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 . 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.”
An international affair
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 . “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.”
