What was Clint Eastwood's salary for "A Fistful of Dollars"?

For both director and star, "A Fistful of Dollars" provided the jump-start for two legendary careers in the movie business. Clint Eastwood was reaching the end of the trail on Rawhide, and Sergio Leone had just been fired from set of Sodom and Gomorrah for taking extended lunch breaks. Leone used the time off to write the script for "A Fistful of Dollars", while Eastwood was tiring of his role as Rowdy Yates and wanted to develop a darker screen persona.

Leone had a $200,000 budget, which limited his options for actors. Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Steve Reeves, James Coburn and Richard Harrison all rejected the role. Harrison recommended Eastwood for the role, which Eastwood accepted at a salary of $15,000 plus an expense account.

Eastwood rewrote most of his dialogue and developed the iconic scruffy outfit and cigar that became his trademark look in all three man with no name movies. When the movie was released in 1964, it pulled in $4 million in Italy alone. However, it was not released in the U.S. until 1967 due to a lawsuit filed by Director Akira Kurosawa’s Toho Studio which claimed it was an infringement of Kurosawa’s film Yojimba. Kurosawa won and was granted 15 percent of "A Fistful of Dollars" worldwide receipts.

When it finally was released in the U.S. it pulled in another $14.5 million and spent two weeks as the number one movie in the U.S. Eastwood went on to develop his own company, Malpaso Productions. Eastwood is now worth $375 million.