Was Eric Fleming the lead actor for this show... - Rawhide (1959) Discussion

[–] MsLexy 13 years ago

Yes, Eric Fleming was the lead actor of "Rawhide" and Clint Eastwood
was the co-star.

At the time Rawhide premiered, Clint Eastwood wasn't that well known and
Eric Fleming overshadowed him.

It wasn't until Clint Eastwood made those spaghetti westerns that he
became the bigger star and a few years later he went on to achieve
super stardom...while Eric Fleming is barely known today.

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[–] LarrupinLou 13 years ago

Thanks, MsLexy!

No blah, blah, blah!

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[–] TerryThomasPhotos 13 years ago

Eric Fleming might have become better known if he had not drowned making a film in South America.

Terry Thomas
DP / Cinematographer / Stills Photographer
Atlanta, Georgia USA
www.imdb.com/name/nm1669504/
www.TerryThomasPhotos.com

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[–] MsLexy 13 years ago

I should have mentioned that Eric Fleming drowned.

Anyway...Eric Fleming left Rawhide in it's last season to persue a movie career.
And had he not drowned in that unfortunate accident, we'll never know how big a
star he might have become. There really wasn't that many TV stars who made it big
in the movies like Clint Eastwood has.

A few other actors that come to mind who have gone from TV to movies and made it,
were Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, James Garner, Roger Moore.

Edd Byrnes, Robert Conrad, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Clint Walker, Jack Kelly, were all
huge TV stars, but they didn't make it big in the movies.

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[–] Clintessence 12 years ago

Clint Walker was a huge TV star -- and huge everywhere else, too.

Clint Eastwood not only made the transition from TV to movies, but he's arguably one of the biggest stars, directors and producers in the entire history of movies.

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[–] microx96002 12 years ago

agreed on both counts!

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[–] jetandlexi 12 years ago

Wow...Clint Walker...I loved him back in the day. What was the name of the show he was in?? I know I should know but it's just not comin to me....

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[–] chipe 12 years ago

Cheyenne

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[–] jetandlexi 12 years ago

Ah....yes Cheyenne.......thank you!

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] SallyBaughn 12 years ago

I checked out your URL, all I found was a noisy site filled with commercials.

I can get my information from google and wikipedia thank you - I don't need useless attempts to pick my pocket.

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[–] chipe 12 years ago

You are wrong -- there is a YouTube-like video of music and pictures of Western stars. No commercials in the long music video! [Edit: my whole point is there are no commercials there in the whole video. I don't know why you said there was.]
http://oldfortyfives.com/thoseoldwesterns.htm

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[–] SallyBaughn 12 years ago

A matter of taste and opinion.

When I go looking for old western cowboys, I'm usually looking for more than a date of birth or death.

Although I no longer have a site, I would never have it open with music and no obvious way to turn it off. My taste in music isn't the same as everyone else and I didn't find the music on your URL interesting or good.

As I said, taste and opinion.

FYI, you can find just about any TV show you've ever heard of here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TV_Westerns

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] jetandlexi 12 years ago

Thank You chipe for that information..I loved the site. I can't understand why some people have to talk like such rude idiots!! Completely uncalled for remark by SallyB......
I found the URL interesting and fun and I have visited it several times so far.

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[–] Bob_Zerunkel 11 years ago

People get mad at people like Chipe because they are clogging up the messageboards with crap they want to sell. Click on Chipe's name. The guy is not bashful. He is using IMDB to sell, and he doesn't hide it at all.

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[–] LarrupinLou 12 years ago

Clint Eastwood not only made the transition from TV to movies, but he's arguably one of the biggest stars, directors and producers in the entire history of movies.

He has to be, popularity-wise, at least #2 behind John Wayne without even factoring in Clint's directorial efforts.

No blah, blah, blah!

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[–] Diosprometheus 11 years ago

Paul Newman is one of the biggest movie stars ever. He is not well known for his TV work because he never starred in a series but he really got his start doing TV shows such as Suspense, Playhouse 90, The United States Steel Hour, and many other TV programs. Newman avoided doing the guest starring on shows such as Rawhide, or the Untouchables and such, and concentrated his talents on the then popular anthologies. Once he became a movie star, he turned his back on TV and most of his roles have not been seen since they first aired but his early resume is almost entirely TV roles.

