Clint Eastwood has endured surprisingly few serious injuries throughout his lengthy career as both an actor and director. For some Hollywood stars, performing a perilous stunt is the most harrowing experience they've ever faced in the name of their craft.

Yet for Clint, his most significant on-set mishap occurred during the production of Pale Rider in 1985, when his horse broke through thin ice, catapulting him forward and resulting in a dislocated shoulder. The star described the painful injury during this Western as the worst on-set accident he has ever had. The impact happened when his horse broke through thin ice, sending him launching forward over its head. To work around this injury and keep filming, he had the character he played, 'The Preacher,' pull his gun with his left hand in certain scenes.

Prior to that he also found himself in other life-threatening situations. In 1951, Clint was involved in a military plane crash.

While serving as an Army lifeguard during the Korean War, the actor was aboard a Douglas AD bomber that ran out of fuel and plunged into the Pacific Ocean near Point Reyes, California. He sustained minor injuries and was forced to swim three miles to shore on a raft.

Then, while working on The Eiger Sanction in 1975, Clint performed his own treacherous, high-altitude stunts for this production, and while he escaped physical harm, the shoot left him with enduring psychological trauma after a British climber and crew member was tragically killed by falling boulders during filming.

But, when pressed on the most unpleasant experience he'd encountered throughout his legendary seven-decade career, the four-time Academy Award winner didn't hesitate for a moment.

"You know, I'd have to say those cigars I smoked for Leone. Those cigars were so ugly," he raged. "I didn't smoke; I just picked them because they looked right. Boy, they were godawful. They'd gag a maggot."

He added: "I had no one to blame. They looked great. They were so long and narrow; they had a strip of bamboo run through them. I'd pull the bamboo out, cut them in pieces, and carry about three or four in my pocket so I'd have different lengths at all times. Whatever the scene called for, I'd have it."