Did Cliff Booth kill his wife in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’?
The American auteur Quentin Tarantino may have made a small collection of iconic movies, but few people look past his early classics, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, when discussing the filmmaker’s very best movies. However, with a gripping, fantastical tale and absorbing 1970s aesthetic, his 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood takes the director’s talents to new levels of artistry.
Set during the twilight of Hollywood’s Golden Age, the film tells the story of a wannabe film star, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), and their pursuit of industry success. Meanwhile, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) is also trying her best to get to the top, whilst a sinister threat bubbles beneath the glitz of LA as the Manson family plan their shocking murders.
Just like most Tarantino movies, his 2019 film isn’t all that straightforward, presenting a number of mysteries and curious questions that aren’t directly answered by the film. One such unexplained event comes when it is proposed that Pitt’s Cliff Booth might have murdered his wife, Billie, during a boat trip earlier in his life, with Randy and Janet Miller (Kurt Russell and Zoë Bell), two industry stunt coordinators, refusing to hire him because of his potential crimes.
The rumoured crime is glimpsed at one point during a brief flashback which shows Cliff on a boat with his wife, played by Rebecca Gayheart, with the former holding a harpoon gun whilst she calls him out for being a “loser”.
For a while, this movie detail was left to much fan deliberation, with there being no answer in the movie as to if Booth is a murderer or not. In Tarantino’s novelisation of the movie, however, released in 2021, the director finally gives an answer to the question that has long-troubled movie fans across the world. The truth is that, yes, Booth did indeed murder his wife.
In the novel, the filmmaker and writer notes: “It wasn’t like he had plotted her murder…It was practically the accident he claimed it was. One, it was a hair trigger. Two, it was more instinct than a decision. Three, was it a pull, or was it closer to a twitch? Four, it wasn’t like anybody was gonna miss Billie Booth.”
To make matters worse for fans of Booth’s suave style, this wasn’t the stuntman’s first murder. The first of his kills we learn about is the previous owner of his dog, Brandy, a pitbull who once took part in violent dog fights. The owner, Buster, wished to let Brandy die within the ring, deciding to bet on the dog’s opponent, but Booth passionately disagreed and killed the man with his bare hands as a result.
As Tarantino reveals: “This wasn’t the first time Cliff committed murder and got away with it…The first time was in Cleveland in the fifties. The second time was when Cliff killed his wife two years earlier. This was the third time, and Cliff got away with this one too.”
Take a look at one of Booth’s very best moments from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood below.
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