Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: 7 Real People Rick Dalton & Cliff Booth Were Based On

If the old saying 'good artists copy, great artists steal' is true then Quentin Tarantino can lay claim to the greatest artist throne.

The best director to ever tell his subjects to take their shoes off, Tarantino's distinctive style makes his films feel like they're all related to one another. (There is a literal Tarantino shared universe but we can't get into it now.) Instead, we're focusing on the fanaticism that built the foundations of Tarantino's success in Hollywood. Prior to directing, Tarantino worked in a video store. This was not simply a job to the film geek, it was a vocation.

He used his access to hundreds of movies to build up an understanding of the archetypes of film. By soaking up all of the knowledge at his disposal, Tarantino developed an encyclopediac mental rolodex of cinema history. It's information that he will gladly share at any given opportunity, usually on a press run for a film of his that pays homage to a genre or era.

Kill Bill paid tribute to grindhouse movies and Asian cinema with Lady Snowblood being the most obvious inspiration. Pulp Fiction is another movie that wears its references on its sleeve, Kiss Me Deadly a pertinent referential example. His most recent work, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is no different.

The dynamic lead pairing of Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth are an amalgamation of actors and stuntmen that Tarantino was inspired by. We've compiled the real-life Daltons and Booths that motivated a classic.

One of the most controversial scenes in Once Upon a Time was the one in which Booth beat up Bruce Lee. There was outrage from Lee's daughter at the depiction of Lee as a cocky loudmouth who threw his weight around on set.

While the characterisation of Lee may have been interpreted as unfair, the scene had a real-life basis. In place of Booth, we have Gene LeBell, a martial artist stuntman who allegedly fought Bruce Lee on the set of Green Hornet. A legendary tough guy, LeBell is nicknamed the Godfather of Grappling because of the way he popularized grappling in professional circles.

The perfect model for a larger-than-life figure like Booth, LeBell was an expert in judo and jiu-jitsu. The co-author of Gene LeBell’s autobiography, Eugene S. Robinson detailed the Lee fight in an interview with Ozy: "According to LeBell, Lee was a working stiff on the set of The Green Hornet but was kicking the s**t out of the stuntmen. They couldn’t convince him that he could go easy and it would still look great on film. The show’s stunt coordinator, Bennie Dobbins, needed a ringer to deal with Lee, so he called in Judo Gene.

"LeBell says when he got to the set, Dobbins told him to put Lee 'in a headlock or something.'

"So LeBell went up and grabbed Lee. 'He started making all those noises that he became famous for,' LeBell said, 'but he didn’t try to counter me, so I think he was more surprised than anything else.'

"Then LeBell lifted Lee onto his back in what’s called a fireman’s carry and ran around the set with him.

"'Put me down or I’ll kill you!' Lee screamed.

“I can’t put you down or you’ll kill me,” LeBell said, holding Lee there as long as he dared before putting him down, saying, 'Hey, Bruce, don’t kill me. Just kidding, champ.'"

Tarantino didn't cower after the backlash, insisting that he had done his research. Clearly, he believed the account in LeBell's account. So much so that he moulded a large part of Booth's character around LeBell.