Quentin Tarantino reveals the fate of one Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character three years after the movie’s release. Set in 1969, Tarantino’s ninth film (by his counting) served as the director’s love-letter to the Los Angeles of his youth, but also took time to pay homage to an era of Hollywood that stood poised between the end of the old-time studio system and the beginning of the more dynamic period that came to be known as New Hollywood. Central to Tarantino’s depiction of 1969 Hollywood was Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, a B-grade actor forced to take on TV roles, who in the course of the film battles with his own self-doubt as a performer, but winds up an unlikely hero in the movie’s outrageously violent finale.
Now three years after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood introduced Dalton and his hilarious fake filmography, Tarantino has seemingly killed off the character for good, as revealed in a tweet by the director’s Video Archives podcast. “We are saddened by the news of the passing of actor Rick Dalton, best known for his roles in the hit TV series Bounty Law and The Fireman trilogy,” reads the posting. The tweet goes on to reveal that Dalton is survived by his wife Francesca, whom OUATIH fans will remember as the Italian starlet Rick meets while doing films overseas. A further tweet reveals that a Rick Dalton tribute episode of The Video Archives will drop next Tuesday.
Rick Dalton Was Tarantino’s Tribute To Hollywood’s Less-Famous Leading Men
Several real Hollywood leading men served as the inspiration for DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton character, chief among them Ralph Meeker, the tough guy actor who starred in the film noir classic Kiss Me Deadly. Other 1960s leading men who inspired Tarantino include Ty Hardin, Tab Hunter, George Maharis, Vince Edwards, Fabian Forte, William Shatner and Edd Byrnes.
Besides being actors Tarantino personally likes, these performers shared in common a similar career arc, establishing themselves in movies before falling on hard times and being forced – like Rick Dalton – to seek work either in television or in European films. While Tarantino does make some funny jokes at Dalton’s expense in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, they are always affectionate jokes. The movie’s depiction of Dalton’s struggles, particularly in the famous scene where he forgets his lines while shooting a TV Western and melts down in his dressing room (a scene cited by Michael J. Fox in a recent interview in which he recalled his own struggles after being diagnosed with Parkinsons), is particularly poignant.
Those who loved DiCaprio’s depiction of Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood may want to check out Tarantino’s Video Archives podcast episode when it drops on Tuesday, and see what the director has in store as he pays homage to the character he created in tribute to some of his favorite old-school movie actors.
Source: The Video Archives/Twitter
