Clint Eastwood followed Rawhide with a musical

However, Clint Eastwood definitely cannot sing.

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Clint Eastwood Sings ’’Beyond the Sun’’ on Rawhide
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Before he was one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, Clint Eastwood was the star of the sixth-longest-running classic TV Western. From 1959 to 1965, Eastwood starred as Rowdy Yates, the young and sometimes rash cattle hand on Rawhide. During those years, Eastwood established himself as a Western actor, so Western roles were all that was available to him when the show ended. Clint made a name for himself on American TV, but three Italian movies catapulted him to international fame.

Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy made a movie star out of the guy on Rawhide. A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly propelled Eastwood to new levels of fame. But the praise didn't come right away. While the first of those movies was released internationally in 1964, it didn't show up on American movie screens for several years later. In the interim, Eastwood starred in several movies and signed on to several more. Some of them were successes, like Hang 'Em High and Coogan's Bluff, but not all of his film roles were smash hits. 

By the time The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly made Clint Eastwood a superstar in America, he'd already signed a contract to appear in Paint Your Wagon. Production delays meant that by the time he was on set, Clint Eastwood was in a very different place in his career than he was when he originally agreed to be in the movie. Unfortunately for him, he was unable to wriggle out of the rapidly changing production and was held to his obligations.

Paint Your Wagon was positioned as an adaptation of the 1951 Broadway musical of the same name. However, by the time the movie was in production, the story was very different from the source material. While the story always took place during the California gold rush, the movie injected the tale with a nontraditional love triangle that then-contemporary audiences just weren't ready for. While the object of Eastwood and co-star Lee Marvin's affection was Jean Seberg, the production purposefully added some palpable romantic tension between the two male leads. 

Eastwood was frustrated with the delays and the changes to the story, and the difficulties ultimately led him into directing. Clint Eastwood never again appeared in a production that he didn't control, at least somewhat. And while he always had a tough-guy Hollywood persona, Eastwood as the paragon of hyper-masculinity is a direct reaction to the ways he felt betrayed by Paint Your Wagon. 

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14 Comments

BrittReid 11 months ago
Did he fire six shots or only five?
BenSobeleone BrittReid 11 months ago
Hey, I gots to know!
Runeshaper 11 months ago
A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly were all AWESOME! Clint Eastwood ROCKS!
KJExpress 11 months ago
I've never seen the film, but I'm familiar with the music. It's got some good songs. I don't know which ones would have been sung by Eastwood.
justjeff 11 months ago
Once again... the misfit writers at MeTV NEVER confuse the facts with a good (albeit) false narrative.

Not only CAN Eastwood sing, he did so *many* times, and even cut an album of "Cowboy Favorites" in the 1960s! Sure, he's no Sinatra... but his voice IS pleasant...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2eQUikKahc&list=PLLrMVonyKv_Arre5K9Q4glQsgQRo_2VBI

I'd love to hear what the singing voices of those MeTV writers are...
cperrynaples 11 months ago
I've seen this movie and Eastwood's singing is pretty good! As for Lee Marvin...no comment! There's a classic Simpsons where Homer rents what he thinks is a western, but when he starts to play it...Well you can guess the rest..LOL!
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MrsPhilHarris cperrynaples 11 months ago
I don't know I kind of like Marvin's I Was Born Under A Wandering Star
BenSobeleone MrsPhilHarris 11 months ago
That's the song I remember the most from the movie. That was a good one by Marvin. Christopher Lee does a cover of Wandering Star and the video is on youtube if ya like to check it out.
MrsPhilHarris BenSobeleone 11 months ago
I just watched Christopher Lee sing the song. Not too bad.
BenSobeleone MrsPhilHarris 11 months ago
Yep, the man could sing!
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