Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide – Original Granada TV Press Photograph – 1959

Description

A particularly early original 1959 black-and-white press photograph of Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide, dating from the first year of the television series that established him as a major screen presence.

The photograph shows the young Eastwood standing full-length in Western costume, wearing his broad-brimmed hat, gun belt, waistcoat, jeans and boots. He is photographed against a frontier-street setting, producing an immediately recognisable image of Rowdy Yates, the role that preceded Eastwood’s international breakthrough in Sergio Leone’s Westerns.

The photograph is in an unusual narrow vertical format, measuring 8.3 × 19.2 cm. Although appreciably smaller than a standard 10 × 8-inch publicity still, the elongated format works particularly well with the full-length composition and gives the photograph a distinctive visual character.

The reverse retains unusually good contemporary documentation. The original typed British television publicity caption reads:

“CLINT EASTWOOD
in Rawhide, new
hour-long Western
ITV serial.
GRANADA TV Picture.
27th August, 1959”

A contemporary Granada TV Network reproduction notice is printed vertically along the verso, while the photograph also carries a Shields Gazette Library stamp, manuscript newspaper instructions and original blue editorial crop lines.

A further archive stamp is dated:

22 SEP 1959

These surviving markings provide direct primary evidence for the identity, date and British press use of the photograph.

Clint Eastwood and the First Year of Rawhide

Rawhide premiered in the United States in January 1959, with Eastwood playing the young cattle drover Rowdy Yates alongside Eric Fleming as trail boss Gil Favor.

The series provided Eastwood with his first sustained major role and introduced the screen persona that would later be developed in his celebrated Western films of the 1960s.

The present photograph is therefore particularly interesting because the original Granada caption is dated 27 August 1959 — within the first year of the programme — and describes Rawhide to British audiences as a “new hour-long Western ITV serial.”

It consequently documents not merely Eastwood playing Rowdy Yates, but the period in which British television audiences were first being introduced to both the programme and the actor who would subsequently become one of the defining figures of post-war cinema.

Provenance

The reverse preserves a particularly useful combination of contemporary evidence:

• original Granada TV identification of Clint Eastwood;
• direct identification of Rawhide;
• publicity date of 27 August 1959;
• Granada TV Network reproduction notice;
• Shields Gazette Library stamp;
• archive date of 22 September 1959;
• original manuscript and blue newsroom crop markings.

These features distinguish the photograph from later publicity reproductions and undated collector prints.

Condition

Good to very good condition overall for an original working press photograph dating from 1959.

The image remains sharp and strongly contrasted, with good detail throughout Eastwood’s face, costume and Western accessories.

There is light age-related toning, minor surface and handling wear and modest edge and corner wear consistent with genuine newspaper use.

The reverse carries extensive contemporary newsroom markings, including blue crop lines, manuscript sizing instructions, the Granada TV caption and reproduction notice, Shields Gazette Library stamp and 22 September 1959 archive date.

These markings form an integral part of the photograph’s working history and provenance.

Please study both photographs carefully as they form part of the description.

Subject: Clint Eastwood
Character: Rowdy Yates
Programme: Rawhide
Date: 1959
Granada publicity date: 27 August 1959
Archive date: 22 September 1959
UK distributor / publicity source: Granada TV
Original US broadcaster: CBS
Photographer: Uncredited
Provenance: Shields Gazette photographic archive
Size: 8.3 × 19.2 cm
Format: Original black-and-white press photograph
Verso: Granada TV caption and reproduction notice, Shields Gazette Library stamp and contemporary newsroom annotations
Modern reproduction: No

Authenticity

This photograph has been handled, inspected and catalogued in-house at Hornseys.

Its attribution and period status are supported directly by the original Granada TV caption identifying Clint Eastwood in Rawhide, dated 27 August 1959, together with the contemporary Granada reproduction notice and Shields Gazette archive markings.

It is an original 1959 working press photograph and not a modern reproduction.

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