Inside Clint Eastwood and John Wayne’s Western Feud: Why the Two Western Stars Never Saw Eye-To-Eye
Two Western legends, two very different visions—and one feud fans still talk about
When you think of westerns, there are a few famous faces that are synonymous with the genre, two of the most notable being Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. Eastwood’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) are just a few of the films that left a mark on the western world. Meanwhile, John Wayne’s The Searchers (1956), Rio Bravo (1959), and Stagecoach (1939) have all gone down as some of the best of the best. While you’d think these two actors, who served as pillars in the realm of cowboys on screen, were collaborators or even fans of each other’s work, the opposite is said to be true. As the story goes, Wayne wasn’t a fan of Eastwood’s portrayal of the West, as his view was rooted in more traditional tropes like good versus evil. Meanwhile, when Eastwood came onto the scene, the cowboys he was bringing to life were entirely more flawed. Here, take a look at the bad blood between these two western actors and what they say about one another over the years.
John Wayne laid the foundation for the western genre
John Wayne broke out onto the western scene in the late 1930s, but by the time Eastwood was becoming a household name for his work in various films in the 1960s, Wayne felt a disconnect from the movies being made, believing that the genre was moving in a direction far opposite from the one he made his name in. In the films that Wayne brought to life during the peak of his career, there was typically some element of good versus evil. That being said, the characters John Wayne portrayed in the westerns he’s known for were ultimately always the hero—saving lives and risking their own for the sake of others. When Clint Eastwood came onto the scene, it didn’t take long for him to break this mold.
Clint Eastwood wasn’t afraid to play the anti-hero
Unlike John Wayne, Clint Eastwood wasn’t afraid of bringing morally gray characters to life. As a matter of fact, a large portion of his characters in western movies were flawed individuals, and Eastwood was known to portray the West in a way that was far less glittering than the idealistic version John Wayne favored—but that’s not to say one was better than the other. The two just had different approaches—plain and simple.
The feud came to a head after ‘High Plains Drifter’
Clint Eastwood’s 1973 film combined western elements with supernatural elements, and certainly didn’t shy away from violence. The character that he portrayed, The Stranger, wasn’t even close to a good guy, and so disappointed in the film was John Wayne that he even went as far as penning a letter to Eastwood to let him know his feelings on the matter. In the book Ride, Boldly Ride: The Evolution of the American Western, the authors detail that Wayne expressed a dislike for the film, sharing that it wasn’t really about the people who pioneered the West. Meanwhile, Eastwood expressed that it wasn’t supposed to be about pioneering the West at all, and instead, was closer to a fable. Though these two actors never quite saw eye-to-eye and ultimately represented two separate eras of the genre, the impact they both left on it is hard to replicate.
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