Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel

After the war, Cliff returned with two Medals of Valor. He thought he was going to die many times throughout World War II, including when he was in a Japanese Prisoner of War (POW) camp. He managed to escape with the other prisoners from the prison camp, which Hollywood made a film about called Battle of the Coral Sea. Cliff saw the movie but complained to Rick about it because he thought it was completely inaccurate. Cliff hated that the film made the Japanese officers more sympathetic than the American soldiers.

When the war ended, Cliff visited Paris before returning home because he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He thought about becoming a pimp but decided that he didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of sex workers. After visiting Paris, Cliff returned to Cleveland, Ohio to visit an old friend from high school named Abigail. She was a mistress to a Mafia leader in Cleveland. While Cliff and Abigail were at a pizzeria, Abigail recognized two men at the bar as Mafia and knew they were there to scare Cliff away. When Abigail was in the bathroom, the men sat with Cliff and threatened him. He dropped the Medals of Valor on the table, took a pistol out of his pocket, and told them he knew that if he shot them in front of everyone in the pizza parlor, he’d get away with it because he was a war hero. Before they could say anything, Cliff shot them in the head.

When the police arrived, Cliff told them that the two men threatened to kidnap Abigail, and he was so scared that he shot them. The police believed him, especially because he was a war hero, and they knew that the two men worked for the Mafia. This was the first time Cliff realized that he could get away with murder.

This chapter outlines more of the pilot of Lancer. Murdock Lancer tells Johnny about Caleb DeCoteau, the leader of the gang attacking his land. Caleb runs the entire town of Royo del Oro since it has no official law enforcement. Murdock hopes that his sons, Scott and Johnny, will help him fight Caleb’s gang. However, Murdock doesn’t know that Johnny and Caleb are friends. Johnny rides into the town of Royo del Oro to meet Caleb at the saloon and has a standoff with a man outside who calls him “Jughead.” They have a shootout, and Johnny wins. Inside the saloon, Caleb welcomes him as an old friend. Johnny offers to work for Caleb so that he can kill Murdock. This appeals to Caleb, so he offers to pay Johnny in gold to kill his father, and he accepts.

As Cliff drives through Hollywood, he sees the brunette hippie hitchhiking again. She tells him that she’s going to Spahn Movie Ranch and that she lives there with other hippies. This information concerns Cliff, who used to work at Spahn Ranch and knows George Spahn. He worries that the hippies are taking advantage of George. Cliff offers to give the girl a ride so that he can check on George.

The brunette hippie, Debra Jo, tells Cliff that her name is “Pussycat.” As they listen to music, Pussycat takes off her shorts and underwear and masturbates. She tells Cliff to touch her but instead he asks her age. This surprises Pussycat and she tells him that no one has asked her age in a long time. When he presses her for an answer, she says that she’s 18. Cliff asks for identification to prove this, which Pussycat doesn’t have. Cliff’s questioning irritates her, but he tells her that he isn’t going to risk going to prison by having sex with an underage girl. Pussycat dresses, and they talk about her hippie friends, including Charlie. Pussycat tells Cliff the story of how she met Charlie through her father, although she adds that when she ran off with Charlie, her mother left her father and her father tried to kill Charlie. Nevertheless, Charlie convinced her father not to kill him, and then they dropped acid together. This story shocks Cliff, and he’s intrigued to meet a man who can manipulate people so easily.

Rick is running lines for the next scene in his trailer when an assistant knocks on his door and tells him that Sam wants to speak with him. Rick looks around his trailer, which he wrecked after he couldn’t remember his lines. He has trouble remembering his lines because he’s hungover. In the earlier generation of actors, alcohol misuse was common because so many actors experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after World Wars I and II. However, Rick never fought in a war, so he thinks he has no “excuse.” He makes sure that the assistant doesn’t see the state of his trailer as he leaves.

Sam shows Rick the chair he’ll sit in for the next scene, in which he holds Mirabella for ransom. Sam tells Rick to think of the chair as the throne of Denmark and that Caleb is a “sexy evil Hamlet” (258) and Mirabella is an Ophelia-like character. Since Rick has never seen Hamlet, these references mean nothing to him.

As the crew sets up for the scene, Trudi talks to Rick about the intentions of his character outside the script. Rick has never thought about the characters he plays in the way that Trudi does. She teaches him that it’s important to think of their characters beyond what the script says about them because that gives them more depth. She tells Rick that Caleb seems to like Mirabella in some of the other scenes, so he should decide why that’s the case. In the middle of their conversation, Sam calls for action, and Rick and Trudi act out the scene.