The television series credited with launching Clint Eastwood’s impressive career, Rawhide was a Western staple in the 1950s and ’60s that really captured the spirit of the TV Western at the time. Filmed entirely in black-and-white, this series began with Eastwood as ramrod Rowdy Yates opposite Eric Fleming as trailboss Gil Favor. Eventually, Rowdy graduated to trailboss himself and finished the series as the star of the show during its eighth and final season. But what happens at the end of Rawhide? Does this Western series finish with a bang?
What Is ‘Rawhide’s Final Episode About?
The very last time we ever heard that iconic theme song was in “Crossing At White Feather,” a standalone episode that doubles as the series finale for the long-running (217 episodes) Western show. Here, trailboss Rowdy Yates (Eastwood) is working closely with a father and son duo, Jonas (Albert Dekker) and Aaron Bolt (Johnny Crawford), who struggle to get along. Rowdy hires Jonas to take his herd across a dangerous river, White Feather, but after the old man is injured (and later exposed as a drunkard), Rowdy kicks him and his son to the curb. Jonas attempts to take revenge by selling a third of the cattle (which he erroneously claims is his) to a con man, which gets Rowdy and his cowboys in trouble with the law.
Along the way, Aaron tries to prove himself a better man than his father, and, as a result, returns to Rowdy’s crew with the intent of leading them across the river himself. But the trailboss calls his bluff and is forced to save the young lad after he nearly drowns trying. This doesn’t bode too well for the boy, who is called a liar and sent on his way too. It all comes to a head when Rowdy and rider Simon Blake (Raymond St. Jacques) encounter Jonas at the same time Aaron shows up with the sheriff. Aaron exposes his father’s deeds before running off. Rowdy and Jonas team up to go after the boy, who shoots at them before Rowdy can talk him down. Rowdy shares some difficult experiences with his own father, a man he hasn’t seen since his youth. Jonas arrives and encourages his son to join Rowdy’s outfit, but not before the trailboss forces Jonas to make good on his original promise.
Jonas helps lead the cattle across the river with the help of Wishbone (Paul Brinegar), Jim Quince (Steve Raines), Ian Cabot (David Watson), and the other riders to great success. Upon making it safely across, Jonas leaves his son with Rowdy, noting that the trailboss will do a better job for him than a drunk person like him ever could (even though he made the trip across the river within a single drop). But after learning from Rowdy that the trailboss has never seen his own deadbeat father again, Aaron runs off after his father. Rawhide officially ends with Simon asking Rowdy where the boy is headed. “He’s goin’ home,” the trailboss explains, as the series fades on Clint Eastwood’s iconic Western gaze, staring off into the horizon.
‘Rawhide’ Suffered When Eric Fleming Left
Although “Crossing At White Feather” isn’t too poor a note for Rawhide to end on (especially when compared to the travesties that were the Gunsmoke and The Andy Griffith Show series finales), it’s bittersweet. We get more from Rowdy Yates this time around, here in the form of backstory, than we might get in other standalone episodes, and that helps emotionally anchor this episode in a way that others couldn’t. But at the same time, Season 8 of Rawhide just wasn’t the same without the likes of original series star Eric Fleming, who played the once great trailboss Gil Favor on the small screen. According to MeTV, it was the decision of CBS network executives to ax Flemming before the eighth season, bringing in newcomers Raymond St. Jacques and David Watson as replacements, with Clint Eastwood set to star in Fleming’s stead.
But why get rid of your lead star? Simple: money. “They fired me because they were paying me a million dollars a year,” Fleming told TV Guide back in 1965, and while that figure was a bit of an exaggeration, the truth is that CBS wanted Rawhide to be a bit cheaper. Apparently, Clint Eastwood wasn’t too happy about it either, wishing that Rawhide hadn’t fallen entirely on his shoulders at all. “Why should I be pleased?” he told the outlet. “I used to carry half the shows. Now I carry them all. For the same money.” While many fans noticed a dip in quality between Seasons 7 and 8, it wasn’t just the lack of Eric Fleming that made Rawhide different in what would become its final season. “The nucleus of the old audience will be disappointed,” Wishbone actor Paul Brinegar explained, noting that he didn’t exactly love the new scripts they were getting either. Jim Quince actor Steve Raines called them “mediocre.” The studio even changed the title sequence of Rawhide, using drawings of cowboys to open the show instead of the real deal.
Another spit in the face of audiences was that, between the Season 7 finale “The Gray Rock Hotel” and the Season 8 premiere “Encounter at Boot Hill,” there’s no mention as to why Gil Favor is no longer around. When Season 8 begins, Rowdy is simply the trailboss, with Wishbone and Jim by his side, and a host of other newcomers, such as Ian Cabot and Simon Blake, along for the ride. Ratings for the show had been falling in the years since, with Rawhide dipping from being the sixth highest-rated program in 1960 to the 44th only three years later. These dips only continued into the eighth and final season, and Rawhide was cancelled midseason after “Crossing At White Feather” (only the thirteenth episode of Season 8), which became the show’s impromptu series finale. Not even the show’s impressive number of guest stars could save Rowdy and the gang this time around.
Clint Eastwood Became a Western Star After ‘Rawhide’
Of course, it’s not like Clint Eastwood’s career suffered too much because of Rawhide’s sudden end. If anything, this made the Western star even more available for feature film productions, especially theatrical Westerns. Eastwood had already played the Man With No Name in 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars and the next year’s A Few Dollars More at the tail-end of his time on Rawhide, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was just around the corner. From there, Eastwood also landed Dirty Harry and plenty of other Westerns such as Hang ‘Em High, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, and Pale Rider, to name some of the best. That’s not to mention his eventual work as a director as well. Eastwood’s characters on the big screen were a far cry from Rowdy Yates, though some of that iconic Eastwood charm remained the common denominator. Well, that and one other thing Eastwood kept with him from his TV Western days: his trademark boots.
By the time Eastwood was done with the Western genre, moving on to bigger pictures of the “based on a true story” variety, he left the Western with a bang in his 1992 epic Unforgiven. Once again laced up in the same footwear he once brandished on Rawhide, Eastwood’s William Munny contained elements from all of his previous Western heroes, and there’s no doubt that we can see just a smidge of Rowdy Yates in there too. To this day, there hasn’t been a Rawhide reunion in the same way that shows like Gunsmoke or Bonanza came back together (though some Westerns have tried to recapture Rawhide’s magic), but that’s okay. Clint Eastwood’s Western career was diverse enough to keep fans interested after Rawhide, and if we were missing Rowdy Yates and Gil Favor, it’s always been easy to find them on the airwaves. “Head ’em up! Move ’em out!,” as our Rawhide stars used to say.