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[–] robertpatasnik 11 years ago

got 1 more you miss JACK Nicholson, who made 2 appearances on the Andy Griffith show

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[–] 11 years ago

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[–] 11 years ago

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[–] mortycausa 12 years ago

My memory is that they were genuine co-stars, except for maybe the first season or two, when Eric Fleming dominated. Rawhide, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza, became more of a drama than action/western series, and Eastwood and Fleming more or less alternated in having episodes revolved around them. Like Bret and Bart Maverick. But Eastwood was Fleming's equal (although Fleming had top billing--someone has to)way before the spaghetti westerns made him an international star.

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[–] LarrupinLou 12 years ago

Now that I have seen most of the episodes now, Morty, I agree with you. Early on, Fleming was numero uno, but the balance of power changed later on.

No blah, blah, blah!

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[–] chipe 12 years ago

Fleming was given lead/first status in the opening credits (even though Eastwood comes before Fleming in alphabetical order). I noticed in SOME of the early shows that his name appears first and ALONE. Then you see Eastwood's name alone (same size). Then you see the others (same size as I recall). ...Then, also in the early seasons, you usually saw Favor alone spouting some words of wisdom. ..... Also, at the time Fleming started out in "Rawhide," he had a fairly long acting career -- many acting credits and experience behind him on Broadway, TV and the movies; ... ...... Eastwood had just some uncredited (mostly) movie work and a little recent TV work.

Fleming and Eastwood were certainly the two main stars of the show. They had much more air time than the next characters in the lineup. As I recall, Favor seemed to be the main protagonist; the stories largely revolved around his decisions, not surprising since he was trail boss. I think he had more airtime, in the beginning at least.

Edit: I still think of Fleming as the lead, but I just read in Greenland's book ("Rawhide a History of Television's Longest Cattle Drive"by David R. Greenland) that when Charles Marquis Warren (the creator/producer of the show) finally got CBS to approve the pilot for the show, they over-road him on a number of things. Warren wanted just one leading actor, but CBS insisted on a "younger second lead."

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[–] hackraytex 8 years ago

I agree on this post although I am coming along four years later. I read into Eric Fleming and in his last year on Rawhide, he hit what we now ll burnout and wanted out. I think he made them fire him because he broke a serious rule of that time not to take outside work since he must have been under exclusive contract. Rawhide was CBS and he did three episodes on Bonanza which was NBC and was in The Glass Bottom Boat. Ironically a lot of it was filmed on water and also his last appearance on Rawhide had him rescuing someone or fighting in a swollen river. He thought he wanted to retire and bought a ranch in Hawaii but after a year of retirement and surfing on the beach was ready to go back to work and took a two part episode called High Jungle for ABC. That is where he drowned making the last outside scene and about three days before planning to marry his fiance. He took his acting very seriously, very old school, and had no patience with production delays and people who showed up not prepared to do their job. From what I have read, I am no expert in these issues, that is why he wanted to do the scene that cost him his life because everyone wanted to get out of there as it was a very tough shoot. It is a tragedy that they did not wait one more day to do the scene.

I finally got to watch all of Rawhide on the Western Channel a few years ago and the sad thing is that two things did it in. The suits could not keep their fingers out of it and it jumped the shark when Sheb Wooley left in the third or fourth season which disrupted the chemistry among the crew since the actor who replaced him, Charles Gray, was unable to connect with his character and finally the death knell was when Eric Fleming and I think some of the others were all fired and they tried to rebuild the crew with Clint Eastwood. I read that Clint Eastwood had wished they had fired him and kept the rest since his movie career was starting to take off. Maybe if Eric Fleming had stayed with Rawhide until the end, he would have lived longer and maybe his movie career would have also taken off. We will never know. Sorry this is so long.

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[–] mactach 8 years ago

No need to be sorry.

If you have some info that's worth sharing and may take a lot of explain they that's fine.

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[–] 11 years ago

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[–] mikethemartian (6063) 2 years ago

The Gil Favor character is easily my favorite from the show and he isn’t even shown on the DVD cover image used for the IMDB page.

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[–] snepts (11123) 2 years ago

Yes, he was a good character and the show isn't quite the same without him.
For all his success, Eastwood doesn't seem to carry the show all that comfortably. He doesn't seem like a natural trail boss.

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