Clint Eastwood to Direct J. Edgar Hoover Biopic

Published by Jeff Leins on March 12, 2010

Clint Eastwood is lining up his next directorial project in a biopic of the first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

According to the trades, the legendary actor turned filmmaker will be working with producer Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment on the film from a script by the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Milk, Dustin Lance Black.

Hoover was instrumental in founding the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935 where he remained director until his death in 1972.  As part of his crime-fighting career, Hoover established an extensive fingerprint library and “Most Wanted” list in order to track down highly-publicized criminals like John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly following Prohibition.  In 1956, he established a controversial organization called COINTELPRO that infiltrated and disrupted organizations such as the Communist Party, Martin Luther King’s SCLC, the Black Panthers, and other groups he deemed a possible threat.

I’m curious to see if Black, an openly gay writer and activist, includes historical claims that Hoover was a homosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), a transvestite, and was rumored to have been romantically involved with associate director Clyde Tolson.

Based on Eastwood’s recent success with Million Dollar Baby, Invictus, and Gran Torino, I’m sure we can expect some level of old curmudgeon who does things his own way and maybe even serves as a mentor for a young, impressionable character with an eagerness to learn. At 79 years old (80 by the time this movie gets underway), I doubt Eastwood will act in the film, but of course we’d love to see him on screen again.  Any thoughts on who should play Hoover?

Eastwood is in post-production on the supernatural drama Hereafter, starring Matt Damon and due out in October.