'I Was Close to Quitting': Clint Eastwood's Career Was Saved by This Perfect Western Show

At the age of 93, Clint Eastwood is still producing top-notch movies and sometimes even entertaining audiences with his own presence on screen.

As an actor, he became the main man of Westerns of all time, shining in the roles of brave cops and cowboys.

Eastwood's legendary portrayal of the loner anti-hero in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, and his Man With No Name with poncho, cigar and quick-to-kill revolver became one of the most iconic images in cinema history.

Eastwood paved his way to the big screen through TV series, although it was an almost impassable road in those days. He won the public's love in the TV western Rawhide, but few know that he got the role almost by accident, and before that he had planned to give up cinema altogether.

Clint Eastwood Was Ready to Quit Cinema

In the book Clint Eastwood: Interviews, Revised and Updated, the actor and director admits that at one point he got tired of playing the same kind of supporting roles and thought about giving up:

"I was close to quitting when Rawhide came along. I was visiting a friend at CBS and an executive saw me drinking coffee in the cafeteria and came over and asked me to test."

Rawhide is Still One of the Best TV Westerns

That's how Eastwood became Rowdy, the cowboy of Rawhide, a series that ran from 1959 to 1965 and, even after nearly 60 years, is still considered by Western aficionados to be one of the best television examples of the genre.

The series also gave the world a popular theme song, covered by The Blues Brothers and the hardcore band Dead Kennedys, and two potential movie stars, one of whose careers was tragically cut short. In 1966, star Eric Fleming drowned while filming his new movie in Peru.

Dollars Trilogy Made Eastwood Truly Famous

Although Rawhide was a breakthrough in his career, Clint soon grew tired of the role of Rowdy – he was already almost thirty years old and his character was much younger, so the actor always felt out of place.

At the same time, Clint starred in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns in Europe. In the US this trilogy was released a little late and immediately catapulted the actor into the ranks of the greats.

Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly were different from the old-fashioned American westerns. The role of the gunfighter from the wastelands of the American frontier remained one of the most important in Eastwood's career.

Source: Clint Eastwood: Interviews, Revised and Updated by Robert E. Kapsis, Kathie Coblentz