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

The stuntman moved back into the actor’s doorframe.

“You American?” that famous rasp croaked out.

“Yes,” Cliff said as he held the towel with the ice against the right side of his face.

Aldo asked, “Are you workin’ on this western?”

“Yes, I am, Mr. Ray,” Cliff said.

That made Mr. Ray smile, and he stuck out five sausage fingers and said, “Call me Aldo. I’m in this picture too.”

Cliff stepped inside the actor’s room, crossed the difference between the doorway and the bed, and shook hands with the fifties’ Warner Bros. leading man.

“Cliff Booth,” said Cliff Booth. “I’m Rick Dalton’s stunt double.”

“Is Dalton in this picture? I knew Telly was and Carroll Baker was, but I didn’t know about Dalton. Who’s he play?” Aldo asked.

“He plays Telly’s brother,” said the stuntman.

Aldo guffawed, “Yeah, there’s a real family resemblance. Me an’ Mantan Moreland might as well play fuckin’ brothers.”

That made both men laugh.

Both men had served in the Second World War (Aldo as a frogman for the Navy). Ray was about the same age as Booth. But looking at them together that night, you’d never know it. Cliff still had the body of a middleweight boxer, while Aldo Ray’s barrel chest had turned into a barrel belly. That strong athletic frame he sported opposite Rita Hayworth in Miss Sadie Thompson had gone soft and his broad shoulders had rounded, giving him an ape-like posture. Cliff looked a good ten years younger than he really was, while Aldo looked a good twenty years older. The simian-like Aldo stared up at Cliff’s face, finally noticing the huge eyebrow.

“Jesus, kid,” Aldo blasphemed. “What the fuck happened to your face?”

“I got hit in the eye with a rifle butt earlier today,” said Booth.

“What happened?”

“Well,” Booth explained, “we were shooting out on those rocky cliffs, and the shot is, one of those banditos hits me in the face with a Winchester.”

Booth continued, “But the Italian guy playin’ the Mexican ain’t never done no action like that before, so he kept hesitating and missing me by a mile. Five different takes, all no damn good. But each time I’m falling flat on my back on goddamn rock. So finally I go to the 1st AD—who’s the only one of the Spanish crew to have halfway-decent English—‘Tell this guy to just fuckin’ hit me in the face, ’cause I can’t take too many more of these rocky fuckin’ falls,’” Cliff finished.

“Rang your bell, huh,” Aldo stated more than asked.

Cliff shrugged. “It’s the job. I’m Rick’s crash and smash .”

“You worked with him a long time?” Ray inquired.

“Rick?”

“Yeah, Dalton.”

“Goin’ on ten years now.”

“Oh, you two must be pals?”

“Yeah, we’re pals.” Cliff smiled.

Aldo smiled back. “That’s nice. It’s good to have a buddy on set.” Aldo asked Rick’s double, “Didja know ’em when he did that George Cukor picture?”

“Yeah,” Cliff said, “but I didn’t work on it. That’s the one film he did that didn’t have any stunts.”

“Yeah, it was some picture based on a big book at the time. Warner’s dumped all their contract players in it. Some not so bad, Jane Fonda was in it—ever meet Hank Fonda?” Aldo asked.

Cliff said, “No.”

“Anywho,” Aldo continued, “Dalton was one of the ensemble cast members. Now, it was George Cukor who gave me my big break in pictures, with The Marrying Kind with Judy Holliday. Then he cast me in Pat and Mike with Hepburn and Tracy.”

Suddenly switching gears: “You know who was in bit parts in both pictures?”

Cliff shook his head no.

“Charlie fuckin’ Bronson,” said Ray. “And he was even uglier then than he is now, if such a thing is possible.”

Aldo went into his own head for a moment, like he was remembering what it was like working alongside Bronson, back when Aldo was the star and Bronson was just a bit player.

After a moment’s pause, Ray rasped, “I hear Charlie’s doin’ pretty good these days. Good for Charlie.”

Then Ray jerked up his head toward Booth. “What was I sayin’?”

“Rick and George Cukor,” Cliff reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course—ever meet George Cukor?” Ray asked the stuntman. “Great fella,” Ray declared. “Everything I have I owe to him.”

“I hear he was the biggest queer in Hollywood,” said Cliff.

“Well, George was homosexual,” said Ray. “But I don’t think he did much about it. He was kinda fat.”

Then, as Aldo looked up at Cliff, he turned deep and philosophical. According to David Carradine’s autobiography, that was a tendency for the big man.

“You know, people useta ask me all the time, since Cukor started me off, did he ever try anything? And the sad answer to that question is no. But I wish he did.”

Aldo mused, “There was an emotional sadness to George that if I coulda cured, I woulda.

“But,” Aldo sighed, “I’m afraid by the time I met ’em he was incurable. As far as I know, he was celibate his entire time in Hollywood. I think I got more cock in the Navy than he did his whole forty years in Hollywood.”

Aldo paused, then said, “Fuckin’ waste if ya ask me.”

The big man paused again and asked again, “What was I sayin’?”

“Rick and George Cukor,” Cliff reminded again.

“Oh yeah. So, Rick Dalton’s workin’ for Cukor on this dog of a picture. So Dalton’s doin’ a scene, right? Then all of a sudden Dalton cuts the scene, cut cut cut cut cut cut . Trust me, the whole damn set gulps. Nobody on a Cukor set calls cut but George. Kate fuckin’ Hepburn wouldn’t call fuckin’ cut. But Rick Dalton calls fuckin’ cut.

“So Cukor looks up from his director’s chair and says, ‘Is there a problem, Mr. Dalton?’ And Dalton says, ‘You know, George, I was thinking that right here would be a good place to take a dramatic pause. Whaddaya think?’ And Cukor, who’s as bitchy as a turtle is crunchy, says”—Aldo, with his raspy voice, tries to imitate Cukor’s fey, erudite delivery—”‘Mr. Dalton … it is my fervent belief that, up to now, your entire career has been one long dramatic pause.’”

The two sweaty he-men laughed it up in the stuffy Spanish hotel room. Rick was Cliff’s best friend, but Cliff knew better than most that Rick was proficient in making an ass out of himself—especially back then.

Before Cliff’s laughter died down, Aldo looked up at him, suddenly serious and sincere: “Hey, pal, I’m in a bad way. Can you get me a bottle?”

“Oh wow,” Cliff said. “I’m sorry, Aldo, you know you’re not supposed to drink. They sent out a memo to everybody on the production not to ever give you a bottle. No matter what you say, we’re not supposed to give you alcohol.”

Aldo sighed and shook his head in despair and said, “They don’t let me carry any money. They told the hotel not to serve me. They got a guy watching the door. I’m under house arrest here.”

Aldo looked up at Cliff, and his eyeballs grabbed Cliff’s eyeballs and pleaded. “Please … please, kid, I’m in a bad way. C’mon, be a pal. Please … please … don’t make me beg … but I will.”

Cliff walked back to his room, grabbed his bottle of gin, made his way back down the hall on the Silly Putty filthy carpet, and handed it to the man in Room 104. Aldo Ray took the bottle of gin from his benefactor and, holding it in his big catcher’s mitt of a hand, stared at it intensely.

He’s got a bottle.

He’s going to be okay tonight.

He’s going to drink the whole thing.

And all that is going to start in a moment.