Peter Viertel Black Heart", which was made into a film starring Clint Eastwood in 1990. It is a thinly-disguised account of Viertel's experiences working with film director John Huston while they were making "The African Queen". The central character is scriptwriter Pete Verrill while the Huston character is called John Wilson. Film critic Pauline Kael wrote in 1999 that "White Hunter" was “still the best Hollywood novel I’ve ever come across — and it isn’t even set in Hollywood.” Viertel's opinion of the finished film was tempered by his idea that Huston himself would have preferred a portrayal with more sarcasm. Viertel's
Clint Eastwood in the 1960s Clint Eastwood in the 1960s In the 1960s, Clint Eastwood rose to fame in the Dollars Trilogy which would break him into mainstream cinema in the United States. In late 1963, a relatively unknown director Italian named Sergio Leone followed the advice of Claudia Sartori, an agent working at the William Morris Agency in Rome. He watched "Rawhide" episode 91, "Incident of the Black Sheep", dubbed into Italian. He concentrated on Eric Fleming's performance, but later admitted he was distracted by Eastwood's performance. Leone said, "What fascinated me about Clint, above all, was his external appearance. I noticed the lazy,