They made their names with A Fistful of Dollars, the first in a series of spaghetti westerns that became classics of 20th-century cinema. But the Italian director Sergio Leone had such a poor grasp of English that, between takes, he would repeatedly rely on the words “watch me” before miming whatever he wanted from his leading man, Clint Eastwood,...

There’s really no understating the stardom of actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood beginning in the mid-’60s. After a tenure on the long-running TV series Rawhide and a few notable Hollywood movies, it took a stint in Italy to turn him into a megastar. Three films under director Sergio Leone changed his career forever; the films he made in the wake...