Free American Rebel by Marc Eliot

Birds
. She now showed up fairly regularly on
Rawhide
, where she met Clint. Separated from her husband, she and Clint began an intense and highly sexual affair. Tunis was openly affectionate to Clint on the set, as if she wanted the world to know what was going on. She cared for him constantly, openly massaging his neck,listening to his problems, and putting absolutely no pressure on him for anything more than what she already had.
    Often in the evenings, when shooting was through, he would go with Tunis to her place, stay awhile, and then leave for his home. No matter how late he arrived, Maggie never said anything and never complained. That he often may have smelled of another woman was something she tried to avoid dealing with, even though
Rawhide
had very little romance in its script and virtually none for Rowdy Yates. Everyone on the show knew about the affair, and if it bothered Clint or made any difference to him, he didn’t seem to care. If everyone knew, everyone knew.
    Then one day Tunis was noticeably absent from the set. No one knew why; they may have just assumed that Clint had decided she was becoming too much of a distraction. That was not the case. Tunis was pregnant with Clint’s child, and they both decided it might be better if she stayed out of sight for the duration of her pregnancy.
    A more immediate problem for Clint was Fleming’s increasing absences. Fleming was worried that he was becoming too typecast in his role and that as he got older, fewer and fewer parts would be offered to him once the series ended. He was unable to come to terms with the network about other offers he wanted to take and was looking for a hefty increase in salary. In 1964, as in almost every season of
Rawhide
, he dramatically walked off the show. * This time Charles Gray, who had been on the show since 1961, compensated for Fleming’s absence and was now elevated to the larger role as the primary scout. Guest stars became increasingly prominent in the show’s plot lines. Both actions infuriated the always short-fused Fleming.
    Then late in 1964 Fleming was offered a starring role in a Mexican-based western to be shot in Italy called
El magnifico stragnero (The Magnificent Stranger)
. Henry Fonda, Rory Calhoun, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Henry Silva, Steve Reeves, and Richard Harrison had all previously turned it down because of director Sergio Leone’s lowball offer of $15,000. Fleming thought about it for a while but ultimately said no.
    Clint was now represented by the venerable and powerful William Morris Agency (but he still retained the financial management and industry clout of Irving Leonard for some deals, including anything that came out of
Rawhide
and anything else Leonard found on his own. Leonard was one of Clint’s most trusted associates; in the vernacular of
The Godfather
, his “consigliere”). One of its agents stationed in the Rome office, Claudia Sartori, had the idea of offering the Leone film to Clint. She screened an episode
of Rawhide
for Leone and his producers, Jolly Films, which was financing the movie. * Miffed that Fleming had turned him down and increasingly desperate to find an American actor, Leone was pleasantly surprised at Clint’s ability to take the focus off of Fleming in virtually every scene they were in together. By the end of the screening, Leone was interested in Clint.
    Sartori then took the script of
The Magnificent Stranger
back to America, to give to Clint, via Irving Leonard, to make sure all proprietary representation claims were honored. Leonard assigned a recent young protégé, Sandy Bressler, to personally deliver the script to Clint and gently urge him to take it. This was no easy task, as Clint, like Fleming and all the others, was firmly against appearing in something that sounded as absurd as a European-made western.
    “I knew I wasn’t a cowboy,” Clint said later on. “But if you portray a cowboy and people think you’re a cowboy, that’s fine. …