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

“Always,” Marvin says.

“When it comes to this spaghetti-western stuff,” Rick starts.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t like ’em.”

“You don’t like ’em?”

“No I don’t. In fact, I think they’re awful.”

“Awful?”

“Yeah.”

“How many have you seen?”

“A couple.”

“So, this is your expert opinion?”

“Look, Mr. Schwarz, I grew up watching Hopalong Cassidy and Hoot Gibson. This Italian cowboy shit just ain’t my bag.”

“Because they’re awful ?” the agent clarifies.

“Yeah.”

“As opposed to the high-quality red-letter work of Hopalong Cassidy and Hoot Gibson?”

“C’mon, you know what I mean.”

“Look, Rick,” the agent says, “I don’t want to be insensitive here, but your track record when it comes to motion pictures isn’t so stellar that you should be looking down your nose at feature films considering hiring you for leading roles.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Schwarz,” Rick concedes. “But maybe, instead of running off to Rome, it’s wiser for me to stay in town and give it my best shot next pilot season. I mean, somebody’s gonna get lucky; it just might be me.”

“Look, kid,” Marvin says, “let me tell you a story about a client of mine. Before we sent cowboys to ride horses around the sets of Cinecittà, we used to send them to Berlin. Before the fuckin’ Italians got the bright idea to make westerns, the Germans got in the game.” Marvin explains, “You see, there was this German novelist named Karl May. And he wrote a series of books that take place in the American Northwest during the pioneer days. Now, the fact Karl May never set foot in America didn’t stop these books from becoming very popular with the German public.

“The books follow the exploits of two men. One, an Apache chief named Winnetou. And the other, his white mountain-man blood-brother, Old Shatterhand. So, in the fifties, a German film company started making German movies based on these novels. They cast a French actor named Pierre Brice to play the Indian. But as Old Shatterhand I got them to cast my he-man American client, Lex Barker. Now, before Lex went to Germany, he did a few American movies. He even played Tarzan—and was a pretty fuckin’ good Tarzan, if you ask me. But he was married to Lana Turner. So no matter what he fuckin’ did, he was always Mr. Lana Turner .

“So I get him the German picture. And he don’t wanna go. A German western? What the fuck is that? A German western with a French fuckin’ Indian?

“He says, ‘Marvin, what the fuck are you trying to do to me? There’s gotta be a limit to what an actor will do for money.’ And I tell him, like I’m tellin’ you, ‘What’s your fuckin’ problem?

“‘One, there’s not exactly a long line of people in America who want to hire you to star in their motion pictures.

“‘Two, you’re not joining the fuckin’ Army. You go to Germany, make a movie—five weeks, six weeks—make some good money, come back. Easy peasy. In an’ out.’

“So I get ’em to go. And the rest, as they say, is German cinema history .

“The movie is a fuckin’ smash-ola ! And not just in Germany but all over Europe. Lex ends up playing Old Shatterhand six times! He becomes one of the most popular actors in the history of German cinema! But his movies play all over Europe. He’s so popular in Italy, Fellini casts him in La Dolce Vita. And you know who he plays … Lex Barker ! That’s how big a star he is.

“After six movies, he retires from the role. They replace him with big American stars like Stewart Granger and Rod Cameron. But they don’t call them Old Shatterhand. They call them shit like Old Skatterhand, and Old Surehand, and Old Firehand. Why? Because everybody in Germany knows Lex Barker—and only Lex Barker—is Old Shatterhand!”

The agent gets down to brass tacks: “Look, honey boy, you asked me could you speak straight with me. Well, now I’m gonna speak straight with you. You tried the TV-to-movies transition and it didn’t work. Well, it rarely works, so welcome to the fuckin’ club.” Using examples that don’t include Rick, Marvin says, “Yes, it worked for McQueen and it worked for Jim Garner and, most unbelievably of all, Clint Eastwood. But guys like you, Edd Byrnes, Vince Edwards, George Maharis, who spent your careers running pocket combs through your pompadours, you’re all in the same boat now.

“When you weren’t looking, the culture changed.

“You gotta be somebody’s hippie son to star in movies nowadays. Peter Fonda, Michael Douglas, Don Siegel’s kid Kristoffer Tabori, Arlo fuckin’ Guthrie! Shaggy-haired androgynous types, those are the leading men of today.”

Marvin pauses for effect, then says, “You still wear a fuckin’ pompadour. Fuckin’ Elvis don’t wear a pompadour no more! Ricky fuckin’ Nelson don’t wear a goddamn pompadour no more! Edd fuckin’ ‘Kookie’ Byrnes is on TV doin’ commercials for fuckin’ hair spray, saying, ‘The wet head is dead, long live the dry look.’ Fuckin’ Kookie! But not you, Rick—you’re stickin’ with the fuckin’ pompadour!”

Rick excitedly tells him, “Well, you know this thing I shot today, I didn’t wear a pompadour.”

“Well, it’s about fuckin’ time!” Marvin says. “If you ask me you shoulda started using hair spray and a hot comb years ago.”

Then Marvin switches gears. “But that’s not the point. The point is, in Italy, you do what you want. You wanna suddenly get all flamboyant like Tony Curtis, have a ball. You wanna wear your hair like you did for the last twenty years, fuckin’ fine. Italians don’t give a shit. You know all this hippie shit all over town, all over America? Same shit happened in Rome. Difference: The Italians threw the bums out. Consequently, the youth culture didn’t dominate popular culture like these hippie faggots do over here.”

“ Hippie faggots ,” Rick repeats under his breath with bitterness.

Then the great Marvin Schwarz goes in for the close: “So Rick, here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Where do you wanna be this time next year? In Burbank, getting your ass kicked in by that schvartze on Mod Squad ? Or in Rome … starring in westerns?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Last Chapter

Roman and Sharon Polanski are in their convertible English Roadster, speeding down the Sunset Strip. Sharon hates this car.

She hates how old it is.

She hates the noises it makes when Roman shifts gears.

She hates the shitty radio reception it gets.

But most of all she hates that it’s a convertible and that Roman always insists on driving it with the top down.

Roman jokes with Warren Beatty that “Life’s too short not to drive a convertible.”

That’s easy for him to say, with that pageboy hairstyle he wears. But Sharon works hard on getting her hair right. And after getting her hair done and looking fabulous, she must tie it up in a scarf?

It’s a crime against beauty.

The Hollywood couple have completed their appearance on Hugh Hefner’s TV show Playboy After Dark . It’s ten o’clock as they race away from the Sunset 9000 building, where the show is taped, and whiz by Ben Frank’s Coffee Shop and the Tiffany Theater, which features Andy Warhol’s Lonesome Cowboys on its marquee.

Roman knows he shouldn’t have agreed to another event the day after the party at the Playboy Mansion, and he senses her hostile silence. He’s well aware she was planning to spend the night at home reading in bed. And he knows it’s much more work for her to get dolled up for these TV appearances than it is for him.