Clint Eastwood got his start roping and riding his way through the Wild West in “Rawhide” as Rowdy Yates, but did you know that he also performed his own stunts on the Western hit? Eastwood did the work uncredited for the sake of authenticity and he got a lot of pride out of being able to do it all by himself. “After all, this is an action show,” he told The Modesto Bee while shooting the series (via MeTV). “It’s a lot more gratifying when I can perform the action myself instead of having a double do it for me.”
Eastwood was known in Hollywood for being well-conditioned. He’s always been a strong swimmer — so strong that he served as an instructor in sea survival at Fort Ord in California after being drafted during the Korean War. Upon leaving the military, he used his toughness and physical strength to help launch an acting career, quickly earning a reputation as a hard worker. “A lot of actors are in pretty good shape, but they aren’t conditioned to periods of long physical effort,” he explained. “They get pretty tired toward the end of an active day, and it shows up in their performances.”
Eastwood still takes a hands-on approach
If you’re a fan of 1971’s “Dirty Harry,” one Clint Eastwood’s best-ever Westerns, then you may already know that the actor did his own stunts in the film but remained uncredited. He also did most of the stunts in his 1975 action thriller film “The Eiger Sanction,” for which he learned how to mountain climb. But the bigger he became, the more he began to rely on stuntman Wayne “Buddy” Van Horn, who took the fall for Eastwood in a number of movies.
Eastwood getting a stuntman was apparently at the behest of the studios, as Van Horn has made it clear that Eastwood was always trying to do his own stunt work. “There’s been a couple of times that he’s wanted to do something and I talked him out of it,” Van Horn told the Independent in 2010. “He’s a pretty physical guy and likes to do his own stunts. Some of the things he does were pretty easy to get banged up. I’ve tried to talk him out of it sometimes, but not very successfully most of the time.”
Even today, Eastwood likes to get as hands-on as possible. He was 91-years-old when he made 2021’s “Cry Macho,” yet he still threw punches and even rode horseback. “The wrangler was worried,” Eastwood revealed to the Los Angeles Times. “She was saying, ‘Be careful, be careful now.’ She was scared I’d end up on my rear end. But if you treat the horse like a buddy, he’ll take care of you.” While “Cry Macho” received lukewarm reviews, the fact that Eastwood is still willing to put his body on the line for his craft is just one of the reasons he’s a Hollywood great.