Clint Eastwood in the 1960s already becoming very popular in France, labelled as the "new Gary Cooper". In Paris, he met Pierre Rissient and had an affair with actress Catherine Deneuve. Two months later Eastwood began working on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", the final film of the Dollars trilogy, in which he again played the mysterious Man With No Name character. Lee Van Cleef was brought in again to play a ruthless fortune seeker, while Eli Wallach, a character actor noted for his appearance in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), was hired to play the cunning Mexican bandit "Tuco", although the role was
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 50% of the box office takings outside of Italy. The total budget would eventually be $1.2 million. Leone built upon the screenwriter's original concept to "show the absurdity of war ... the Civil War which the characters encounter. In my frame of reference, it is useless, stupid: it does not involve a 'good cause.'" An avid history buff, Leone said, "I had read somewhere that 120,000 people died in Southern camps such as Andersonville. I was not ignorant of the fact that there were camps in the North. You always get to hear about the shameful behavior of the losers,