Bruce Dern Replacing Burt Reynolds In Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Deadline reports that Bruce Dern is set to play George Spahn in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Dern is taking over for his friend Burt Reynolds, who passed away on September 6 before filming began. The cast also includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, James Mardsen, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Timothy Olyphant, Damian Lewis, Lena Dunham, Emile Hirsch, Luke Perry, Scoot McNairy and James Remar.

The film is set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, during which the Manson Family murdered Sharon Tate and several others. It will be released by Sony on July 26, 2019. David Heyman, Tarantino and Shannon McIntosh are the producers. Dern is currently filming in Spain for Remember Me, but producer Atit Shah and director Martin Rosete changed the schedule so he could take part in this.

Spahn was a nearly-blind 80-year-old man who rented his Los Angeles ranch for Westerns. Charles Manson convinced him to let them live on the ranch by having his female followers have sex with him and act as his seeing-eye guides. It’s believed that follower Squeaky Fromme got her name because she squeaked when Spahn touched her.