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Claim: Actor/director Clint Eastwood is the son of comic Stan Laurel.
Origins: Urban legendry abounds with rumors concerning famous people who are supposedly the unacknowledged (and usually illegitimate) children of other famous people, especially within the Hollywood community (actors being noted, in the world of rumor, for both their promiscuity and their willingness to go to extreme lengths to avoid the disclosure of negative publicity.) One of the odder rumors of this variety posits that western film star
Indeed, sources which attempt to explain the origins of this rumor don't generally offer anything more substantive than that a newspaper or magazine article once noted Eastwood and Laurel looked somewhat alike:
Perhaps the most amusing [piece of Laurel & Hardy apocrypha] is a belief that actor and director Clint Eastwood might be Stan Laurel's son; varying sources attribute the myth either to a foreign magazine or, incredibly, a letter to a children's comic remarking on the resemblance between the two.
Although they may not have spawned the rumors, some aspects of the two men's personal lives may have helped keep it going once it got started. One factor is that Clint Eastwood has always been quite reticent about discussing the details of his private life (he successfully sued the National Enquirer tabloid in 1993 after they falsely claimed to have interviewed
The source of the myth was an Italian newspaper from the days that Clint Eastwood was making spaghetti westerns in Italy. An article on Eastwood was illustrated by a portrait of a happily smiling Eastwood and the caption pointed out the likeness to Stan smiling. A British Kids comic printed a photo of Clint with his hair sticking up on end. Somebody wrote to the comic saying his spiky hair looked like Stan's. So the next week they printed their photos side by side with a 'JOKE' caption saying that 'Who knows, Clint could be Stan's son'. Another factor is the coincidence that Clint Eastwood's birth date is given as In any case, there is no mystery or surprise in the details of Clint Eastwood's ancestry: He was born on Last updated: 27 February 2005 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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