In 1971,Clint Eastwood was getting ready to film his directorial debut: a psychological thriller called “Play Misty for Me.”

Clint, Donna Mills and Jessica Walter were set to star in a story about a DJ who was being stalked by a groupie. Trust me…It was enough to make a radio announcer’s blood run cold. In fact. after the film’s debut, radio announcers all over the U.S would answer their “request lines” only to hear a creepy female voice say, ‘Play ‘Misty’ for me.” (“Misty,” of course, was an old standard made famous by Errol Garner, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Clint was looking for a song he could use for a seduction scene, and he just happened to hear something he liked on his car radio. So he tracked down the artist, Roberta Flack,” and asked if he could use the song. She said, “Yes,” with one condition: She wanted to re-record it a bit faster. Clint said, “No, he wanted “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” as-is. Well, Roberta was NOT going to argue with Clint Eastwood, so no changes were made.

Clint (who, by the way is an excellent piano player and a composer of a dozen or so film scores, as well as several songs and instrumental pieces) knows a hit when he hears one…and he was right about this one!

The film did very well at the box office. Clint was praised for his directorial skills, and Jessica Walter was nominated for Golden Globe!

And the song? Well, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was a folk song originally recorded in 1957 by Peggy Seeger—but thanks to the film, Roberta’s version was a HUGE hit in the early weeks of 1972: #1 in Australia, Canada, and the U.S., where it spent 6 weeks at the top of the Hot 100—making it a Great Song of the ’70s.!

Roberta:

Peggy Seeger:

Misty (Ella Fitzgerald):