Legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood said one 1958 movie experience left him so raw he considered quitting acting.
But Maggie Johnson, Eastwood’s wife at the time, convinced him to stick with it after “Ambush at Cimarron Pass,” and we’re glad he did.
According to Screen Rant, Eastwood eyed going back to school and training in something else. He had just got a leading role, and the quality of the 73-minute movie broke his heart.
But a year later, Eastwood found a home with the “Rawhide” TV series. After that, he made his 12th film, “A Fistful of Dollars (1964),” and the rest is history.
But who knows what would happen if they got out of the business. Would Eastwood have turned to directing or his singing career? Who knows. But we would’ve lost an acting legend right before his fabled career started.
Movie Disaster In The Making?
There are many reasons why the 64-year-old movie bothered Eastwood so much.
Was it the basic plot? Eastwood plays Keith Williams in a group of cowboys working in a cattle drive. The men come together to fight a group of Native Americans who want to steal rifles that they’re hauling. The union of Yankees and Confederates is shaky as they battle repeated attacks while trying to get to a safe fort. Western mainstay Scott Brody played Sgt. Matt Blake for $25,000, while Eastwood earned $750.
IMDb noted a bunch of Clint Eastwood issues. According to the website, the production lasted eight days, and Eastwood had many problems with it. First, the film was director Jodie Copelan’s only movie after years of working as a film editor. Also, the movie’s initial writers got fired at one point. The new guys came in and wrote a similar script. Then, they got fired, and the director brought back the original guys. What a mess!
Later on, when Clint Eastwood became a star, the movie studio changed the film around to make Eastwood the star.
Want to watch the movie? Check it out here.
Other Movie Stars In Same Boat
Gene Hackman had a similar experience with 1994’s “Welcome To Mooseport.”
The longtime actor and former Marine started acting later in his life and went on to 48 years of movies. Now, the 92-year-old man, who had a birthday Sunday, is a writer.
Well, that final movie turned out to be a bust with a $30 million budget and only $14.6 in box office earnings.
The late Sean Connery also wasn’t feeling movies anymore before his death.
According to friend Michael Caine in The Telegraph newspaper, the movie business “retired him” because of his persona in 2011. Caine said Connery, who died in 2020, “didn’t want to play small parts about old men.” At the same time, the actor said the Bond legend wasn’t getting “any young parts in romantic leads.”
Clint Eastwood, on the other hand, is still turning out the hits.
