Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood:
the Inspirations for Cliff Booth & His Atypical Watch
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Leonardo DiCaprio's fading film star Rick Dalton alongside his stunt double, Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth - and the latter's gold Citizen bullhead chronograph
In 1972, after years of research and work, Citizen launched its unique vertical-clutch column wheel Ref. 8110 automatic chronograph as a direct challenge to the world’s first automatic chronograph, Seiko's legendary 6139. Decades later, in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 ode to Hollywood, "Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood," Brad Pitt – playing the stunt double to Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading film star character, Rick Dalton – would wear this Citizen chronograph throughout the film on a leather bund strap, making the small watch look, much like Cliff Booth, larger than life while bringing considerable attention to a once seemingly obscure watch.
Once the film proved to be a success, the combination of Booth's on-screen swagger - not to mention his insane fight scenes - led to an overnight spike in prices for the gold Citizen bullhead, with some unscrupulous sellers on a popular auction platform selling the watch for upwards of $3k. Thankfully, prices have mostly stabilized in the years since the film left the theater.
Though Booth is a work of fiction, Tarantino appears to have based him on at least three of Hollywood’s most iconic stuntmen –Harold “Hal” Needham, Gary Kent, and Gene LeBell. And when a film bases characters on real-life people, the film version tends to be embellished more than a little – but, incredibly, with all three of these stunt men, the inverse is true.
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Cliff Booth's watch of choice in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, the 1970s Citizen Challenge Timer Ref. 67-9020 bullhead chronograph
BEFORE THE WATCH, THE MAN – CLIFF BOOTH
In Once Upon a Time..., Cliff Booth was a Green Beret war hero — a WWII vet who served in the European (after all, Pitt stared in the 2014 film, “Fury”) and Pacific theaters and then in the Korean War, earning two Medals of Valor, per Tarantino. The director wrote – in a subsequent Once Upon a Time… novel, in which he delved deeper into Booth’s character – that Booth briefly considered becoming a pimp in Paris after the war, but instead became a stuntman, and later a “ringer” — a substitute stuntman you could pay to “accidentally” hit movie stars on set. Booth also loved Akira Kurosawa films, with his favorites "Ikiru" (1952) and "Seven Samurai" (1954), which may explain Booth’s choice of the Japanese company’s Ref. 8110 chronograph bullhead.
Harold "Hal" Needham - gold chain, exposed chest hair, and all
HAL NEEDHAM
Stuntman, actor, writer, film director, and NASCAR team owner Needham first served as a U.S. Army paratrooper during the Korean War and broke into film stunt work by accident – a friend (also a paratrooper) got him his first two stunt jobs.
During this time, he also worked as a tree topper (an arborist who performs tree topping services), and as a billboard model for Viceroy Cigarettes (which makes one wonder — did Jack Heuer see Needham’s billboards when coming up with the idea for the famous Heuer Autavia linkup with auto racer Parnelli Jones and Viceroy? Tangent aside, Needham was soon on his way to stunt work in films that were breaking box offices (and a total of 56 of his bones).
Needham's first big break was stunt double for actor Richard Boone on the popular TV western Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, 1957 – 1963), and he trained under John Wayne’s stunt double and quickly became a well-known 1960s stuntmen on How the West Was Won (1962), McLintock! (1963), The War Lord (1965), The Bridge at Remagen (1969), and Little Big Man (1970). In The Undefeated (1969), Needham claimed he had to show Wayne how to throw a convincing fake punch, something “he’d pay for later when the cast and crew were out boozing, and the Western legend put him in a headlock. ‘A few seconds passed and I wasn’t sure whether he was going to release me or tear my head off,’ Needham wrote, escaping with a friendly head rub.” [1]
Burt Reynolds poses with Jim Nabors and Needham during the filming of Stoker Ace
During this period, Needham regularly stunt doubled for Clint Walker and…Burt Reynolds. Needham became good friends with Reynolds – the friendship Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton and Pitt’s Booth is said to be based on, per Esquire [2] – after working on TV Western Riverboat (NBC, 1959 to 1961). In a 2015 Variety interview, Reynolds, in true cocky Rick Dalton fashion, said he was confident doing his own stunts—but the producers brought in Needham anyway. [3]
“I told [Needham], ‘Look, I don’t want to take away from your talent. I’m sure you’re very good, but I do my own stunts.’ He smiled and said, ‘If you knew how many actors I’ve taken to the hospital that said that to me. But I want to watch you do this.’ I said, ‘OK,’ and I did the stunt. He said I was pretty good and asked me what else I could do. I said, ‘Anything you can teach me.’ He said, ‘OK, come out to my house.’” A firm friendship ensued, and Needham would reside in Reynolds' guesthouse for the better part of 12 years. [4]
Needham established himself as the best type of stuntman, a daredevil willing to take on anything. In 1970s Little Big Man, Needham jumps between the backs of galloping horses (not Dustin Hoffman). In an interview with NPR, Needham explained a dangerous stunt he did – his second at that point in his career (!) – for Have Gun, Will Travel.
The stunt called for jumping from a rock, 30 feet in the air, onto a moving stagecoach without any safety landing pads. "[The stagecoach] really looked small. It looked like a postage stamp," he said. "They brought the coach, and I hit it right in the center. But I broke through the top right up to my armpits, and that kind of shocked the folks inside the coach." [5]
Separate from Westerns, Needham gained acclaim for his car stunts — in White Lightning (1973), he jumped his car 80 feet from a riverbank onto a moving ferry, and in Gator (1976) he flew across a swamp via boat, flying 138 feet through the air, all unheard-of-feats at the time.
