Clint Eastwood was famous during his time as Rowdy Yates on Rawhide. His steely visage was beamed into millions of homes each week as he led the cattle home. But that level of notoriety couldn’t even marginally compare to the celebrity and renown Eastwood would gain in his film career.
According to Eastwood, the big turning point in his career was a movie he made in Spain for an Italian production company. Fans of Spaghetti Westerns will doubtlessly remember Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, the first in a trilogy of movies that catapulted Eastwood to international superstardom. In 1965, he told the Associated Press the story of how that movie changed everything, and how it caught the eye of one famous admirer.
“I was heading for the annual between-season layoff of Rawhide last year when my agent sent me this script,” he said. “I told him on the phone I wasn’t interested. I wanted to work on my golf game.”
“But then he said, ‘Look, it would give you a chance to go to Europe.’ I’d never been to Europe, so I said, okay, I’d read the script.
“The minute I read it I liked it.”
The audiences liked it as well, en masse. In 1965, A Fistful of Dollars had not yet been screened for fans in the United States. However, its European release turned Eastwood into a big name almost instantly.
“The first time I went to Italy, I just sneaked in,” he said. “I had a beard, but it didn’t matter. Nobody knew me anyway. And no one paid me any attention.
“But this [second] time, I was mobbed. I’d walk down the Via Veneto and people would come up and ask for my autograph. I was wined and dined and treated like a king.”
One of the heads Eastwood turned belonged to one of the biggest stars in classic Hollywood cinema. According to the Associated Press, Sophia Loren asked a friend, “Who is this man Clint Eastwood?” She continued, “He’s the biggest male star in Italy and I’ve never met him.”
The Rawhide star was flattered, stating, “That’s news to me. But if the lady wants to meet me, I’d sure enjoy meeting her.”