Summary

Though they are likely the two big names in the Western genre , John Wayne and Clint Eastwood did n’t get along which obliterate any hopes of them star together on the big screen . Whereas John Wayne had been a mainstay in the genre since his acclaimed breakthrough role in John Ford’sStagecoach(1939 ) , Clint Eastwood — most 25 years Wayne ’s junior — did n’t make it until his unveiling as a lead man in Sergio Leone’sDollarstrilogy ( 1964 – 1966 ) . The apparent succession was difficult for Wayne , who was also dismayed by the dour transition that the genre was making , coinciding with Eastwood ’s rise to renown .

Though it would not be fair to blame Eastwood for the emergence ofthe coarse-grained spaghetti westerly subgenrewhich refuted the classic Western ’s unending romance for its depicted era , his elevation to gunslinging mainstay was only possible because of Sergio Leone . Just as Wayne and Ford are forever synonymous , as are Eastwood and Leone . Wayne outright condemned the organic evolution the westerly music genre underwent in the 1960s , deny to asterisk alongside Clint Eastwood even though Clint Eastwood was eager to puzzle out with him . Because the two subgenres of Wild West movies were never reconcile , it meant inevitably that Wayne and Eastwood would never be either .

John Wayne Hated Eastwood’s Take On The Western

Wayne’s Traditional View Of Westerns Was Challenged By A More Rebellious New Era

John Wayne and conductor John Ford together epitomized the early 20th - century allegiance to portrayals of the Old West : charming , starry - eyed , and probably a bit out of sense of touch . Though many from the era were still alive by the clock time of the music genre ’s golden long time , its most popular additions were obstinately inaccurate and over - idyllic . When Clint Eastwood — and the spaghetti subgenre with which he was best associated — came along , the ideals of unambiguous morality , American Exceptionalism , and Manifest Destiny were torn apart . Wayne , incessantly patriotic and conservative , was opposed to such progressivenessand was particularly irritated by Eastwood ’s rising star , which arguably follow to surpass his own for a meter in the 1960s .

fabled Western thespian John Wayne had a major gripe with a classic 1952 Western film , turning down the lead role because of ideological differences .

Clint Eastwood & John Wayne Represented Two Different Generations

Audiences Wanted Westerns That Mirrored The Morally Complex Society Of The Time

The landscape painting of the Western had changed drastically by the end of the sixties . Not only had the revisionist subgenre ( whose durability would carry it all the way of life 21st 100 , best exemplify by the 2016 miniseriesGodless ) captured the hearts of hearing , but spaghetti Westerns especially had rewritten the laws of the writing style entirely .

A Fistful of Dollars(1964 ) — a remaking of Kurosawa’sYojimbo(1961 ) — marked the dawn of a Modern age of puncher pictures , spearheaded by Eastwood , Charles Bronson , and Franco Nero . The novel generation preferred a grittier , bloody , andmore unapologetic delineation of the Old West , contradicting the bang-up works of Wayne , who came from an old multiplication of westerly romantics .

John Wayne Refused To Star In A Clint Eastwood Movie

Wayne Saw The Collaboration As Favoring Eastwood’s Style Rather Than His Own

B - movie directorLarry Cohen envisioned Wayne and Eastwoodwould play together on aWestern that he was compose , The Hostiles , which began coming together in the early 1970s . There ’s not much known about the script – other than that it focus on a young gambler and an older man – but Wayne saw it as a protraction of the spaghetti westerly trend which he believe was plaguing the genre . In particular , he had been unimpressed by Eastwood ’s directorial debutHigh Plains Drifter(1973 ) , a cynical , aromantic illustration of the Old West . The difference was unresolved because Wayne ’s thought of the earned run average — one of grandeur and mystique — could not be reconciled with the new interpretations that Eastwood pioneered .

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