“Well, I’m not starring in The Sand Pebbles,” bringing up McQueen’s only Oscar nomination, “but I’m making a living.”
“Well, that puts you ahead of eighty percent of ’em,” McQueen says with a smile and a finger point.
The highest-paid movie star in the world is congratulating me on making a living as an actor. Thanks a lot.
“By the way,” Dalton says, “I was rootin’ for you for that Oscar nomination,” referring again to The Sand Pebbles.
McQueen doesn’t say anything to that; he just smiles.
Rick knows what that means. This little conversation is over.
But before that gate opens and McQueen and his Porsche zoom out of his life, Rick would like to connect with him. Not on the two separate realities they now exist in. But, back when the two men shared the same real estate, there was one incident that they shared that Rick could bring up without sounding too pathetic.
“Hey, Steve, I was wondering,” Rick said, “do you remember that time—it was during the first season of my show and the second season of your show—that we played pool at Barney’s Beanery?”
Actually, McQueen does remember that. “Yeah,” he says, “I remember that.” Going back in time: “We played three games, right?”
“Yeah,” Rick says, happy Steve remembers it. “It was kind of a big deal at the time. You know, Josh and Jake playing pool.”
McQueen gives it to him. “Well, it was a big deal. Josh and Jake playing pool? We coulda sold tickets.”
Rick laughs at Steve’s joke.
Thinking about it, McQueen says, “In fact, I seem to remember the whole bar watched us play the first game.” McQueen points at him. “You won. And only half the bar watched the second game”—then he jerks his thumb toward himself—“which I won.” And then he laughs when he remembers, “And nobody cared about the third game.”
A very moved Rick nods his head yes. He remembers.
“But I don’t remember who won the third game?” McQueen asks.
“Nobody,” Rick answers. “We never finished it. You had to leave.”
McQueen knows that probably means he was losing.
Then another car en route to Sharon’s party pulls up behind McQueen’s Porsche, bringing the reunion to an end. Both men look back at the other car, then back to each other.
“So you live there?” McQueen says, pointing at Rick’s house.
“Yep,” Rick says.
“Well, maybe one day I’ll knock on your door and we can go down to Barney’s and finish that game.”
Rick knows that will never happen, but it’s a nice thing to say. “That would be great.” Really meaning it, Rick says, “Good to see you again, Steve.”
“You too. Take care of yourself.” Then Steve turns toward the call box out in front of the Polanski house and hits the button.
Sharon’s voice comes out of the speaker. “Hello?”
Steve says into the box, “It’s me, baby, open up.”
The Polanskis’ front gate opens. Steve’s car, and the car behind him, drive up the driveway and disappear from view.
Rick stands there holding his beer stein, the tape recorder, and the garden hose, watching the gate in front of the Polanski residence close itself. He takes a swig of whiskey sour. Then he hears the phone inside the house ring.
Who the fuck’s calling at midnight?
He trots inside the house and answers the phone attached to the wall in the kitchen.
“Hello?” he says.
The female voice on the other end of the line says, “Rick?”
“Yes?” he answers.
“Are you learning your lines?” the voice asks.
What the fuck?
He asks, “Who is this?”
“It’s Trudi. You know, Mirabella from work.”
A genuinely surprised Rick says, “Trudi? Trudi, do you know what time it is?”
She groans on the other end of the line. “That’s a silly question. Of course I know what time it is. I don’t go to bed till I know my lines cold. I don’t believe in this learning-your-lines-during-the-day malarkey. Especially not on television. You don’t sound like I woke you up.” She asks, “Did I?”
“No, you didn’t,” he confesses.
“So,” she challenges, “what’s the problem?”
“You know the problem,” he says with irritation creeping into his voice. “Does your mother know you’re calling?”
Trudi guffaws on the other end of the line and tells Rick, “By ten forty-five, my mother has put away three to four glasses of chardonnay and is usually sleeping openmouthed on the couch with the TV on, waiting for the National Anthem sign-off to happen to wake her up and send her to the bedroom.”
“Trudi, you can’t call me at this hour,” Rick insists.
“Are you suggesting it’s not appropriate?”
“It’s not appropriate.”
“Stop trying to change the subject and answer the question.”
“What question?”
“Are you learning your lines?”
“Oh. Well—as a matter of fact, Little Miss Smartass—I am.”
“Yeah, right,” she says sarcastically.
“I am!” he insists.
“You’re watching Johnny Carson,” she says dismissively.
“I am not. I’m learnin’ my fuckin’ lines, you little bitch!”
After losing his cool and calling her a bitch, he hears her little voice giggle on the other end of the receiver. The sound of her giggling makes him giggle.
Then in mid-giggle she asks, “Are you learning our scene?”
“Yes, I am,” he tells her.
“Me too,” she says, and then asks, “Wanna run lines together?”
Okay, he thinks, this has gone way too far. He’s got to shut this little troublemaker down.
“Look, Trudi, I really don’t think it’s okay to be talking on the phone at midnight with your mom not knowin’,” he says honestly.
