The dangerously real death threats that cast a dark cloud over ‘Unforgiven’: “I will kill you”
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven is a movie preoccupied with the concept of death in its many forms, and life imitated art in the most frightening way possible when the director and leading man became the subject of repeated death threats during production.
One positive, if any are found, is that they didn’t come from anyone involved with the film. Despite its weighty subject matter and grim outlook on the world, everyone from the cast and crew to the assistants and caterers got on like a house on fire, making for a harmonious shoot.
Eastwood knew from the beginning that Unforgiven would be his farewell to the western, the genre that made him a superstar three decades previously, so he pulled out all the stops to ensure he delivered the best possible results, and it would be an understatement to say that he did.
The winner of four Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, Unforgiven is arguably the legendary star’s magnum opus, which is saying a lot when he’s enjoyed one of Hollywood’s most iconic careers on both sides of the camera. The shadow of death looms large, but nobody could have predicted that it would spill out beyond the four corners of the silver screen.
Whether it’s Eastwood’s Bill Munny embracing his darker impulses after swearing off killing another man, Gene Hackman’s ‘Little Bill’ ruling with an iron fist, Morgan Freeman’s Ned Logan meeting a tragic and gruesome demise, Richard Harris’ English Bob talking a good game and failing to back it up, or Jaimz Woolvett’s ‘Schofield Kid’ not being the stone-cold killer he claimed to be, death is everywhere.
Unfortunately for Eastwood, it also followed him home. In early 1992, when the picture was in the midst of post-production ahead of its theatrical release on August 7th, Brian Keith Neun was arrested, charged, and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation for calling the filmmaker’s office and issuing repeated death threats to him and his family.
The FBI eventually picked up Neun, but not before he’d made more than 40 calls to the headquarters of Malpaso Productions, demanding a multi-million dollar payout and threatening to kill Eastwood and his children if his demands weren’t met by a certain deadline.
“You kept trying to keep the lights out of my life,” he said in a taped call. “I will kill you.” On March 28th, he made another call, where he said: “Hot off the presses, and this is for you, Clint. I have the rights to that money. Rights. Got that? So there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me from collecting, and that includes up to, and including, your death.”
Even though he’d been charged with threatening to kill Eastwood and his family, Neun insisted that he was actually a huge fan of the actor’s work and had been since he was a child, with official documents revealing that he claimed he’d been “prompted by God” to terrorise the star and intimiate he’d murder him and his family if he didn’t get the money he believed he was owed.
It wasn’t an ideal scenario when he was putting the final touches on Unforgiven, but with Neun leaving a return number and address in several of the calls, he wasn’t too difficult to track down.
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