JULY 2019 49the role she was being offered.
“Sharon embodies the best parts of the ’60s,” Robbie says.
“She had this kind of hippy nature to her — she would not wear
shoes, and she would pick up hitchhikers and that kind of stuff
— yet she was a huge up-and-coming star in Hollywood, in the
inner circle that Rick Dalton craves. This is a celebration of her
life. And you get a lot of hang time with her in this film.”
Ultimately, Debra Tate so supported the project that she
loaned Robbie a pair of earrings and ring that once belonged
to Sharon, for the actor to wear during the shoot. “It was a
strange thing,” says Robbie. “I guess it sounds like I’m being
a bit spiritual or whatever, but it really did help me ground the
character in something real. I wanted to honour her memory,
and bring the best parts of Sharon forward. And I found it
really quite moving to have a piece of her with me.”
T MAY NOT seem so at a glance, but this tale of stuntmen,
frustrated actors and doomed stars might be Tarantino’s
most personal film yet. “I think all of my movies are
achingly personal, alright?” he muses. “I’m usually dealing
with something in my life and I disguise it with genre,
so people don’t realise. However, this isn’t a genre movie, so the
personalness is more on the surface. And where the real personal
point of view comes into it is the fact that I was a resident of
Los Angeles County in 1969. I remember what was on TV.
I remember the products. I remember the billboards. I remember
everything. Any research I did was just to jog my memory.”
Tarantino has created a time machine, one that takes him
back to the sights, sounds and smells that entranced his six-
year-old self. The songs and even the jingles that play on the
radio station Rick and Cliff listen to — KHJ Radio — are the
precise ones he recalls hearing at the time. “We use the DJ
patter and the stupid contests and shit, and it’s in mono, the
way it would be out of a car radio,” he says, before launching
into a four-minute monologue that ends with him exuberantly
reciting the final lines of Rock ’N’ Roll High School, as delivered
by ’80s rock-jock ‘The Real’ Don Steele.
His fervour for pop culture has dampened not one jot. Over
the three hours Empire spends with him, he is a whirlwind of
energy, frequently jumping to his feet to switch seats or act out
a story. He talks of Andy McLaglen and Hal Needham and
Toho monster movies and the time he yelled at Brad Pitt
because Pitt couldn’t remember if he’d done a scene with Johnny
Depp in 21 Jump Street (“YOU DON’T REMEMBER IF
YOU HAD A SCENE WITH JOHNNY DEPP ON 21 JUMP
STREET?! I THINK YOU’D REMEMBER IF YOU DID
A SCENE WITH JOHNNY FUCKING DEPP!”). It’s very
difficult indeed to imagine him imminently dropping out of
Hollywood and never picking up a camera again. Yet, he
confirms, that’s still the plan. Once Upon A Time In...
Hollywood will be his penultimate film.
“If I thought I was going to make movies for another 20
years, that’s when, like a lot of directors, I’d end up getting lazy,”
he says. “And that’s not the case. I put everything I had in this
movie. You know, John Singleton didn’t know the last movie
he was going to make was going to be the last movie. So I’m
treating this one as if it is the last one.”
A rabid dog might yet cross Tarantino’s path. But all being
well, there’s still one more to come. He just doesn’t know
what it is yet. “No, not at all,” he admits. “That’s actually to me
part of the glory of 10. It’s deep inside me.” Whatever that
yet-to-be-excavated opus might be, you better bet your ass
it’s going to be magnum.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN... HOLLYWOOD IS IN CINEMAS FROM 15 AUGUST
THE FOUR SCENES FROM SHARON TATE’ S
TRAGICALLY CURTAILED CAREER THAT BEST
SHOWCASE HER TALENTSEYE OF THE DEVIL (1967)
In this underrated horror film, Tate’s debut,
she and David Hemmings play the sinister,
dressed-in-black, blonde de Caray twins,
who lurk about the French estate of doomed
nobleman David Niven. Tate’s Odile is a strange,
ethereal presence — not doing much, but
making startling appearances. Her finest
creepy moment finds her on the battlements
of the castle, surrounded by symbolic birds,
blankly evil yet insidiously appealing.THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967)
Tate’s best screen role is as Sarah, the heroine
of future husband Roman Polanski’s Hammer-
horror parody. With red hair rather than her
usual blonde, she attracts the camera’s eye —
and, obviously, the director’s — in the climactic
ballroom sequence where she’s a colourful, live
presence in a roomful of grey, dusty aristocrats.
In the final moment, Sarah is rescued by vampire
killers and borne off in a sleigh... but too late.
She flashes fangs as she bites the hero’s neck.VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967)
Throughout Jacqueline Susann’s campy soap
opera, starlet Jennifer North (Tate) phones her
mother — and gets nagged into providing
financial support for her family, who insist she
has no talent. At her lowest ebb, diagnosed with
breast cancer, she calls her mother and all the
woman can talk about is how ashamed she is
that Jennifer has appeared in “French art films”.
In despair that all she knows how to do “is take
off my clothes”, Jennifer takes a fatal overdose.THE WRECKING CREW (1968)
Dean Martin’s Matt Helm superspy comedies
were the Vegas Lounge version of the Bond
franchise, and partnered Martin’s secret agent
with a succession of glamorous ditzes. Tate is
tour guide Freya Carlson, who turns out to be
a British agent and drops the slapstick go-go
dancing act for one key move — presumably
choreographed by ‘karate consultant’ Bruce
Lee — as she delivers a flying kick to femme
fatale Nancy Kwan’s head. KIM NEWMANJULY 2019 49