Heartbreak Ridge in the context of "Medal of Honor"

Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Eastwood's greatest commercial successes are the adventure comedy Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its action comedy sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980). Other popular Eastwood films include the Westerns Hang 'Em High (1968), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Pale Rider (1985), the action-war film Where Eagles Dare (1968), the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the war film Heartbreak Ridge (1986), the action film In the Line of Fire (1993), and the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995). More recent works include Gran Torino (2008), The Mule (2018), and Cry Macho (2021). Since 1967, Eastwood's company Malpaso Productions has produced all but four of his American films.

Marsha Mason (born April 3, 1942) is an American actress and theatre director. She has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Goodbye Girl (1977), Chapter Two (1979), and Only When I Laugh (1981). The first two also won her Golden Globe Awards. She was married for 10 years (1973–1983) to the playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon, who wrote all but the first film cited above, in addition to several others in which she starred.

Mason's film debut was in the 1966 film Hot Rod Hullabaloo. Her other films include Blume in Love (1973), The Cheap Detective (1978), Max Dugan Returns (1983), Heartbreak Ridge (1986), Stella (1990) and Drop Dead Fred (1991). On television, she appeared in the soap opera Love of Life (1971–72) and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her recurring role on the sitcom Frasier (1997–98).

Charles Everett McGill III (born on October 21, 1945)is an American retired actor, who rose to prominence for his portrayal of a caveman in Quest for Fire (1981). He went on to have prominent roles in the films Dune (1984), Silver Bullet (1985), Heartbreak Ridge (1986), Iguana (1988), Licence to Kill (1989), The People Under the Stairs (1991) and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995).

On television he appeared as "Big" Ed Hurley in Twin Peaks (1990–1991). He retired from acting in 1999, but returned for the revival of Twin Peaks.

Mario Cain Van Peebles (born January 15, 1957) is a Mexican-born American actor and director. He is the son of Melvin Van Peebles, whom he had played in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!, which he also co-wrote, produced, and directed. He also starred in Heartbreak Ridge (1986), New Jack City (1991), and USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016), the latter two of which he had directed.