Квентин Тарантино - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

By the summer of ’69, Aldo had fallen pretty far from his former heights during the fifties starring opposite Bogart, Tracy and Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Anne Bancroft, and Judy Holliday. What wasn’t known at the time was how much farther he had to fall. By 1975 he wouldn’t be able to handle any role that lasted longer than two days (the longest he could be counted on to stay sober).

As the seventies progressed and turned into the eighties, the man who was discovered by George Cukor—in a screen test that consisted of Aldo tossing playing cards into a hat—could only find employment for schlockmeisters like Al Adamson and Fred Olen Ray (no relation).

He was the first former Hollywood star to ever appear in a seventies’ porno film, making him (so far) the only former Hollywood star to win the best actor award at the Erotic Film Awards , for 1979‘s Sweet Savage with Carol ( Deep Throat ) Connors (in the eighties, Cameron Mitchell would appear in a porno film as well).

Aldo Ray was also the first former Hollywood star to be sued by the Screen Actors Guild for appearing in cheap nonunion movies.

Since its inception, Hollywood had seen its fair share of former highfliers who fell on hard times, as evidenced by the films they were doing as opposed to the films they once did (Ramon Novarro, Faith Domergue, Tab Hunter, even poor Ralph Meeker). Still, none could really match Aldo Ray when it came to publicly played-out poignant pity. So as desperate as he was on that night in Spain during the summer of ’69, twenty years later that night would seem like the “good ole’ days.”

But for Mr. Ray it sure as hell didn’t seem like the good ole’ days. It seemed like the same goddamn fucking night he faced every goddamn fucking night the big man didn’t have a bottle.

On the same night, in the same hotel, in the same country, in a different un-air-conditioned room, Cliff Booth poured two fingers of room-temperature gin into a plastic hotel cup. The deep cut above his right eyebrow, which he’d received from the rifle butt of a Winchester earlier that day, was beginning to bleed again and run down his face and drip onto his sweaty wifebeater. Not only that, but his ballooning eyebrow was showing no sign of settling down. If it didn’t begin to unpuff at least a little bit, he’d be useless tomorrow on set. Cliff stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. He touched his bulbous eyebrow to see if it still hurt. It did. What he needed to do was ice it, and he needed to do it pretty fast.

And while he was at it, a couple of cubes for the warm gin wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It’s not like he preferred the taste of chilled gin to room-temperature gin. To Cliff, gin tasted like lighter fluid, and gin over ice tasted like chilled lighter fluid. But the addition of a couple of cubes of ice did give one the appearance of drinking a cocktail, as opposed to the depressing sight that drinking warm gin out of a plastic cup provided by a cheap hotel thousands of miles away from home gave. As he walked over to the little table where the little plastic ice bucket the hotel provided sat, he glanced at the little television chained to a heating pipe. On the screen was a black-and-white Mexican melodrama from the early fifties starring Arturo de Córdova and María Félix emoting melodramatically in Spanish. Cliff had no idea who they were.

Cliff had traveled to Europe with his boss, Rick Dalton, and for the first time in a long while, Cliff was stunt-doubling for Rick again. This was the fourth European film they had done in rapid succession. The first two ( Nebraska Jim and Kill Me Quick , Ringo , Said the Gringo ) were westerns shot in Italy. The third, a James Bond–wannabe secret-agent flick called Operation Dyn-O-Mite , was shot in Athens, Greece. And this one, Red Blood, Red Skin , co-starring Telly Savalas and Carroll Baker, was being shot in Spain. When this film finished, Cliff and Rick would be heading back home to Los Angeles.

The two men enjoyed their whole five-month-long European sojourn tremendously. Rick loved all the attention the paparazzi gave him, and Cliff loved being a stuntman again. They shared a swank apartment in Rome with a really nice view of the Colosseum out the window. Rick was always going out to Italian eateries, swilling cocktails at nightclubs, and generally living the life of an American movie star in Rome, with Cliff as his trusty co-pilot. During their stay, Cliff scored a shitload of Italian pussy. Far more than Rick, but Rick was always pickier. To Cliff, pussy was pussy, but he did have a real fondness for Italian pussy. And while he preferred a naked Italian girl in his bed sucking his cock to sleeping alone with no girl in his bed, he much preferred those naked Italians be different girls. Cliff was never that hung up on what a girl looked like. As long as they let him bury his teeth in their ass and enjoyed sucking cock, as far as Cliff was concerned, they were beautiful.

However, the flight going home would be a little different than the flight going to Europe.

While working on the secret-agent movie in Greece, Rick had met a big dark-haired Italian starlet named Francesca Capucci. Then, as Cliff told his friends back home, “Out of the fucking blue, he fucking married the bitch.” The minute Cliff realized where this was going, he knew that whatever the deal was that he and Rick shared was kaput. Rick wouldn’t need him around, Francesca wouldn’t want him around, nor would Rick be able any longer to afford to keep him around.

Now, Cliff wasn’t selfish. If he felt Rick and Francesca were good for each other, he’d back out gracefully, no worries. And it wasn’t like he thought Francesca was some evil femme fatale preying on his unsuspecting friend. He thought they were both a couple of idiots who committed to a massive life change without thinking it through. Cliff gave them two years. That was fine enough for her, but in a few years this was going to really cost Rick in alimony. So much so that he’d probably have to sell his house in the Hollywood Hills. And Cliff knew what that house meant to Rick. Rick was broody enough in that house. Rick Dalton living in a condo in Toluca Lake was going to be far worse.

Cliff snatched the small plastic ice bucket provided by the hotel off the little desk it rested on, as well as a hand towel off the bathroom towel rack. Then, opening his hotel room door, he proceeded to squeak and creak his way down the hall toward the ice machine. The filthy carpet under his feet had the consistency of Silly Putty. At the Hotel Splendido—the closest motel to the Wild West–looking rock formations that manage to make Almeria, Spain, pass for Arizona—every room had its door open. Since the establishment had no air-conditioning, every guest in every room had a loud box fan that the Spaniards provided.

As Cliff passed by Room 104, he quickly glanced inside and saw what looked like a very depressed barrel-built old man, a tent-like white linen shirt stuck to his sweat-covered back, sitting on the end of his bed next to the box fan, as he stared down into the filthy carpet beneath his feet.

That was Aldo Ray , Cliff thought as he passed by the doorway. And that’s the ice machine , Cliff thought he saw at the end of the hall. He scooped a bunch of ice cubes into the plastic bucket that looked more like a wastepaper basket. Then, with his hand, he reached into the ice, yanked out four cubes, and put them in the white handtowel he’d brought with him. Placing the cold compress against his ballooning eyebrow, he trotted back toward his room.

As he passed Aldo Ray’s room the second time, he shot a quick glance inside to make sure the big sweaty man was really indeed Aldo Ray. But this time, instead of looking down at the carpet, the Men in War star was looking right at him. Once Cliff was past the doorway, he heard the star’s unmistakable raspy soft sandpaper-like voice call out to him, “Hey?”