Page "Lee Marvin" Paragraph 13

Next Marvin performed in the hit Western The Professionals ( 1966 ), in which he played the leader of a small band of skilled mercenaries ( Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, and Woody Strode ) rescuing a kidnap victim ( Claudia Cardinale ) shortly after the Mexican Revolution.

He followed that film with the hugely successful World War II epic The Dirty Dozen ( 1967 ) in which top-billed Marvin again portrayed an intrepid commander of a colorful group ( future stars John Cassavetes, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, Jim Brown, and Donald Sutherland ) performing an almost impossible mission.

In the wake of these two films and after having received an Oscar, Marvin was a huge star given enormous control over his next film.

In Point Blank, an influential film for director John Boorman, he portrayed a hard-nosed criminal bent on revenge.

Marvin, who had selected Boorman himself for the director's slot, had a central role in the film's development, plot line, and staging.

In 1968, Marvin also appeared in another Boorman film, the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful World War II character study Hell in the Pacific, also starring famed Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune.

Marvin was originally cast as Pike Bishop ( later played by William Holden ) in The Wild Bunch ( 1969 ), but fell out with director Sam Peckinpah and pulled out in order to star in the Western musical Paint Your Wagon ( 1969 ), in which he was top-billed over a singing Clint Eastwood.

Despite his limited singing ability, he had a hit song with " Wand ' rin ' Star ".

By this time he was getting paid a million dollars per film, $ 200, 000 less than top star Paul Newman was making at the time ; yet he was ambivalent about the film business, even with its financial rewards: