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Clint Eastwood and John Wayne … Friends or Foes?

By John McGran

 

His health was failing and good scripts were far and few between when John Wayne was offered the chance to co-star with Clint Eastwood in a 70s Western that would have certainly sent fans stampeding to theaters. The teaming of such iconic cowboy actors appeared a box office no-brainer—but then Wayne shot down the deal.

Hollywood insiders believe Wayne walked away because of a long-simmering feud with Eastwood and a deep-rooted disdain for the way the superstar actor had been portraying the values, traditions and heroes of the Old West in hit films such as A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Moviegoers could expect a clear message of good versus evil in a John Wayne Western. Wayne treated Westerns as folktales in which characters sometimes had to break the law to protect others, yet unquestionably remained the good guys with high morals and an unwavering love of country.

Wayne was considered the quintessential cowboy before Eastwood rode into town and introduced moviegoers to a grittier, darker and unforgiving depiction of the Old West. The lines between good and bad and right and wrong were much more blurred for Eastwood, who preferred to play the antihero—a man of few words and many unlikable qualities.

“I’ve always liked heroes that’ve had some sort of weakness or problems to overcome besides the problem of the immediate script,” Eastwood once explained. “That always keeps it much more interesting than doing it the conventional way.”

Eastwood became top draw in the 1960s following a trio of films infamously dubbed spaghetti Westerns because they were filmed in Italy. Suddenly there was a new, twisted gun in town and Wayne grew increasingly frustrated and angry as fewer scripts came his way.

The rift really hit the fan in 1973 when Eastwood debuted his extremely violent High Plains Drifter.

Wayne had seen enough. He was so repulsed by the film he lashed out in a well-publicized letter to Eastwood.

“That isn’t what the West was all about,” Wayne insisted. “That isn’t the American people who settled this country.”

Eastwood returned fire and tried to explain his controversial approach to the Old West.

“High Plains Drifter was meant to be a fable; it wasn’t meant to show the hours of pioneering drudgery,” he noted.

It’s a shame that the legendary actors could share such a burning passion for Westerns and a penchant for portraying iconic cowboy figures yet could never put aside their differences and share a soundstage or marquee.

Wayne let ego and anger spoil a last chance to not only end his feud with Eastwood but to also possibly appear in one more classic Western. Appropriately enough, the script that Wayne unceremoniously dismissed was titled The Hostiles.

Little is known about the script except that it reportedly focused on a young gambler (to be played by Eastwood) who wins half the estate of an older man (to be portrayed by Wayne). Legend has it that Eastwood was impressed enough to option the script then tried to convince Wayne to sign on with the project. When Wayne passed on a first draft, Eastwood had the script revised and returned to him.

Wayne reportedly took one look and erupted with the tirade: “This piece of sh– again! This kind of stuff is all they know how to write these days. The sheriff is the heavy; the townspeople are a bunch of jerks. Someone like me and Eastwood ride into town, know everything, act the big guys, and everyone else is a bunch of idiots.”

While The Hostiles script was DOA, the Wayne-Eastwood feud would live on until 1979, when Wayne died of stomach cancer.

About John McGran

Veteran author and web content creator John McGran has spent the past 40 years blazing trails in the fields of news, food and sports. The guy who grew up binge-watching black-and-white Westerns like The Rifleman, Gunsmoke and Bonanza has joined the posse of INSP writers to provide a colorful new look at the characters, shows and movies you know and love. 

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