Smith’s book constitutes a major effort to treat a star seriously in the light of contemporary studies of the representation of the body and the contrast between the ‘real’ body of the actor and ‘reel’ body on the screen. Smith breaks new ground not only through the depth and extent of his serious study of Eastwood but also through this method of connecting a broad range of cultural experiences: the cinematic presentation of Eastwood, the impact of the ‘tributary media’ of television, advertising, and the press, the treatment of ‘aesthetic ideologies’ that relate belief, art, and entertainment, and the dialectic between the audience and the culture industry.