Clint Eastwood’s 217-episode Western TV series changed the genre forever afterward. Eastwood has been working in TV and movies since 1955. He’s an actor, a director, and a staple of not just Westerns, but movie and television history. There’s no doubt, though, that it is Westerns where he’s made his longest-lasting mark.
Eastwood’s career can be defined and tracked by his involvement in the genre. You could write an entire book about his relationship with Westerns. His portrayal as the Man with No Name in the Dollars trilogy stands as one of the great Western performances. His other films, like Paint Your Wagon, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, and numerous others, are just as important to the genre.
He’s even contended with his role in Westerns, directing and starring in Unforgiven, an anti-Western. Eastwood has an immense sense of self when it comes to his role in the history of Westerns. He should, considering one of his first performances was in a show that changed Westerns forever.
Eastwood co-starred in Rawhide, an eight-season Western TV show that ran from 1959 to 1965. Eastwood stars as Rowdy Yates, a ramrod (a foreman on a cattle drive) and a member of the cattle train at the center of the series. Rawhide follows the crew of the cattle train, with episodes involving the people and places the drivers meet along the way.
Rowdy is on the younger side of the cattle drivers, and often behaves like you would expect an impetuous young man to. Over the course of the series, Rowdy matures and becomes one of the key members of the drive, eventually making trail boss. Rawhide is one of the great Western shows, and a gamechanger for the genre.
Rawhide Had A Massive Impact On The Western Genre’s Development
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Rawhide‘s impact on the Western genre begins with its introduction of Eastwood to a wider audience, but there is so much more to it than that. Even the theme song, Frankie Laine’s “Rawhide”, is a crackling herald of Westerns that feels like the theme song of the entire genre.
Rawhide presents a more ambiguous vision of the West. Before Rawhide, and for years afterward before it caught on, Westerns were often heroic and idealistic, showcasing a vision of the West that just needed a strong guiding hand to be tamed, and where people could be split up into good and bad.
In Rawhide, characters are morally grey. Heroes often do the wrong thing, and outlaws aren’t always the evil forces they are made out to be. The series took a more realistic approach to the genre, a sensibility that Eastwood clearly held on to in the decades after the show ended.
Rawhide Wasn’t Clint Eastwood’s Only Western Role On TV
Eastwood did not spend too much time with television. Rawhide is the only show he ever appeared in more than two episodes in. He did have some notable appearances, though. One of his first acting roles ever came in an episode of 1955’s Highway Patrol, and he also had guest appearances in The West Point Story, Navy Log, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Most notably, besides Rawhide, he played Red Hardigan in an episode of Maverick. Red is the villain of the week, a bully who doesn’t take too kindly to Bret Maverick (James Garner) pining after his girlfriend, Carrie (Abby Dalton). Westerns would not be where they are today without Eastwood and the shows and movies that gifted him to the world.
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