Clint Eastwood made the day of a man who was choking during a dinner connected to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am golf tournament this week.
"Clint saved my life," Steve John, the executive director of the Pro-Am, told The Carmel Pine Cone newspaper.
John, 50, was eating hors d'oeuvres Wednesday at a party honoring tournament volunteers when a piece of cheese became lodged in his throat. Eastwood, the 83-year-old Oscar-winning actor and director, was in attendance and quickly performed the Heimlich maneuver.
"I looked in his eyes and saw that look of panic people have when they see their life passing before their eyes," Eastwood told The Pine Cone. "It looked bad."
The "Dirty Harry" star said he gave John "three good jolts" to get the cheese out and then made John "drink a big glass of water with a bunch of lemon squeezed in it."
Eastwood told The Pine Cone that he'd never done the Heimlich on anyone before "except to practice," but that John looked "different than when somebody is just coughing or joking around."
John, who is also CEO of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I don’t know how a guy that age picked up a guy my size. ... I was kind of blurry afterward, but I thanked him profusely. ... I’ve got a lucky angel, man."
From Jennifer Lawrence to Ryan Gosling to Tom Cruise, other celebrities have made it a point to step in during moments of crisis. Check out this slideshow of stars who have been real-life action heroes.