Blind Item #7 - Reader Blind
This deceased tough guy actor was not what he seemed. In fact, his life can be divided into two parts - Prior to a serious accident and after a serious accident.
Prior to the accident, he played secondary roles, mostly henchman and other unsavory types. After the accident, he graduated to slightly meatier roles on TV and in film. His biggest roles came a little later in films shot in a foreign country of a specific genre that helped propel a permanent A++ actor into the stratosphere. This actor also benefited and he had a solid career as a lead in foreign films and later smaller roles in a film by a famous horror director and in another film with a popular action star. This film was later the inspiration for a brief TV series.
But the truth about the accident is the actor did not survive. It was a head-on collision and the actor was pronounced dead at the the scene. So who starred as the actor in the rest of his career?
The actor had a close relative who somewhat resembled the actor in the face. Two main differences 1.) The relative was a couple of inches taller 2.) The relative had bushier facial hair and thinner hair on his head. As the actor had several film commitments at the time of his death, his agent got the studio and the PR people to put out a fake story that the actor was badly injured but had survived and convinced the relative to take on the role.
The relative had his own business doing something unrelated but found he really enjoyed acting so began doing it full time under the name of his deceased relative. Only thing was the actor had a slight disfigurement the result of a small home accident and the relative had to have surgery so he matched this. Both men were alcoholics which ran in the family as well as heavy smokers so there was no difference there.
In regards to the actor’s marriage which had been under strain anyway, the first wife was paid off not to talk about the substitution and granted a divorce after the accident, his children were also convinced to along with the charade as well. The relative was married two more times as the actor. The third and most successful was to a woman he had dated as himself years earlier before he took on the role of the actor.
Prior to the accident, he played secondary roles, mostly henchman and other unsavory types. After the accident, he graduated to slightly meatier roles on TV and in film. His biggest roles came a little later in films shot in a foreign country of a specific genre that helped propel a permanent A++ actor into the stratosphere. This actor also benefited and he had a solid career as a lead in foreign films and later smaller roles in a film by a famous horror director and in another film with a popular action star. This film was later the inspiration for a brief TV series.
But the truth about the accident is the actor did not survive. It was a head-on collision and the actor was pronounced dead at the the scene. So who starred as the actor in the rest of his career?
The actor had a close relative who somewhat resembled the actor in the face. Two main differences 1.) The relative was a couple of inches taller 2.) The relative had bushier facial hair and thinner hair on his head. As the actor had several film commitments at the time of his death, his agent got the studio and the PR people to put out a fake story that the actor was badly injured but had survived and convinced the relative to take on the role.
The relative had his own business doing something unrelated but found he really enjoyed acting so began doing it full time under the name of his deceased relative. Only thing was the actor had a slight disfigurement the result of a small home accident and the relative had to have surgery so he matched this. Both men were alcoholics which ran in the family as well as heavy smokers so there was no difference there.
In regards to the actor’s marriage which had been under strain anyway, the first wife was paid off not to talk about the substitution and granted a divorce after the accident, his children were also convinced to along with the charade as well. The relative was married two more times as the actor. The third and most successful was to a woman he had dated as himself years earlier before he took on the role of the actor.
36 comments:
Oh I'm feeling spaghetti westerns and Eastwood for the perm A, but it's probably wrong.
Lee Van Cleef. He was missing part of a finger due to an accident while building something at home.
Lee Van Cleef, heard this rumour years ago, I dont buy it.
Also married 3x.
@zebra well done! John Wayne for permanent A lister?
+1 Zebra, no not John Wayne Tricia lol.
Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. (January 9, 1925 – December 16, 1989), was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hatchet-faced with piercing eyes, he declined to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. For a decade he was typecast as a minor villain, his "sinister" features overshadowing his acting skills. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef had begun to lose interest in his declining career by the time Sergio Leone gave him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film made him a box-office draw, especially in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Van_Cleef
Nope. Clint Eastwood.
I was referring to John Wayne who was his costar in "The Man who Shot Liberty Vance" as the one catapulted to Perm A Brayson
lol
Oh bullshit.
