Produced several films for Clint Eastwood, whom he met at Piedmont Junior High School; Clint was 2 years older than Fritz, but they were in the same grade because Clint had been held back. The pair had a falling out during the filming of
Heartbreak Ridge (1986). Manes was fired over the phone by Eastwood's secretary, and when he went over to Malpaso to collect his belongings, the locks on his office had been changed and his possessions were sitting outside next to a dumpster. They never spoke again.