With infinite patience, Trudi answers Rick, “You act like tomorrow morning I’m waking up and going to a little red schoolhouse. I’m going to work with you. And we’re doing this scene. You’re up, I’m up. You’re working on the scene, I’m working on the scene. So,” she suggests, “let’s work on it together. Then tomorrow we show up to work, nobody knows we worked on it, and we knock ’em dead!” Then—almost like a dig—she adds, “You know, Rick, they don’t just pay us to do it. They pay us to do it great.”
The little squirt’s making sense. I mean, she is just a acting colleague. And after the way Sam reacted to that last scene we did together, if me and her come out of the gate tomorrow loaded for bear, we would knock ’em dead.
“You off book?” he asks the little girl.
“I think I am,” was her reply.
“Yeah, me too. Okay, kiddo, you start.”
On the other end of the receiver, Trudi suddenly changes her voice to duplicate traumatized-kidnap-victim Mirabella’s overdramatic intensity. “What do you intend to do with me?”
As he paces around his kitchen, dressed in his red silk kimono, Rick takes a swig of a whiskey sour from his beer stein and adopts his Caleb DeCoteau cowboy dialect. “You know, little lady, I ain’t rightly figured that out yet. I could do a lotta things wit’ ya. I could do a lotta things to ya. But I could also let ya go, your pa sees the right side of things.”
Trudi, as Mirabella, asks, “What’s he gotta do for you to let me go?”
Rick, as Caleb, spits out maniacally, “He can make me a rich man, that’s what he can do! He can give me a basket full of money and then he can forget me. Or I’ll give him a basket full of dead daughter, and he’ll never forget me.”
The innocent child asks the corrupt criminal, “So you’d murder me? Not because you’re angry with me, or even angry with my father,” Trudi takes a dramatic pause, then says, “but simply for greed?”
Caleb answers flippantly, “Greed’s what makes the world go ’round, little lady
.”
The little lady says her name out loud: “Mirabella.”
“What?” Caleb asks.
The eight-year-old child repeats her name to the outlaw leader. “My name is Mirabella. If you’re gonna murder me in cold blood, I don’t want you to just think of me as Murdock Lancer’s little girl.”
Something about the way she says that registers with the outlaw. And suddenly it becomes important for Caleb to make her understand his fairness on this matter.
“Look, you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. Obviously your pa’s gonna pay me my money. You’re worth it and he can afford it. So when he does pay me my money, I’ll release ya unharmed.”
There’s silence on the other side of the phone for a beat and a half. Then her voice comes back on the line, only now instead of being overly dramatic, she makes a surprisingly analytical observation.
“Interesting choice of words.”
“What?” a confused Caleb asks.
Then Mirabella Lancer, sounding remarkably like Trudi Frazer, explains her observation to the land-pirate leader: “You said ‘my money.’ It’s my father’s money. The money he earned, not stole, raising cattle and driving them to market. But you said ‘my money.’ You actually think you’re entitled to my father’s money?”
And with that delivery, little Mirabella and little Trudi push little buttons inside of the psyche of both the outlaw and the actor, and in the middle of his kitchen—dressed in his red silk kimono—Rick Dalton as Caleb DeCoteau metamorphoses back into the snarling, megalomaniacal, murdering bandit he always was and answers her in one big explosion of breath.
“That’s right, Mirabella, I am! I’m entitled to whatever I can take! And after I take it, I’m entitled to whatever I can keep! Your pa wants to keep me from blowin’ your fool head off? He oughta pay my price!”
In other words: a rattlesnake on a motorcycle.
The child asks a simple question: “And my price is ten thousand dollars?”
An out-of-breath outlaw and actor replies, “Yep.”
A coy little hostage remarks, “That seems rather high for little ol’ me.”
Sincerely, Caleb responds, “That’s where you’re wrong, Mirabella.” Then, compelled by emotion, Rick improvises, “If I was your pa—” He stops.
“What?” the voice on the other end of the receiver demands.
Rick opens his mouth, but the words don’t come out.
The child on the other end of the phone demands, “‘If I were your pa’ what?”
Rick blurts out, “I’d cut off my arm to get you back!”
Silence fills the room and the scene, but Rick can hear Trudi’s self-satisfied smile over the phone.
Then, after a dramatic pause you could drive three trucks through, Trudi as Mirabella comes back on the line and asks, “Was that a compliment, Caleb?”
Then Trudi breaks out of character and describes stage direction. She reads, “Then Johnny comes up to the door. Knock knock.”
“Who is it?” Caleb asks.
Trudi adopts a deep cowboy voice and says, “Madrid.”
“C’mon in,” Caleb orders.
Trudi tells Rick, “The rest of your lines are with Johnny. So I’ll do Johnny’s lines.” With her throaty Johnny Madrid voice, Trudi asks, “What’s the plan?”
Caleb tells him, “Plan is, Lancer meets us in Mexico five days from now with ten thousand dollars.”
She drawls out, “That’s a lotta money to carry on a long ride.”
