How Did Clint Eastwood Rise to Fame as a Spaghetti Western Antihero?

When the 1950s Eisenhower era turned to 1960s counterculture, John Wayne‘s frontier hero was replaced by the ultimate Western antihero: Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name,” who rode into town with a cheroot in his teeth, a poncho around his shoulders, and, when pushed, murder on his mind. He would take over as the genre’s top film star for decades.

Initially, Eastwood found little onscreen success in the 1950s, until he was tapped to play Rowdy Yates in the TV drama Rawhide, about the challenges of a cattle drive.