'To me Clint closely resembled a cat': Sergio Leone on the role that made Eastwood a movie star

Clint Eastwood was catapulted to film stardom when he played a brooding gunslinger in Sergio Leone's first Spaghetti Western, A Fistful of Dollars. In a 1977 interview with the BBC, the Italian director confessed that he "really wanted" another actor for the now iconic role.

A man clad in a dusty poncho and wide-brimmed hat swaggers through an empty street in a harsh desert town. "Get three coffins ready," he instructs a coffin-maker, before confronting the men who have been mocking him. "My mistake," he adds, after shooting the thugs. "Four coffins". This is one of the moments that defined the brooding gunslinger played by Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), changing cinema history in the process. 

In a 1977 interview with BBC reporter Iain Johnstone, Eastwood appears in a very different setting, with a more genial demeanour. Convivial and charming, the actor bears only a faint resemblance to the stern, hardened protagonist of Sergio Leone's Western.

At first, Eastwood recalled, he was "not particularly" interested in joining the low-budget European film. He was no stranger to Westerns, as at the time he was starring in the hit television series Rawhide, which took a much more traditional, American approach to the genre. "I liked [A Fistful of Dollars], though, and I felt that maybe a European approach would give the Western new flavour."

As perfect as many would consider Eastwood's casting, Leone initially had James Coburn (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven) in mind for the part. "I really wanted James Coburn, but he was too expensive," the Italian director told the BBC. At the time, Eastwood was the more affordable option, costing around $15,000 ($152,000 or £116,000 in 2024) compared to Coburn at about $25,000 ($254,000 or £193,000 in 2024).

"I didn't see any character in Rawhide, only a physical figure," Leone said. "What struck me most about Clint was his indolent way of moving. It seemed to me Clint closely resembled a cat."

Blockbuster epics that had reigned during the Golden Age of Hollywood began to wane in popularity in the 1960s. Leone, who by that time was well-known for directing low-budget Italian flicks, decided to take a spin on the US Western.

The result was A Fistful of Dollars (first released in Italy as Per un pugno di dollari), which was unlike its predecessors in the genre. Based on Akira Kurosawa's samurai tale Yojimbo, the film centred on Eastwood's morally grey "Joe", later stylised as the Man with No Name, who instigates a gang war in the Mexican town of San Miguel to make money. Fistful brought together a cast and crew from across the US and several European countries. As Eastwood put it, the film was: "an Italian-German-Spanish co-production of a remake of a Japanese film in the plains of Spain".

"I knew 'arrivederci' and 'buongiorno' and [Leone] knew 'goodbye' and 'hello' and that was it," Eastwood told the BBC. "Then he learned a little English and I learned a little Italian – and between, a little Spanish – and we kind of just fudged our way along."

The actors would say their lines in their native tongues, which would then be dubbed into Italian and English for the film's respective audiences. The script consisted of an "Italian concept of what a Western slang would be," Eastwood said. 

Italian critics panned the film when it premiered in Italy on 12 September 1964. Further negative reviews followed in other countries. "The calculated sadism of the film would be offensive were it not for the neutralising laughter aroused by the ludicrousness of the whole exercise," wrote UK critic Philip French in The Observer.

When A Fistful of Dollars reached screens in the US in 1967, reviews there were similarly disapproving. "Just about every Western cliche... is in this egregiously synthetic but engrossingly morbid, violent film," wrote Bosley Crowther in the New York Times. The film's US debut was delayed for a few years because American distributors were afraid of being sued by Kurosawa, who had filed a suit against Leone for copying Yojimbo.

The release of Leone's inaugural Western sparked the rise of Western all'Italiana, a subgenre of films produced in Italy, which colloquially became known as "Spaghetti Westerns". The word "spaghetti" smacked of critics' initial condescension towards this international production. Similar types of Westerns took on similar monikers, such as "Paella Westerns" in Spain and "Ramen Westerns" in Japan.

"It took a while for Leone to influence American filmmaking because at least initially critics disparaged his films and those of his colleague Sergio Corbucci," says Dr Mary Ann McDonald Carolan, professor and director of Italian Studies at Fairfield University. "The Spaghetti Western was considered a low-budget, ridiculously exaggerated version of the 'real' Western."

Unlike their traditional counterparts, Spaghetti Westerns focused on anti-heroes and thrived on moral ambiguity. Eastwood's Joe incites a conflict between two rival gangs of smugglers with the purpose of stealing their gold; it's only when innocent people are hurt that he steps in to neutralise the gangs. Spaghetti Westerns also featured much more gratuitous violence, sometimes toward women and children. According to Carolan, typical American Westerns glorified westward expansion and idealised the Wild West, whereas spaghetti westerns parodied and subverted that view. By highlighting the violence on which this expansion was predicated, these films were also broader critiques of a turbulent decade of global politics, especially in the midst of the controversial Vietnam War.

Due to the language barriers during production, dialogue became simpler and less frequent, leading to the emergence of Leone's distinct directorial style. Wide establishing shots, silent dramatic close-ups and striking musical scores by composer Ennio Morricone, featuring iconic whistles and rattles, became trademarks of Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. "My films are basically silent films," he told the BBC. "The dialogue just adds some weight." The style is echoed in the works of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, both of whom are among the directors and film greats who have cited Leone as an influence.

A Fistful of Dollars transformed Eastwood from a television actor to a silver-screen giant. He went on to star in Fistful's sequels, For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, forming the Dollars trilogy, as well as a host of other Westerns.

"Just as Jimi Hendrix went to England to become famous, the three Westerns Eastwood did for Leone launched his illustrious career," says David Irving, film-maker and associate professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. "Leone took a tired genre, the Western, and breathed new life into it."

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Despite critics' initial icy response, A Fistful of Dollars gained grassroots traction and became a hit at both the European and US box offices, earning $14.5m (about £11m) internationally. It continued to grow in popularity in the decade after its release and developed a loyal following among cinephiles. The film has gone on to inspire works in multiple forms of media, from cartoons to video games, as well as other directors, and Leone was honoured posthumously at the 67th Cannes Film Festival in 2014, where A Fistful of Dollars was shown on the closing night, securing its transformation from derided "faux-Western" to genuine classic.

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