If you opened Twitter this weekend, the odds are that your feed was filled with loving tributes to Rick Dalton, Leonardo DiCaprio’s B-grade movie star from Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.” So naturally, the joke spread like wildfire, and before long, Dalton’s death notice had even been “added” to the marquee of the New Beverly Cinema, the repertory movie theater in Los Angeles owned by Tarantino himself.
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The death of Rick Dalton started with a post from The Video Archives Podcast, a podcast hosted by Tarantino and “Pulp Fiction” collaborator Roger Avary. Including a few biographical notes – where he died and the family that accompanied him at the time of his death – the post sparked a massive response from movie fans who were in the on the joke, including more than a few pitch-perfect reminders of Dalton’s problematic friendship with alleged murderer Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt’s character from the film).
Of all the characters he’s created onscreen, Rick Dalton seems to have a special appeal for Tarantino. Not only does the filmmaker seem committed to making a spinoff “Bounty Law” television series in a few years, but he has also finished a biographical coffee table book covering the life of the fictional movie star. In 2022, Tarantino told The Verge that his book would be a throwback to the ’70s books he used to read. “You know those books you could get in the ’70s, the Films Of Charles Bronson, Anthony Quinn, that format they came in? Well, this is that,” the director explained.
Given Tarantino’s affection for performers of Dalton’s ilk — actors like Robert Forster whose careers moved between film and television before settling into a kind of reliable, low-budget stardom — it is no surprise that Tarantino would jump at the opportunity to manufacture one wholesale. Regardless, with Tarantino’s attention now solidly split between podcasting, books, television, and film, time will tell whether the character of Rick Dalton will truly ever return. In archival footage. Because he’s dead.
