"For a Few Dollars More, " Van Cleef's character was almost played by Charles Bronson
[size=1.5em]While we think of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western trilogy as the pinnacle of the western genre, it was almost just a one and done thing. Eastwood filmed A Fistful of Dollars in Italy in order to get out of TV, but the whole thing was a gamble, he didn’t know what was going to happen. Initially the producers wanted Charles Bronson (and about 20 other actors) for the part, but Eastwood took it on. [size=1.5em]Producers asked him to film a sequel almost immediately after they wrapped production but he balked because he didn’t know how the film would be received. When he saw a rough cut of the Italian language version of the film he called director Sergio Leone and said he was in. Once again, Leone reached out to Bronson to appear in the sequel but the actor turned it down. The director called up Lee Van Cleef and the history was made.
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