When you live with Hollywood royalty for so long, it’s almost easy to forget that, at one point, they were up-and-comers looking for a gig wherever they could get it. It’s a tough industry to make a name for yourself, especially when so many others are trying to do the same. Sometimes you nab the role that gets your foot in the door on a whim, and for Clint Eastwood, his big break was the CBS western series “Rawhide.” For eight seasons of television, he was a series mainstay as the ramrod turned cattle boss Rowdy Yates. If not for landing this show, which Eastwood referred to as a fluke that saved his acting career, he likely wouldn’t have made an exodus to Spain and therein, become one of the great movie stars on account of Sergio Leone’s genre-defining “Dollars” trilogy. It’s sad to think of a world where audiences weren’t introduced to the infamous Clint squint.
The success of “Rawhide” proves just how influential one role can be in the evolution of an actor’s career, especially since Eastwood technically made his industry debut about four years earlier with an uncredited part in 1955’s “Revenge of the Creature.” He bounced around from uncredited roles in creature features like Universal’s “Tarantula” and taking on bit roles in films like “The First Traveling Saleslady,” in addition to booking guest spots on shows like “Highway Patrol” and “Maverick.”
All these decades later, Eastwood has blossomed into a genre unto himself. He operates out of his own production company and has continued to direct films well into his 90s, with no signs of stopping. In hindsight, it was clear that Eastwood has all the makings of a movie star on the rise, so it was only a matter of time until he was discovered by the right people. However, it could have all looked very different.
Actors sometimes talk about all of the “what if” roles they passed on, especially if the films themselves have gone on to become phenomenons like “The Matrix.” They’re often so tied to the actors who did star in them that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in their place. When Eastwood was still in his pre-“Rawhide” era, he could have his big screen splash in a Marilyn Monroe movie.
Clint Eastwood nearly starred in Joshua Logan’s Bus Stop
In a 2021 interview with Parade, Eastwood was asked if his acting sensibilities were influenced by movie starlet Marilyn Monroe and, in the process, revealed that his big break could have come a lot sooner than it did with a significant role in the 1956 film “Bus Stop”:
“Marilyn Monroe?! No, I was never influenced by her. I was up for a part in [Monroe’s 1956 romantic comedy] ‘Bus Stop’ as a young guy. The director, Josh[ua] Logan, was going to choose between me and John Smith. I was kind of excited because she was so attractive, and I thought, This could be OK. And, of course, it didn’t become OK because Josh cast some other guy in New York. Like you’re ready to hit the ball out of the park and then, nothing.”
Based on the 1955 stage play of the same name, “Bus Stop” is a romantic dramedy with musical elements starring Monroe as a cafe chanteuse named Chérie who dreams of Hollywood. Her life becomes complicated when a boorish traveling cowboy named Beauregard “Bo” Decker (Don Murray) sets his lurid sights on her. Through a contemporary lens, “Bus Stop” boasts a creepy plot about a woman who couldn’t care less about her abusive suitor, and finds herself in a plot to escape his clutches before he can forcefully drag her back to Montana. Bo has no intentions on letting her go until he marries her. Murray received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but it’s easy to see why this isn’t as revered as other Monroe works like “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Some Like It Hot.”
Had Eastwood been cast as Bo, it certainly would have gotten more eyes on him. He’s always had that flexible movie star charisma. But at the same time, it’s definitely for the best that Eastwood wasn’t put in a position to make his screen stand while harassing Monroe. In his case, waiting for the chance of a lifetime paid off incredibly well. Although Eastwood never got to be described in the “Bus Stop” trailer as “Hollywood’s newest hunk of man,” he would, however, get a chance to work with the film’s director Joshua Logan 13 years later after the fact with the notorious western-musical epic “Paint Your Wagon” (with blood, I bet). Has “Bus Stop” ever received a cultural resurgence because of “The Simpsons?” I think not!
