Fridays so that we could go home and be with our families. There was less nonsense in making this movie than any I've made in my 29 years of working.''

Eastwood admits that he has a sympathy for actors, saying: ``Some directors I worked with just told the actors to say the lines and they'd fix it all later in the editing. That makes you feel a little like a piece of furniture.''

There were a few tricky scenes in ``Midnight,'' though, in which he had to direct his daughter, Alison, in love scenes with Cusack. Alison, 25, plays Mandy, a singer in a Savannah bar. Cusack admits that he felt a little nervous about romancing Eastwood's daughter with Dad watching. ``I went over to Clint and I said, `I'm sorry for what I represent in your life,' '' Cusack quipped.

Director Eastwood admits that he filmed the love scene in one take. ``That was part of the chaperoning,'' he laughed.

Alison, who was briefly a model in Paris before trying acting, claims that she auditioned for the assistant director before she got the job. ``No one auditions directly for Clint Eastwood,'' she said. ``They make tapes and then he looks at them. That way, he doesn't have to be the bad guy and turn people down. The assistant director does it.

``Being Clint Eastwood's daughter has its disadvantages. The name isn't worth a thing unless I come up with something special for the camera. I can't be anonymous. The word would be around Hollywood in a moment that Clint's daughter is a bad actress. I have to deliver - even more so.''

So what was it like for any guy who wanted to date Clint Eastwood's daughter? Wouldn't it be daunting to call for the daughter of the man who might whisper, ``Make my day''?

``I was raised by my mom. Dad wasn't there a lot, so I don't know. It wasn't a problem. But I was what you might call a wild girl. I stayed out all night and drank. I skipped school. Once I was dating a 33-year-old man when I was 16. Dad came calling and said the one thing I had to do was not skip school.''

Alison, who is almost 6 feet tall, sports three tattoos - one on her arm, one on her ankle and a third, she says, that is not for a reporter's eyes.

Her mother was Eastwood's first wife, a model. The much-publicized 13-year affair between actress Sondra Locke and Eastwood is getting close scrutiny as a result of Locke's tell-all book, ``The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly.'' It's a volume that claims Eastwood was, to put it mildly, not a nice guy.

``Sondra Locke was always nice to me,'' Eastwood's daughter said, ``but I feel sorry for her now. She's become nothing more than a professional victim. Her book is fiction, from what I've heard. I have no intention of reading it. She's way out of line in writing something like this.''

In fact, it was suspected that Eastwood wouldn't show up for our interview because the Locke book is currently hot. But he admits that, after all these years, ``I realize that things people write, and say, about me are all a matter of opinion. Some of the people who have written nice things might be wrong too.''

Eastwood, 67, is now married to Dina Ruiz, a former California television newscaster who is 35 years his junior. ``She's the first woman about whom I went totally nuts,'' he said.

They have a daughter, less than 1 year old. ``It's great having a child around the house,'' he said. ``It keeps you young. This is my second, and last, marriage. This one is perfect.''

Eastwood's most unusual cast member is The Lady Chablis, the famed Savannah female impersonator who plays herself in ``Midnight.''

``I wasn't comfortable with Chablis at first,'' he said, ``and I don't think she was comfortable with making a movie, but she caught on fast. She's something of a chippy. I had to tell her to behave herself.''

Chablis, the lady herself, showed up in New York the day after the screening and admitted that she had no great desire to see the movie. ``I'll wait and see it with friends. But I'll MAKE Clint Eastwood,'' she said. Chablis was fuming about a Liz Smith column that day that said, ``He-She completely stole the film.''

``How would Ms. Smith like it if I referred to her as he-she?'' Chablis said. ``I am very much a woman 24 hours a day. I plan to win BOTH the Best Actor and the Best Actress Oscars this year. I'm thoroughly in touch with both my male and female sides, so why not?''

With typical feistiness, Chablis commented, ``If I offended anyone during the making of the film, I sincerely, and deeply, don't give a damn.''

Hearing the comment, Eastwood sighed and said: ``It's been a long journey in film with me. The first time I really felt exhilarated about it all was when I was doing `Rawhide' and I first realized they might pay me regularly for doing something I love. I was a kid then. Then, when I turned to directing, I learned the most important lesson you must learn - patience.''

It's midnight in the garden of the good, the bad, and the ugly. ILLUSTRATION: Photos

WARNER BROTHERS

Kevin Spacey...

Director Clint Eastwood...

WARNER BROS.

Alison Eastwood plays a nightclub singer romantically involved with

a visiting writer (John Cusack) in ``Midnight in the Garden of Good

and Evil.'' KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MOVIES