NOTHING FANCY.(actor Clint Eastwood)

Clint Eastwood recently began directing a new feature film, "Mystic River,"but, just days before starting, he embarked on making "Piano Blues,"one of seven parts of a documentary about the blues which Martin Scorsese is producing for public television. Eastwood was going to shoot "Mystic River"in Boston, but he got his blues film under way at the Mission Ranch, an inn that he owns in Carmel, on California's Monterey Peninsula, where he also owns a great deal of other property. Out there, he seemed to be oblivious to the frantic pressures that usually overwhelm key figures in an imminent big-time movie production, like the one awaiting him in Boston.

"Nobody pushes Clint,"said Bruce Ricker, the producer of "Piano Blues,"and one of Eastwood's battalion of longtime helpers. "Clint does what Clint decides to do in his own good time."Ricker is a bulky, fast-talking man who helped produce Eastwood's "Thelonius Monk: Straight, No Chaser."As soon as Ricker arrived at the Mission Ranch--leading camera, sound, and lighting crews--he nervously scurried off to look for a baby grand piano that was to have been installed in the inn's former dairy barn, which is now used for weddings and parties.

Eastwood was already there, standing casually, six feet four inches tall, hands in his pockets, and watching a piano tuner plinking the keys. At seventy-two, he looks youthful, with bright-green eyes and high color in his cheeks. His hair is gray and white, full and uncombed, and that day he had on nondescript, loose-fitting gray pants, a tan cotton windbreaker, sneakers, and a blue-and-gray striped polo shirt, manufactured by his own clothing line, Teha[macron]ma.

He had driven over from his home in nearby Pebble Beach, where he lives with his thirty-seven-year-old wife, Dina; their six-year-old daughter, Morgan; their year-old pink-and-black pig, Penelope; three chickens; a fat black-and-white rat named Whiskers, who has ten new babies and a much older mate, Norbert; and a caged twenty-something yellow-naped Amazon-green female parrot named Paco, who likes to say, among other things, "Happy birthday"and "I love you."

Eastwood greeted Ricker with a calm nod and a grin. "Piano sounds O.K.,"he said.

Ricker looked somewhat reassured. "Everybody's here,"he said quickly. "The crew is unloading the equipment and will be setting up. Pinetop Perkins and Jay McShann”--the Chicago bluesman and the Kansas City jazz player--"are both here. They made it.”

Eastwood grinned again, and gave the piano a pat.