Remembering Eric Fleming, ‘Rawhide’s Own Gil Favor
Rawhide debuted on CBS in January 1959 and quickly became a hit, thanks to its strong ensemble cast, authentic locations, gripping action, and storylines that championed virtues like leadership, honesty, and justice. While a relatively green Clint Eastwood — playing impulsive cowpoke Rowdy Yates — would later become a movie legend, ruggedly magnetic Eric Fleming was the show’s true centerpiece.
And he came by it honestly. Born Edward Heddy Jr. in Southern California on the Fourth of July, 1925, Fleming knew hardship and resilience firsthand, just like his trail boss character, Gil Favor.
Eddie Heddy’s Hardscrabble Start
Eddie Heddy Jr. was born with a club foot and relied on crutches, which earned the wrath of his rough-hewn, abusive father, who worked as a carpenter. At just 8, Eddie Jr. aimed a gun at Eddie Sr., intending to pull the trigger — but when the firearm jammed, he hopped a freight train to Chicago to survive on his own.
By age 11, Eddie was running errands for gangsters to make some cash until he got caught in the crossfire of a shootout, which landed him in the hospital. Sent back to his mother, who had finally left his cruel father, Eddie tried returning to school but couldn’t adjust. He drifted through odd jobs, joined a Paramount Studios construction crew, and later served with the Merchant Marine and the U.S. Navy.
A bet gone wrong changed everything. A 200-pound weight smashed into Eddie’s face, which required major reconstructive surgery. Fleming took it in stride, calling his new look an improvement over his former mug, and headed home determined to change his ways and his fortune. Eddie Heddy Jr. adopted the stage name Eric Fleming and returned to Paramount, this time with his sights set on acting.
From the stage to the stagecoach
Fleming’s early success came on Broadway in hits like No Time for Sergeants, which is often credited as Andy Griffith‘s breakthrough role. He also appeared in low-budget, space monster films and TV series while waiting for his big break.
His 6’3” frame, rugged good looks, and world-weary charisma caught the attention of Rawhide producers, who took a chance and cast him as the unflappable, morally upright trail boss Gil Favor, who was tasked with turning cowboys from multiple ranches into one cohesive cattle-moving unit. Fleming’s steely gaze, authoritative voice and commanding performance lent the role — and Rawhide itself — an appealing earnestness and realism that set it apart from the roster of quality Westerns of the time.
As his acting career took root, Fleming matured from the rough-and-tumble kid who survived his harrowing childhood into a top-notch, unwaveringly professional actor who valued perfection in himself and inspired it in his costars. He famously mentored Eastwood, even as the younger actor usurped him as Rawhide‘s biggest star. According to their costars, the two often vied to make each other laugh the hardest, and bonded over their fascination for the critters they found onset.
photo: Julian Wasser/TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection
“We got along great,” Eastwood recalled in a 2005 interview with Bright Lights Film Journal. “We were coming from different backgrounds; he was from New York. Everybody got along fairly well on that series.”
So well that Fleming even helped his novice costar score another career-defining role — one which Fleming turned down, thanks to the movie’s rugged set and his having quite enough of deliberately risky business. Famed director Sergio Leone wanted Fleming for the role of the mysterious “Man with No Name” in his 1964 spaghetti Western A Fist Full of Dollars. Leone’s second choice, B-movie actor Richard Harrison, turned down the role, too, but both men pointed Leone in the direction of flinty-eyed young Eastwood as a shoo-in for the role.
The film, with Eastwood in No Name’s serape, launched a movie franchise for Eastwood and Leone, and help launch the young actor into action hero stardom.
A tragic end for an honorable star
RAWHIDE, Eric Fleming, 1959-66 (1963 photo). ph: E.E. Reshovsky / TV Guide / courtesy Everett Collection
Unlike Gil Favor, a widower whose big-city sister raised his two daughters to be high society ladies, Fleming never married or had kids of his own. He was engaged to model and photographer Lynne Garber, but their shot at happily ever after was cut tragically short. Just days after their engagement, Fleming drowned while filming a canoeing scene for a planned two-part episode of the short-lived series Off to See the Wizard, an episode that was also considered for release as a feature film.
Six weeks into the shoot in remote Tingo María, Peru, Fleming — who had apparently gotten over his disdain for far-flung sets — and his co-star Nico Minardos were piloting a rustic dugout canoe. It overturned in the Huallaga River, a tributary of the Amazon. Minardos made it to safety, but Fleming, 41, was swept away by the current and drowned. His body was recovered three days later, on Oct. 1, 1966, and the episode was never completed.
Fleming left the brunt of his estate to his mom, and his body to the UCLA Medical Center. He made certain that his dad would never see a penny of his earnings or lay claim to his success.
But to millions of TV fans, Fleming’s most lasting legacy was his seven years as Gil Favor, the resilient, intelligent and always fair trail boss who overcame tragedy to embody the true spirit of the American West, and inspired complexity in Western characters for decades to come.
What are your favorite Gil Favor moments or episodes? Tell us about them in the comments below!
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