Caleb snorts, “That’s Lancer’s problem.”
Trudi as Johnny points out, “Something happens to that money and we don’t get it, that’s our problem.”
Caleb spins toward Johnny and violently says, “Something happens to that money, that’s her problem!” With fire in his eyes, he tells Johnny Lancer, “Git it straight, boy! In five days’ time, Murdock Lancer is going to pay me my ten thousand dollars! And if anything happens to my ten thousand dollars before they reach us, we will not be understanding. The name of this game ain’t ‘I tried.’
“Murdock Lancer puts ten thousand dollars right smack-dab in my hand—or I crush her head in with a rock!”
Rick and Caleb breathe in and out hard after that explosion. Then, after taking the well-earned dramatic pause that George Cukor denied him, Rick asks, “Now, do you got a problem with that . . . Madrid?”
Then Trudi as Johnny replies, “My only problem, Caleb, is you keep callin’ me ‘Madrid.’”
Caleb snorts, “That’s your name, ain’t it?”
Then she says, “Not no more. Now . . . the name’s Lancer. Johnny Lancer.”
Rick goes for the imaginary pistol hanging off his hip, as Trudi on the other end of the receiver yells, “Bang bang bang!”
Rick lets out an excruciating scream as he falls to the linoleum floor of his kitchen, clutching his face as if that’s where Johnny shot him.
On the other end of the phone, Trudi asks, “What was that?”
On the floor of his kitchen, Rick tells her, “I acted like I got shot in the face.”
She coos an enthusiastic “Oooh, good idea.” Then, after a beat, she says, excited, “Hey, man, that was a pretty frickin’ good scene!”
Rick sits up from the floor and leans his back against his refrigerator. “Yeah, it was,” he agrees.
His scene partner says, “We’re going to kill this scene tomorrow!”
She’s right.
“Yeah,” he says, “I think we are.”
A moment of silence passes between the two thespians.
Then the younger one reminds him, “Wow, Rick, isn’t our job great? We’re so lucky, ain’t we?”
And for the first time in ten years, Rick realizes how fortunate he is and was. All the wonderful actors he’s worked with through the years—Meeker, Bronson, Coburn, Morrow, McGavin, Robert Blake, Glenn Ford, Edward G. Robinson. All the different actresses he got to kiss. All the affairs he had. All the interesting people he got to work with. All the places he got to visit. All the fun stories he got to live. All the times he saw his name and picture in the papers and magazines. All the nice hotel rooms. All the fuss people made over him. All the fan mail he never read. All the times driving through Hollywood as a citizen in good standing. He looks around at the fabulous house he owns. Paid for by doing what he used to do for free when he was a little boy: pretending to be a cowboy.
Then he tells Trudi, “Yes we are, Trudi. We’re real lucky.”
His little scene partner bids him good night. “Good night, Caleb, see you tomorrow.”
And a very grateful Rick Dalton says, “Good night, Mirabella, see you tomorrow.”
And the next day on the Twentieth Century Fox back lot, on the set of Lancer, the two actors knocked ’em dead.
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Lyrics from “Little Green Apples” words and music by Bobby Russell. Copyright © 1968 UNIVERSAL – SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Lyrics from “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” words and music by John Fogerty. Copyright © 1970 Jondora Music c/o Concord Music Publishing. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Lyrics from “Secret Agent Man” (from the television series) words and music by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri. Copyright © 1965 UNIVERSAL MUSIC CORP. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Lyrics from “Teddy Bear Song” words and music by Don Earl and Nick Nixon. Copyright © 1971 SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Lyrics from “There But For Fortune” words and music by Phil Ochs. Copyright © 1963 BARRICADE MUSIC, INC. Copyright renewed. All rights in the United Sta
tes controlled and administered by ALMO MUSIC CORP. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Copyright
THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION. WHILE IT MAKES REFERENCE TO ACTUAL EVENTS AND PEOPLE, CERTAIN CHARACTERS, CHARACTERIZATIONS, INCIDENTS, LOCATIONS, PRODUCTS, AND DIALOGUE WERE FICTIONALIZED OR INVENTED FOR PURPOSES OF DRAMATIZATION. WITH RESPECT TO SUCH FICTIONALIZATION OR INVENTION, ANY SIMILARITY TO THE NAME OR TO THE ACTUAL CHARACTER OR HISTORY OF ANY PERSON, LIVING OR DEAD, OR ANY PRODUCT OR ENTITY OR ACTUAL INCIDENT IS ENTIRELY FOR DRAMATIC PURPOSES AND IS NOT INTENDED TO REFLECT ON ANY ACTUAL CHARACTER, HISTORY, PRODUCT OR ENTITY.
See permissions to reprint previously published material here.
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ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Copyright © 2021 by Visiona Romantica, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © Visiona Romantica, Inc.
Cover photographs by Andrew Cooper © L. Driver Productions, Inc.
Cover design by Joanne O’Neill
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition JULY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-311253-7
Version 05212021
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-311252-0
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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Page 33
