Did You Know: Clint Eastwood Nearly Quit After Starring In The Worst Movie Ever Made
Clint Eastwood is a legendary actor and director with a career spanning decades. However, he almost quit acting after appearing in the worst movie ever made.
This article is more than 2 years old
Clint Eastwood is easily one of the best actors to ever grace movie screens. On top of being a world-class actor, he was also directed many pictures which have ushered in plenty of awards for his efforts. Simply put, the man is a legend. He is also still directing and acting while being 91 years old. His most recent venture is that of the film, Cry Macho, which came out in 2021. That is impressive all on its own for anyone to want to keep working that much at that age. However, Eastwood’s earlier career wasn’t all accolades. In fact, he recently revealed in an interview that he nearly gave up acting after appearing in the “worst movie ever made.”
While Clint Eastwood has appeared in many films ranging from many genres, he was known mostly for Westerns in his early days. The film that saw the man nearly give up acting was because of a Western he was cast in called Ambush at Cimarron Pass. According to Eastwood, “It was probably the worst film ever made.” He continued, “I went to see it and I saw that film and I said I’m through. I’ve got to go back to school. I’ve got to do something else, I’ve got to get a job of other sorts.” Thankfully that wasn’t the case. He also told of an executive from CBS finding him shortly after and casting him as the lead in the series Rawhide. He would leave that series and take on important roles in For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The rest, as they say, is history.
Clint Eastwood has gone on to become one of the most important actors/directors of our generation and the one before. The man had also revealed that when he told his father he would be dropping out of college in L.A. to pursue acting, it didn’t go over as well as it could have. His father told him to not get wrapped up in that idea because it could be disappointing. Those words and appearing in the worst movie ever made could have easily led to an early end to Eastwood’s career, but it thankfully didn’t. Without him, we wouldn’t have such amazing Spaghetti Westerns that helped shape cinema for the better. Without him, we wouldn’t have Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Sometimes trudging through bad jobs is what we all have to do to make our way to the top. Without that awful movie, Clint Eastwood might have never turned out to be the amazing actor that he is. That could have also been the turning point in his career which made him want to direct as well. Nothing like a bad vision to make someone want to take matters into their own hands. I guess we should all be thankful to Ambush at Cimarron Pass. Or at the very least, its director. Without terrible films, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the amazing films for being that much better. All in all, we are all just happy that Mr. Eastwood stayed in filmmaking and is continuing that journey into his 90s.
