Remember that in the '60s, there was a stigma against actors working on TV that no one would pay to see them at the movies.
Steve McQueen and James Garner broke that barrier, largely with "The Great Escape" in 1963.
These Italian westerns established Eastwood now as a movie screen commodity. His first American made film was "Hang Em High" which tried to emulate the Leone/Eastwood films because no one wanted to depart too far from a recipe that worked.
We deal in lead, friend.
