American Rebel (8 page)

While the network held firm and did not let Clint take any movie work (or appear on any other CBS shows as a guest in contemporary clothing, such as
The Jack Benny Show)
, Universal did manage to hire him out to play live rodeos, along with Sheb Wooley (substituting for Fleming, who refused to do them), who had had some rodeo experience in his years before becoming an actor, and Paul Brinegar. Together they put on a little skit with some singing and dancing. Both Wooley and Clint could sing well enough to pull it off, and they were quickly able to master the dancing, mostly some fake rope twirling. Audiences, mostly kids, flocked to see Rowdy Yates (not Clint Eastwood) in person. Clint and Wooley each received $1,500 per show.
^*

The other thing Clint was allowed to do was to make a 45-rpm single recording. A lot of the stars of 1950s and 1960s shows made records, and perhaps the most successful was Edd “Kookie” Byrnes of
77 Sunset Strip
, who had an improbable hit with “Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb),” at once the high-water mark and the drowning point of Byrnes’s relatively short-lived stardom. In 1961 Clint recorded “Unknown Girl” (backed with a cover version of a 1950s pop tune, “For All We Know”). The recording did well enough to get Clint an album deal,
Rawhide’s Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites
. Recorded on the Cameo Records label, the album featured Clint in a cowboy outfit on the front and back, without identifying his character as Rowdy Yates. The breathless back liner notes read in part:

The folk song that truly represents a branch of American culture is the western cowboy song. Ever since courageous Americans crossed the prairies, western songs have been popular. And there is no better prototype of that “cowboy” than Cameo/Parkway’s recording artist, Clint Eastwood, a “native” westerner and a “natural” performer.

This album represents a collection of songs closely identified with the spirit of America. Here, then, Cameo/Parkway’s talented vocalist Clint Eastwood, and America’s most popular “cowboy favorites” … an unsurpassed combination that spells “entertainment.”
^*

Audiences bought it in fairly good numbers, a testament to Clint’s popularity rather than to his singing. Most of the money went to Universal and Cameo, but Clint was less concerned about the profits than about what the gimmick might mean to his career. He wasn’t a pop country tune singer and didn’t want to be—his musical interests remained firmly rooted in jazz. When Cameo, with Universal’s enthusiastic approval, wanted to follow it up, Byrnes-style, Clint flatly rejected the notion. To avoid becoming the next “Kookie,” he brought his potential teen idol career to a screeching halt.

In February 1962 the show’s by-now-worldwide popularity led to a personal PR tour of Japan that featured Fleming and Clint in full-dress cowboy outfits. They were mobbed everywhere they went. Maggie did not accompany Clint on the tour, and many suspected that he simply did not want to take her, preferring to enjoy the fruits of his stardom unencumbered by a wife.

So Maggie stayed home, either oblivious to or unconcerned by Clint’s philandering, playing tennis with her new upscale friends that included William Wellman’s daughter, Cissy Wellman (whom she had met and become close to when Clint appeared in
Lafayette Escadrille)
, Bob Daley, and other neighbors and acquaintances.

More offers for starring roles in films came from both England and Rome; Clint wanted to take them but had to turn them down. In April 1963, his fourth year on the show, CBS sensed they needed to loosen
the reins just a bit and allowed Clint to make an appearance on another network TV hit series. One reason may have been that, for the first time,
Rawhide
had dropped in the ratings against some new and formidable competition.
International Showtime
on NBC managed to knock
Rawhide
out of the top twenty-five. Believing the show needed some fresh publicity, the network asked Clint to guest-star on an episode of its highly rated hit sitcom, Arthur Lubin’s
Mr. Ed
, based on a short story, “Ed Takes the Pledge,” by Walter Brooks.

Although it wasn’t exactly the type of stretch Clint was looking for, he agreed to do it as long as he did not have to appear as Rowdy Yates or wear cowboy clothing. The network readily acquiesced.

One of that show’s writers was his friend Sonia Chernus, who had helped arrange the meeting with Warren that led to his being cast on
Rawhide
. For this episode she wrote “Clint Eastwood Meets Mr. Ed.” The episode’s plot was as idiotic as the talking-horse premise of the sitcom: Mr. Ed is jealous of Clint’s horse on
Rawhide
, Midnight, because she’s been having affairs with other horses in the neighborhood. Clint remained above it all, did the episode dressed in the contemporary So-Cal style of sweater and slacks, smiled amiably, collected his fee, and went on his way. Nonetheless, by playing himself he had officially earned the status of “big television star.” Only upper-echelon celebrities such as Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Frank Sinatra could regularly make appearances on programs as themselves. Clint may not have particularly enjoyed the experience, playing, in effect, a horse’s ass, but that week’s numbers for
Mr. Ed
were huge, and afterward
Rawhide’s
ratings ticked up—but not enough to return it to the top twenty, a ranking it would never again attain.

