6. Clint Eastwood - Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry)
I know what you're thinking. How could Clint Eastwood's second most iconic character (after the cowboy equivalent of this one) not have been written with him in mind? Well, because the role was written with Frank Sinatra in mind instead, oddly, who would have played Harry Callahan in what we can presume would have been all singin' police procedurals, had it not been for a broken wrist that he attained filming
The Manchurian Candidate. Unable to lift the character's iconic .357 Magnum (seriously), Sinatra wasn't sure about the role. Sinatra eventually opted to quit and the producers went about trying to find a suitable replacement. With only a matter of weeks before filming was set to begin, and after considering a number of Hollywood bigshots, Eastwood was brought in to replace a wrist-damaged Sinatra. Of course, we can't imagine anybody but Eastwood deadpanning the line "Do you feel lucky, punk?" with gritted teeth. But, you know, had Sinatra made it through
The Manchurian Candidate unscathed, we might have heard somebody crooning the line instead.