newsmakers

newsmakers

Eastwood endorses Romney for president

SUN VALLEY, Idaho

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 presidential candidate Friday night during a Sun Valley fundraiser.

“I think the country needs a boost,” Eastwood told The Associated Press as he joined other Romney supporters for the private campaign event.

In February, Eastwood told Fox News that he wasn’t supporting any politician at that time. Some saw the “halftime in America” ad he made for the Super Bowl as a nod toward President Barack Obama. Eastwood respon-ded then by saying he was not “politically affiliated” with the president.

“Now more than ever do we need Gov. Romney. I’m going to be voting for him,” Eastwood told Romney supporters Friday night.

“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 joked. “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.”

Rock Hall marking Grateful Dead exhibit

CLEVELAND

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is turned up the volume on its Grateful Dead special exhibit this weekend.

The weekend activities are timed to mark what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 70th birthday and the 17th anniversary of his death.

The first 150 visitors to the Cleveland landmark Saturday received a limited edition Grateful Dead exhibition laminate.

The Rock Hall also offered a curator gallery talk on the Grateful Dead exhibit Saturday and a screening of the film “Dead Ahead.”

The Grateful Dead exhibit continues through December.

Nets? Never. Lee will stick with the Knicks

NEW YORK

He’s New York’s most prominent Knicks fan. But he’s also a proud son of Brooklyn.

So would Spike Lee ever consider switching teams and rooting for the Brooklyn Nets?

No, no and no.

That’s what Lee tells The New York Times in an interview discussing his split loyalties between the Knicks and the beloved hometown borough that has been the setting for many of his films.

The Nets will play their first games in Brooklyn this fall, after moving from New Jersey.

It’s far from the first time Lee has vowed to go to his grave a Knicks fan.

Last year he tried to hammer home the point on Twitter, saying that anyone who thinks he’s switching to the Nets “is on crack, meth and malt liquor.”

Associated Press