Man with No Name

The Man with No Name (Italian: Uomo senza nome) is the antihero character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Italian Spaghetti Western films: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). He is recognizable by his poncho, brown hat, tan cowboy boots, fondness for cigarillos, and the fact that he rarely speaks.
The "Man with No Name" concept was invented by the American distributor United Artists. Eastwood's character does have a name, or nickname, which is different in each film: "Joe", "Manco" and "Blondie", respectively.
When Clint Eastwood was honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, Jim Carrey gave the introductory speech and said: "'The Man with No Name' had no name, so we could fill in our own." In 2008, Empire chose the Man with No Name as the 33rd greatest movie character of all time.
A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961). It was the subject of a lawsuit by Yojimbo's producers. Yojimbo's protagonist, an unconventional rōnin (a samurai with no master) played by Toshiro Mifune, bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood's character: both are quiet, gruff, eccentric strangers with a strong but unorthodox sense of justice and extraordinary proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a katana; in Eastwood's, a revolver).
Mifune plays a rōnin with no name. When pressed, he gives the pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake (meaning "30-year-old mulberry field"), a reference to his age and something he sees through a window. The convention of hiding the character's arms from view is shared as well, with Mifune's character typically wearing his arms inside his kimono, leaving the sleeves empty. Prior to signing on to Fistful, Eastwood had seen Kurosawa's film and was impressed by the character. During filming, he did not emulate Mifune's performance beyond what was already in the script. He also insisted on removing some of the dialogue in the original script, making the character more silent and thus adding to his mystery. As the trilogy progressed, the character became even more silent and stoic.
The "Man with No Name" sobriquet was actually applied after the films were made, and was a marketing device used by distributor United Artists to promote the three films together in the United States film market. The prints of the film were physically trimmed to remove all mention of his names.
In A Fistful of Dollars (1964), he is called "Joe" by the undertaker, Piripero, and Eastwood's role is credited as "Joe".
In For a Few Dollars More (1965), he is called "Manco" (Spanish for "one-armed"; in fact, in the original Italian-language version he is called "il Monco", a dialectal expression meaning "the One-armed one"), because he does everything left-handed, except for shooting.
In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Tuco calls him "Blondie" ("il Biondo", meaning "the Blond one", in Italian) for his light hair. He is also "the Good" ("il Buono"), from which the film receives its name.
In the Dollars book series, he is also known as "The Hunter", "The Bounty Killer", "Mister Sudden Death", "Nameless", "No Name" and "Señor Ninguno", or its literal translation "Mr. None".
The popularity of the characters brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the "Dollars" series due to the common theme in their titles:
A Coffin Full of Dollars provides some background history; when he was young, The Man with No Name was a ranch hand who was continually persecuted by an older hand named Carvell. The trouble eventually led to a shootout between the two with Carvell being outdrawn and killed; however, an examination of Carvell's body revealed a scar which identified him as Monk Carver, a wanted man with a $1,000 bounty. After comparing the received bounty with his $10-a-month ranch pay, the young cowhand chose to change his life and become a bounty hunter.
In July 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring the character, titled The Man with No Name. Set after the events of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic is written by Christos Gage. Dynamite refers to him as "Blondie", the nickname Tuco uses for him in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The first issue was released in March 2008, entitled, The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier. Luke Lieberman and Matt Wolpert took over the writing for issues #7–11. Initially, Chuck Dixon was scheduled to take over the writing chores with issue #12, but Dynamite ended the series and opted to use Dixon's storyline for a new series titled The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The new series is not an adaptation of the movie, despite its title. After releasing eight issues, Dynamite abandoned the series.