Clint Eastwood was not the first choice to play “The Man With No Name” in the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns. The director tried to hire Charles Bronson because he had “a granite face of destiny.” But Bronson hated the “Fistful of Dollars” script and turned it down—as well as those for “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
By 1968, Bronson realized his mistake and joined the cast for “Once Upon a Time in the West,” saying of Leone “he

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows