Hollywood's iconic good guy, Clint Eastwood, is also a hero in the real world after swooping to rescue a choking guest at a California reception.
"Clint saved my life," Steve John told The Carmel Pine Cone, the local newspaper where the actor once served as mayor in the 1980s.
John was eating and chatting during a reception for a golf tournament in Carmel-by-the-Sea earlier in February before a piece of cheese got stuck in his windpipe.
"Suddenly, I couldn't breathe," recalled the director of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am golf tournament in California.
"It was as bad as it could have been.
"Clint came up behind me, and he knew exactly what to do."
The award-winning actor and director told the local paper that he saw in John "that look of panic people have when they see their life passing before their eyes".
Eastwood, 83, moved behind John to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre.
"I gave him three good jolts, and that got it out," the star recalled.
"And then I made him drink a big glass of water with a bunch of lemon squeezed in it."
Eastwood, who most famously inhabited the role of Dirty Harry, confessed he'd never performed the Heimlich manoeuvre in real life before, "except to practice".
The manoeuvre consists of standing behind a person and pressing strongly with both hands just above their navel to help expel contents that are blocking the airway.
