Quentin Tarantino Reveals What Happened To Rick Dalton After Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood Ending

In an interview with The Wrap, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino discussed what happened to Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) after the wild conclusion to the film.

“Recently I’ve been imagining the career he had after the movie. And I’ve gotten really, really, super into it,” Tarantino said. “The whole incident with the flamethrower and the hippies got a lot of play. No one quite knows what a big deal that was, but it was still a big deal. And it’s a big deal that he killed ‘em with the flamethrower, with the prop from one of his most popular movies. So he starts becoming in demand again. I mean, not in demand like Michael Sarrazin at that time was in demand, but he’s got some publicity and now all of a sudden “The 14 Fists of McCluskey” is playing more on Channel 5 during Combat Week and stuff. And so he gets offered a couple of features — low-budget ones, but studio ones.”

He added that Dalton became a bigger star on TV.

“But the thing is, on the episodic-TV circuit, he’s a bigger name now. He’s not quite Darren McGavin, all right? Darren McGavin would get paid the highest you could get paid as a guest star back in that time. But Rick’s about where John Saxon was, maybe just a little bit higher. So he’s getting good money and doing the best shows. And the episodes are all built around him.

So as opposed to doing ‘Land of the Giants’ and ‘Bingo Martin,’ now he’s the bad guy on ‘Mission: Impossible,’ and it’s his episode.”

And he kept going, offering even more details on Dalton’s career.

“Oh, and he does a Vince Edwards show, ‘Matt Lincoln.’ Or a Glenn Ford show, ‘Cade’s County.’ And that’s a big deal, ’cause he did ‘Hell-Fire Texas’ with Glenn Ford and they didn’t really get along. But now they bury the hatchet and they make a big deal about the two guys doing it together. And then he does a couple of Paul Wendkos’ TV movies.”

Tarantino even revealed that he submitted a fictional filmography for Rick Dalton’s career to IMDb, but that they rejected it.

He concluded by saying about Dalton, “he’s doing OK.”