    
C
lint’s troubled marriage took a potentially disastrous turn when he became involved with a twenty-nine-year-old statuesque brunette by the name of Roxanne Tunis. A stuntwoman, dancer, and occasional actress, Tunis had appeared in Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s 1961
West Side Story
and as an extra in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror film
The Birds
. She now showed up fairly regularly on
Rawhide
, where she met Clint. Separated from her husband, she and Clint began an intense and highly sexual affair. Tunis was openly affectionate to Clint on the set, as if she wanted the world to know what was going on. She cared for him constantly, openly massaging his neck,
listening to his problems, and putting absolutely no pressure on him for anything more than what she already had.

Often in the evenings, when shooting was through, he would go with Tunis to her place, stay awhile, and then leave for his home. No matter how late he arrived, Maggie never said anything and never complained. That he often may have smelled of another woman was something she tried to avoid dealing with, even though
Rawhide
had very little romance in its script and virtually none for Rowdy Yates. Everyone on the show knew about the affair, and if it bothered Clint or made any difference to him, he didn’t seem to care. If everyone knew, everyone knew.

Then one day Tunis was noticeably absent from the set. No one knew why; they may have just assumed that Clint had decided she was becoming too much of a distraction. That was not the case. Tunis was pregnant with Clint’s child, and they both decided it might be better if she stayed out of sight for the duration of her pregnancy.

A more immediate problem for Clint was Fleming’s increasing absences. Fleming was worried that he was becoming too typecast in his role and that as he got older, fewer and fewer parts would be offered to him once the series ended. He was unable to come to terms with the network about other offers he wanted to take and was looking for a hefty increase in salary. In 1964, as in almost every season of
Rawhide
, he dramatically walked off the show.
^*
This time Charles Gray, who had been on the show since 1961, compensated for Fleming’s absence and was now elevated to the larger role as the primary scout. Guest stars became increasingly prominent in the show’s plot lines. Both actions infuriated the always short-fused Fleming.

Then late in 1964 Fleming was offered a starring role in a Mexican-based western to be shot in Italy called
El magnifico stragnero (The Magnificent Stranger)
. Henry Fonda, Rory Calhoun, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Henry Silva, Steve Reeves, and Richard Harrison had all previously turned it down because of director Sergio Leone’s lowball offer of $15,000. Fleming thought about it for a while but ultimately said no.

Clint was now represented by the venerable and powerful William Morris Agency (but he still retained the financial management and industry clout of Irving Leonard for some deals, including anything that came out of
Rawhide
and anything else Leonard found on his own. Leonard was one of Clint’s most trusted associates; in the vernacular of
The Godfather
, his “consigliere”). One of its agents stationed in the Rome office, Claudia Sartori, had the idea of offering the Leone film to Clint. She screened an episode
of Rawhide
for Leone and his producers, Jolly Films, which was financing the movie.
^*
Miffed that Fleming had turned him down and increasingly desperate to find an American actor, Leone was pleasantly surprised at Clint’s ability to take the focus off of Fleming in virtually every scene they were in together. By the end of the screening, Leone was interested in Clint.

Sartori then took the script of
The Magnificent Stranger
back to America, to give to Clint, via Irving Leonard, to make sure all proprietary representation claims were honored. Leonard assigned a recent young protégé, Sandy Bressler, to personally deliver the script to Clint and gently urge him to take it. This was no easy task, as Clint, like Fleming and all the others, was firmly against appearing in something that sounded as absurd as a European-made western.

“I knew I wasn’t a cowboy,” Clint said later on. “But if you portray a cowboy and people think you’re a cowboy, that’s fine. … I was asked if I was afraid of being typed when I started
Rawhide …
but in reality everyone is typed for something.”

Clint offered little resistance to Bressler’s arguments because, as he discovered, the script wasn’t all that bad. It was, in fact, reminiscent of the great samurai films of Kurosawa and other classic Japanese filmmakers (whose movies, in turn, had been inspired by American westerns of the 1930s and 1940s). Clint was familiar with Kurosawa’s films because he had often shown them during his projectionist stint at Fort Ord. Besides, he’d never been to Italy before, and he could pick up a quick $15,000 (plus all expenses for the eleven-week shoot, including a round-trip coach ticket for one) for the few weeks’ work during
Rawhide’s
hiatus. He told Leonard he would take the deal if CBS allowed it. Leonard told him not to worry—pending Leone’s approval, he would convince the network to agree.

According to Clint, “Sergio Leone had only directed one other picture, but they told me he had a good sense of humor … [Besides] I had the series to go back to as soon as the hiatus was over. So I felt, ‘Why not?’ I’d never seen Europe. That was reason enough to go.”

At least that was what he told the public. Privately, he may have had an even more urgent reason for wanting to make the movie. He was about to become a father for the first time. Tunis was scheduled to deliver while he was in Spain, and that was one climactic event he wanted to be as far away from as possible.

As the Man with No Name in
A Fistful of Dollars
, 1967

C
lint left for Rome the first week of May, the day after
Rawhide’
s 1964 hiatus began, without Maggie but with his one-time neighbor and friend Bill Thompkins. Clint had helped Thompkins land the small part of Toothless on
Rawhide
, and he now hoped to pick up some work on Leone’s film as Clint’s stunt double and stand-in, something he also occasionally did on the show.