Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

Frazer’s only nomination for the best-lead-actress Oscar was in Quentin Tarantino’s 1999 remake of the John Sayles script for the gangster epic The Lady in Red. Frazer played thirties’ brothel-prostitute-turned-bank-robbery-gang-leader Polly Franklyn, opposite Michael Madsen as public enemy number one, John Dillinger.

So Cliff asks, to sum up, “Okay, let me get this straight: A dude picks up a hippie hitchhiking? He takes the hippie home for dinner with his wife and his fourteen-year-old daughter? The hippie fucks the fourteen-year-old girl and takes off with her in the dude’s car? The same car that gave him a lift? Because of the hippie, the daughter gets married at fifteen and then runs off with the hippie? The dude’s wife leaves him due to all the chaos he caused by giving that fucking hippie a ride? The dude tracks the hippie down with a shotgun, but instead of blowing his head off, he later drops acid and parties with the hippie? And then later asks to be one of the hippie’s disciples?”

Look at this little grasshopper on the corner, Cliff thinks. “Grasshopper” is Cliff’s name for slinky, sexy, tall girls who are all elbows and kneecaps. He calls them that because when they wrap their long legs and gangly arms around you, it’s like fucking a grasshopper.

But, along with Rudolf Nureyev, Bruce Lee had the ability to hang in the air unlike few who had ever lived. Nureyev and Lee seemed to sail through the air, accomplish their task, and, when they wanted to, land softly on the ground.

The directions say to add milk and butter, but Cliff thinks if you can afford to add milk and butter you can afford to eat something else.

Since Cliff was so damn handsome, he appreciated other men who weren’t but didn’t need to be.

Rick asks, “You mean Caleb is like Hamlet?”

“And an Edmund.”

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t know the difference.”

“Well, they’re both angry, conflicted young men. And that’s why I cast you in this. But underneath Hamlet, underneath Edmund, there’s a rattlesnake.”

“A rattlesnake?”

“On a motorcycle.”

That type of character usually shows up on Bonanza’s Ponderosa Ranch, or The Big Valley’s Barkley Ranch, or The Virginian’s Shiloh Ranch, and they’re young, cocky, sexy, and a little dubious. They make friends with Little Joe, or Heath, or Trampas, but at some point, usually in the first act, we learn they have some sort of dark secret. They’re either on the run from somebody or from something, or they’re running from who they were or something they did or didn’t do. Or they’re in the area for some clandestine reason (usually revenge, planning a robbery, or to meet somebody from their past). We (the audience) know they’re shady. But we also know we’ll have to wait till the third act before we find out: Is the character a bad guy or a misunderstood good guy?

In reality, Rick thinks, I look like a cross between a goddamn hippie faggot and the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. And he’s not quite sure which of the two he dislikes most.

Listening to Rick tell the same stories and anecdotes, pretending to be unaware of the repetition, is practically part of Cliff’s job description. And, to be ungenerous, a sign of Rick’s low intelligence.