So I guess we will just add hi to the ever growing list of Hollywood secret doubles. I don't buy any of these.
Clint Eastwood used spaghetti westerns to catapult from TV to A list movie then A++ legend.
Wow....what a Blind !
If this is true Awesomeness !
@Tricia, Haha John Wayne was already big by that time, but the spaghetti westerns really launched Eastwood to Perm A.
While Clint Eastwood is still with us, somebody should ask him.
@Super Comic, Does Clint Eastwood seem like a snitch to you?
@Brayson yep you right... a genre I know little of ...except that Wayne walked funny lol(and we have heard rumors why lol)!
Van Cleef also starred opposite Peter Graves in 1956's It Conquered the World, later re-filmed by Larry Buchanan as Zontar: The Thing From Venus. And later still, parodied by SCTV with Bonar Bain (Conrad Bain's real-life brother) in the Van Cleef role.
I can see how this could be conflated into an urban legend about Van Cleef being replaced by his brother, depending on when the legend first started.
@Tricia, I had an unfair advantage, I used to be a Sergio Leone fan 😅
Monty Clift knew too...apparently!
#thisTotallyHappened
@Bray 🤗@IndieRaga... that’s what I sayin!
Yeah, well, reader blind.
Lee Van Cleef sounds right for the actor but I don't believe the story.
look at the nose before and after - dead giveaway
i don't buy it.
Lee Van Cleef also had to have his stomach pumped of 18 litres of joystick juice
Sorry, wrong urban myth.
Did Lee Van Queef ever do a film with the McCartney imposter?
F*ck off Unknown, Lee Van Cleef was pretty cool and as far as we know didn't assault anyone unlike half of back in the day Hollywood.
"He lost the last joint of the middle finger of his right hand while building a playhouse for his daughter.[17]
In 1958, a severe car crash nearly cost Van Cleef his life and career. A resulting knee injury made his physicians think that he would never ride a horse again. This injury plagued Van Cleef for the rest of his life and caused him great pain. His recovery was long and difficult and halted his acting for a time. He then began a business in interior decoration with second wife Joan, as well as pursuing his talent for painting, primarily of sea and landscapes.[citation needed]
Despite suffering from heart disease from the late 1970s and having a pacemaker installed in the early 1980s,[18] Van Cleef continued to work in films until his death on December 16, 1989, at age 64.[19] He collapsed in his home in Oxnard, California, from a heart attack.[20] Throat cancer was listed as a secondary cause of death.[21] He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California, with an inscription on his grave marker referring to his many acting performances as a villain: "BEST OF THE BAD".[22] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Van_Cleef#Personal_life
I'm looking at pics on Google images. You're right. In early photos he had a short pointy nose with average nostrils. in later ones he has a much more noticeably down pointed flared nose. Like a down arrow almost. Now they could attribute to that to plastic surgery because of the accident - but does give one pause 5hat the story might be true.
I grew up in the 70's with my father watching all the Clint movies, especially the westerns. They never interested me much until recently and I saw a couple of the Italian ones-they're pretty friggin funny! I had no idea there was intentional humor in them, it's kinda dark which is my fav kind.
Off topic: Anyone seen JoJo Rabbit? I"m dying to see it. I loved What we do in the Shadows-hysterical.
@SlimKeith have you seen My Name is Nobody?
Bingo, Super Fun. T
It was decades ago when this rumor was openly joked about.
The current incarnation of Eastwood doesn't compare with an older version mentioned on this site. Interesting blind.
Sounds like Lee Van Cleef to me. Horror director was John Carpenter in Escape From New York, and the movie-then-tv show they mention is probably Master Ninja which became the tv show "The Master". Sho Kosugi was a main character and Claude Akins was in it too, alongside a young Demi Moore clearly paying off some bills. MST3K had a lot of fun with that one.
True or not, what an entertaining idea.
@SlimKeith - JoJo Rabbit is one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time. The acting was superb (the child actors especially) and even Scarlett Johansson did a good job. Highly recommended.
Wasn't that Rod (no pun intended) Stewart?
Lee Van Cleef.
Just don't believe some of these "reader blinds."
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