Clint Eastwood is Stan Laurel's Son?

Claim:   Actor-director Clint Eastwood is the son of comic Stan Laurel.

FALSE

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, November 2011]

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 Clint Eastwood is actually the son of comic great Stan Laurel (of the popular Laurel & Hardy comedy film duo). It's hard to imagine what could have fueled this wild tale other than a superficial facial resemblance between the two men, but similar rumors have been propagated based upon even less. (If people will believe that soap opera star Susan Lucci is really the daughter of comedienne Phyllis Diller, they'll probably believe anything.)

Indeed, sources that 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:

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 it falsely claimed to have interviewed

him for a cover story entitled "Dirty Harry Lifts the Lid on His Private Life"), a circumstance which makes reliable information about his background more difficult to obtain and provides a fertile breeding ground for rumors.

Another factor is the coincidence that Clint Eastwood's birth date is given as 31 May 1930, the same month and year that Stan Laurel's wife gave birth to a son. Laurel's son was born two months premature, died nine days later, and was cremated (reportedly because his father could not stand attending funerals), thereby lending plausibility to the notion that the child might actually have survived but was given to others to raise. That rumor doesn't explain why the Laurels might have given up their baby, however: Usually such claims originate with the idea that the child was the result of an extramarital affair and the parents "got rid" of it to avoid potentially embarrassing questions about its origins, but this rumor includes no such suggestions.

In any case, there is no mystery or surprise in the details of Clint Eastwood's

ancestry: He was born on 31 May 1930 at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, the son of Clinton Eastwood, Sr. (1906-1970) and Margaret Ruth Runner (1909-2006). The couple met as teenagers in Piedmont, California, and had two children: Jean, born in 1929, and Clinton (Jr.), born in 1930.

Last updated:   21 June 2013

Sources: