Renowned Italian film composer Ennio Morricone said he regrets saying “no” to Clint Eastwood.
The 86-year-old wrote the score to the 1960s trilogy of spaghetti Westerns by Sergio Leone, which saw Eastwood rise to fame.
But Morricone said he turned down the chance to write for films Eastwood directed “out of respect” to Leone.
“I missed a great opportunity and I am really sorry,” he told the BBC’s arts editor Will Gompertz.
Morricone, or Maestro, as he is known in his hometown of Rome, added: “When Clint called me, I said no out of respect to Sergio Leone, not because I did not like the movies that he did.”
Although he had first met Sergio Leone when they were at school, it was not until 25 years later that their professional partnership began, on a Fistful of Dollars in 1964.
“Gradually over time, he as a director and me as a composer, we improved and reached our best, in my opinion, in Once Upon A Time In America,” the composer said.
