Rick Dalton, the character portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” film, is ‘dead’ within the universe of Tarantino films.
Tarantino made the announcement via a series of tweets tied to The Video Archives podcast he co-hosts with Roger Avary in which they “revisit classic films on VHS and discover new favorites”.
The official channel for the podcast says this coming Tuesday’s edition of it will be: “a memorial episode designed by Quentin that features some of Rick’s best roles.”
Tarantino previously revealed to The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith that he wrote a “The Films of Rick Dalton” book, penned as if Dalton was real. The book goes through every one of Rick’s movies and episodic television shows that he did, leading to the end of his career in 1988 at the age of 55 when he retired to Hawaii.
It included “The Fireman,” a film with Dalton and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) made a decade after the events of ‘Once Upon’ about a Vietnam Vet-turned-cop who targets fellow corrupt cops dressed as a flamethrowing vigilante known as the Fireman.
The Dalton character is survived by his wife, Francesca. There is no word on the status of Cliff Booth.
