Clint Eastwood wasn’t going to let a wildfire keep him from getting to work.The 91-year-old actor/director told Ellen on Monday’s episode of how he drove toward a Southern California wildfire last month that was encroaching the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, where his office has been for 40 years.
Ellen described the November 10 blaze, known as the Barham brush fire, as a ‘really bad fire that came really close to the lot,’ adding that ‘air quality was so bad that everyone evacuated’ – but not Clint!’I was coming back down to do some work at a sound stage and I saw all this smoke going,’ the screen legend said, adding he noticed the smoke plumes emanated from the Warner Bros. lot.
The Tinseltown staple continued: ‘And I’m getting closer and closer and its Warner Bros. and its smoke and I got almost up there and I thought, the whole studio’s burning down, maybe I’ll go in and see if I can retrieve something.’The filmmaker of classics such as Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Unforgiven said that the Warner Bros.
Studio was spared of any damage, as the blaze was contained to a nearby hill.’So we went on the sound stage and started working and we forgot about it and … everybody said, “The studio’s been evacuated! And I said, “We’re not evacuated, we’re here working!”‘
The office neighbors where Ellen works out of, and she describes Eastwood as ‘a good neighbor’ who never complains. Ellen showed that she and her staff had helped decorate Eastwood’s office with holiday decor, which Clint called ‘pretty nice.’
He added: ‘A lot better than some of the things she has done. One time she called up and said somebody made a pinata of her and said you have to go out there and take a baseball bat and beat the hell out of it.’Eastwood was on to promote his latest film Richard Jewell, which hits theaters Friday .
