Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino

Author:Quentin Tarantino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2021-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“The Sweet Body of Deborah”

While everybody in the stunt community knows Cliff Booth is Rick Dalton’s stunt double, it’s not the thing he’s most known for. It’s just the most legitimate thing in the stunt community he’s known for. On the list of things that Cliff Booth is known for, it ranks about number four. The number-one thing he used to be known for was his incredible military record. Having more confirmed kills of Japanese enemy soldiers than any other American serviceman fighting in the Pacific theater is one hell of a feat. And that’s just confirmed kills. Ask any of his Filipino-brother resistance fighters how many unconfirmed kills of Japanese enemy soldiers Cliff Booth was responsible for, their answer would be, Who fucking knows?

But once there was widespread speculation that in 1966 Cliff Booth killed his wife, his status as a war hero became the second thing he was most known for inside the stunt community.

Number three on the list of things that Cliff Booth was known for inside the stunt community were his talents as a “ringer.”

As a ringer, Cliff Booth was the best in the sixties’ film industry.

What’s a ringer? Don’t try looking it up; it’s an unofficial term.

Well, say you’re a stunt gaffer and you’re working with a real asshole director who yells at your dudes all the time. Or with some fucking dickhead actor who keeps tagging your dudes and blames them for his mistake. Now, the stunt gaffer or anyone on his team can’t knock the director’s block off or punch the actor back when they get tagged.

But what the stunt gaffer can do is hire a stunt player for the day (not one of the gaffer’s team). And that dude is a ringer.

And he can do what the stunt team can’t. Which is basically fuck the shit outta the asshole, preferably in front of the whole crew.

Say you’re working in the broiling-hot sun of Mississippi for a year with that bald Nazi bastard Otto Preminger on Hurry Sundown. And that sadistic prick has belittled and berated crew members in front of the whole company for an entire year. So you hire Cliff Booth as a stunt day player and have him purposely fuck up a shot in front of Otto. Then you and the crew just sit back and enjoy the show.

Booth socked Preminger, mid-tirade, in the jaw, knocking him flat in the Mississippi mud. Cliff’s excuse was, as a World War Two hero, he experienced a wartime flashback when Preminger yelled at him in his German Gestapo accent, and he forgot where he was. And when the production manager gave him his bus ticket home the next day, Cliff left Mississippi with an extra (off the books) seven hundred dollars in his back pocket. And that night, celebrating with the crew at the hotel bar, he never had to pay for a drink.

Or say you’re part of the stunt team on the western TV series The Wild Wild West. Now, series lead Robert Conrad prides himself on doing (a lot) of his own stunts.

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