‘I don’t even want to talk to him’: What actor wouldn’t want to meet Sergio Leone and have a few extra bucks?

‘I don’t even want to talk to him’: What actor wouldn’t want to meet Sergio Leone and have a few extra bucks?

Find out which actor Sergio Leone didn’t want to talk to as he prepared to shoot his second western, And a Few Dollars More.

If Clint Eastwood had already seen his career revived with the role of Sergio Leone in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), and a few more dollars, filmed the following year, would save the still-unknown actor in complete distress. … Lee Van Cleef.

Initially, the character of Douglas Mortimer, the mentor of this new Italian western, was to be subordinated to Lee Marvin, who agreed and whom Leone adored in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But at the last moment, the Hollywood actor leaves the shooting to move on to another project, Cat Ballou, in which he plays two roles and which will bring him an Oscar for best actor.

That’s why Leone finds himself in the water with his beard and passes by Academy players, a photo catalog of all members of the Screen Actors Guild. in Წign Once Upon a Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone Italian film director Christopher Fraing recalls:

He looked a bit like a hairdresser from southern Italy, but with that characteristic aquiline nose and almond eyes… I remembered seeing him three times in The Train Will Whistle, where he played as an extra and in Bravado and Settle at the OK Corral.

Lee Van Cleef gets on the train three times

It clearly applies Lee Van Cleef Approaching his fifties, he hasn’t filmed since 1962 and is content with TV appearances in 2 or 3 episodes of a series without really getting his career off the ground. After a serious car accident and a long stay in the hospital, the actor thinks that he will forever remain a fourth-rate actor and will no longer work. He spends his days painting and drinking a little too much.

“I saw it coming from afar”Leone recalls thinking about their first date. “He looked just the way he needed to. He had short hair and was wearing a very dirty long trench coat with tall black boots. He looked like an old grizzled eagle.”

Lee Van Cleef and a few more bucks

The director then recalls telling his production manager:

I don’t even want to talk to him, because if I do, I might resent him and not hire him, and that would be a big mistake.

So Van Cleef blindly accepts this new role, comes second on the poster, discovers the script on the plane that takes him to Spain to shoot. In an instant, he finds himself in the costume of the impeccable hunter Douglas Mortimer, who teams up with other young hunters to take down an Indian and his gang, too many robbers and dangerous for him to attack them alone.

The film becomes an instant classic, destroying everything in its path. Van Cleef takes the title of Spaghetti Western star. Since then, he has continued filming in Italy, shooting several jewels of the genre, from Colorado to Last Day of Wrath, Passing Death on Date, Sabbat or Last Duel. He also finds the role of Sergio Leone “This pig from Sentenza” In the good, the bad and the ugly.

Sentenza in the good, the bad and the ugly

Then the actor returned to the United States, where in the early 80s and after filming in New York in 1997, he suffered the complete burden of disappearing from the Western screens. After a hiatus from 1981 to 1984, he returned to television. A young Timothy Van Patten in Martial Arts Man Katana for episode 13.

Van Cleef returns to Italy to make three series B with Antonio Margheriti: Code Name: Wild Geese, in which he finds Klaus Kinski twenty years later and for a few more dollars, then Adventures in Hell and Triangle of Fear. He died in 1989 of a heart attack. His last film, Fate Thieves, was released the following year.

Chance of Destiny: Leone wanted Lee Marvin after worshiping him in Liberty Valance, eventually hiring Van Cleef, who also appeared in a much smaller role in a John Ford western.

Van Cleef also played guests In The Twilight Zone… Like Lee Marvin!

Source: allocine

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