The casting that would save Clint Eastwood’s career was a “fluke”
Since the mid-1960s, we have known Clint Eastwood most prominently for his roles as ‘The Man With No Name’ in Sergio Leone’s beloved spaghetti western Dollars Trilogy and renegade cop Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films, amongst many others. The star has become so synonymous with the action-heavy, dialogue-light roles that he is as woven into the fabric of the cultural tapestry as his famously misquoted “Do I feel lucky?” line.
It feels strange that Eastwood was ever a fledgling actor trying to make their name in the world. However, like many of Hollywood’s favourite stars, who took terrible jobs or found themselves as background actors, Eastwood’s entry into the industry was not always plain sailing.
According to Eastwood’s biographer Patrick McGilligan, he met a photographer called Chuck Hill, who would play an instrumental part in getting Eastwood’s career off the ground. Hill urged Eastwood to audition for the director Arthur Lubin at Universal Pictures when he moved from Northern California to Los Angeles. It was a strange step for the soon-to-be star.
Eastwood had no acting experience, but he was handsome, had a natural, steely charisma and looked glorious in front of the camera. Universal offered Eastwood a $75-per-week contract while he took acting classes at the studio. It’s the kind of scenario that is unthinkable in today’s industry where expectations are far higher. Eastwood apparently biologically had 90% of what an actor needed, now he just needed the craft.
He finally had his foot in the acting door, but towards the end of the 1950s, his hope of making it to the big time had started to fade. The acting work at Universal began to dry up. He was still managing to score small TV roles, mostly “motorcycle hoods and lab assistants,” but his big break remained elusive. A tough time in any actor’s life comes when the road to stardom begins to divide and a choice has to be made. Eventually, that break came, although Eastwood later admitted that it was something of a “fluke.”
“I was visiting a friend at CBS,” Eastwood said in retrospect in an interview with Rex Reed. “And an executive saw me drinking coffee in the cafeteria and came over and asked me to test. It was a fluke.” That test was to be for the CBS TV show Rawhide, in which Eastwood portrayed the young and tempestuous cattle drover Rowdy Yates. It was a role that would change his life forever and set him on a journey toward icon status.
It was from his success in Rawhide over eight seasons of the show that Eastwood decided to take a gamble on one of the roles for which he would be most acclaimed. He then told Reed: “In the sixth year, I had exhausted everything I could do on a horse, so I took a hiatus and went to Spain to make Fistful of Dollars. I had nothing to lose. I had a job waiting in TV, and I knew if it was a flop, nobody would ever see it anyway.”It was in Sergio Leone’s first film of the Dollars Trilogy (all of which featured Eastwood) that the legendary actor was introduced to the world on a major scale. However, without the “fluke” screen test that led him to play in Rawhide, it’s unlikely that the legendary actor would have ever had the confidence to take a gamble on the western classic.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Clint Eastwood Newsletter
All the latest stories about Clint Eastwood from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.