Despite the star status that Clint Eastwood would go on to acquire later in his career, including the countless Oscars for his directorial work and supporting actor roles, the Western star was yet to wow and amaze the studio and production executives with his undeniable charm and command over the screens. It wasn’t until the Dollars trilogy – the Sergio Leone-directed spaghetti Western films that are headlined by Eastwood as a Man With No Name – that he would truly become a coveted Hollywood classic.
However, like all stars who become great, the cowboy gunslinger too faced his share of bad days before making his mark in the cinematic industry.
Clint Eastwood Was Sacked by Universal Before His Fame
Long before his time as Blondie, Clint Eastwood signed a contract with Universal during his first few months of working in Hollywood. The actor’s potential, although dormant due to no coaching or schooling regarding theatre, showed tremendous creative potential. With the added bonus of looks, height, and physique to match, Eastwood would quickly land a job that would begin a chain reaction of events that ultimately led to his unprecedented fame.
But before he could go around from town to town on horseback, the Western hero would be rejected by Universal shortly after his stint at the studio. At the time, Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were both starting out as actors and were similarly fired by Universal. When asked about it, the latter explained that the studio decided to remove Eastwood from their contract “because his Adam’s apple stuck out too far. He talked too slow. And he had a chipped tooth and he wouldn’t get it fixed.” As for his friend, the studio didn’t find Burt Reynolds to possess the necessary skills to act.
Reynolds would also go on to mock the Western star saying, “You know, you are really screwed, because I can learn how to act. You can’t get rid of that Adam’s apple.” The next time Eastwood worked with Universal, he bagged a hefty $1 million paycheck as compared to the meager $75 a week he would get paid under contract.
Clint Eastwood Finds His Fame and Calling Elsewhere
The name, Clint Eastwood, has become so famous that it is ironic how the actor began his career and rose to unilateral fame by starting out as the Man With No Name. Despite starting out in the Hollywood lot behind Universal Studios, Eastwood’s calling, as he would later find out, lay in the vast landscapes of Italy. His fame grew from the three movies he did in collaboration with Italian filmmaker, Sergio Leone, in derided and sardonically titled spaghetti Western films that later became trademarks of Western cinema, even surpassing the John Wayne films in their reach and popularity in pop-culture trend.
With the fast approaching 70s, Clint Eastwood began to grow tired of his time as the gun-slinging antihero and traded his place on a horseback with the chair behind a director’s lens. His talent as a filmmaker started out slow but with an iron grip, Eastwood marched through the shifting decades of the ever-changing and evolving landscape of the film industry, bagging over 30 directorial features that include dramas, thrillers, musicals, political biopics, action, and of course, Westerns. In his lifetime, the actor-director secured 41 Academy Award nominations of which he won 13.
Source: Nicki Swift