Fast forward to 1976, which saw Needham transitioning from stunt work into directing. What was the film? Smokey and the Bandit (1977) starring Reynolds, which Needham also wrote the screenplay for. The film was a huge hit film, quickly followed by Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), and Stroker Ace (1983), all directed by Needham and starring Reynolds. Smokey and the Bandit centered on a quite illegal cross-country street race. And Needham did the actual race himself - he claims he made the trip in 32 hours in a Dodge van rigged to look like an ambulance, replete with lights and sirens. [6]
Needham had launched a new movement in film, with a Playboy film critic calling it "Redneck Cinema" — all of which featured films movies with fast cars, faster women, bar fights, country music and devil-may-care men who’d do anything for a friend in trouble and a good time. Most prominent in the films? Car stunts. All of these films featured two things — Needham directing and Reynolds driving. All were panned by critics, who were forced to swallow their pride when Needham was given an honorary Oscar in 2012, a year before his death.
Needham, Barrett, and the Budweiser rocket car team prepare their attempt to beat the World Land Speed Record
Needham moved out of stunt work, focusing his energy on the World Land Speed Record project – in 1979, Needham, Budweiser and Stan Barrett combined their celebrity, cash and cojones, respectively, to make a supersonic land speed record. The car, the Budweiser Rocket, was no more, or less, than an earthbound missile: three wheels and a stabilizing wing attached to a liquid-fuel rocket sporting an additional engine from a Sidewinder.
The driver, Barrett, and Needham claim to have verified the speed and heard a sonic boom, but not a single bystander interviewed in the intervening years has corroborated the account. In addition, the absence of a sanctioning organization and the fact that the Budweiser Rocket did not duplicate the run meant that today, almost no one believes that the car broke the sound barrier. Needham insisted until the day he died his rocket car had succeeded.
Giving up his career as the highest paid stuntman in Hollywood, Needham would transition - yet again - to directing and writing and continue both well into the 1990s, directing over 20 films in addition to the dozens he did stunt work on. He told the Los Angeles Times, “I know one thing; I’ll never win an Academy Award. But I’ll be a rich son of a bitch. And that’s what it’s all about.” [7] Needham died of cancer in late 2013 in Los Angeles at the age of 82.
Needham speaks with Colonel Charles Yeager - yes, that Chuck Yeager
GARY KENT
Up next? Actor, director and, most notably, stuntman Gary Kent. After a short stint in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, Kent moved to Hollywood with his wife and son while working as a parking lot attendant while looking for acting jobs. His feature film debut came in Battle Flame (1959) and he had a range of roles in several low-budget films in the 1960s, including The Black Klansman (1966) and biker film The Savage Seven (1968). [8] In 1969, he served as a stunt double for Bruce Dern in the now-cult-classic exploitation film, Psych-Out.
Per entertainment industry periodical Deadline, “While stuntman and director Hal Needham was also an important inspiration, there’s particular overlap between Kent and [Brad Pitt’s character Cliff] Booth in their crossing paths with The Green Hornet‘s (1966 – 1967) Bruce Lee - who had his own watch, a black-dial Seiko 6139-6010 automatic chronograph - and, perhaps even more striking, Kent’s encounters with the Charles Manson Family during late-1960s film shoots at the Spahn Ranch.” [9]
Kent and Penny Marshall on the set of 1968's biker exploitation film, The Savage Seven; Kent would be severely injured during a stunt in this film
Kent’s career took off, per The Hollywood Reporter, when he talked Jack Nicholson into hiring him for two Westerns shot back-to-back in 1966 in Kanab, Utah – the Nicholson-penned Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) and The Shooting (1966). [10] He doubled for Nicholson in those movies, impressing the actor with his willingness to fall off a horse without the use of safety landing pads. Among his other credits were such drive-in movie favorites as Peter Bogdanovich’s first film Targets (1968), featuring Boris Karloff, 1970’s Hell’s Bloody Devils and, the following year, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant and Angels’ Wild Women.
Kent also coordinated stunts (and stunted, as it were, himself) on dozens of pictures, working with everyone from Penny Marshall to Bogdanovich. He would perform stunts and act on The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee during the mid-1960s, while also doing same on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964 – 1968). Also key to the discussion, Tarantino interviewed Kent as he was putting together his script for Once Upon a Time…, according to Joe O’Connell, who directed documentary Danger God (2018) about Kent. [11]
Kent, during an interview in 2018's documentary Danger God about his life and stunts
Another tie-in to Once Upon a Time…? In a mid-2019 interview, Kent explained that during a lunch with Tarantino, the stuntman recounted his Charles Manson cult leader story. During the 1960s, Kent made “low-budget westerns at Spahn Ranch in the San Fernando Valley… ‘They had a bunch of horses and about 200 acres with no telephone poles or TV antennae so you could shoot period pieces,’ Kent recalls. ‘Charlie Manson and the girls were living out there. We just thought they were hippies, and sort of ragged ones at that. They’d beg our lunches from us while Charlie sat on this big rock at the periphery.’”
“One afternoon in 1969, second unit director Bud Cardos’ dune buggy camera car broke down. ‘I asked Patricia Krenwinkel if she knew any mechanics and she brought over Charlie Manson. He had little squinty eyes, looked like a shoplifter. Charlie said he’d fix the dune buggy but he needed $70 in advance for parts. Bud gave him $70. We came back the next day and the dune buggy hadn’t been fixed. I told Charlie, ‘You’d better fix it right away because if you don’t, Bud is going to give you a new anus.’ He got under there and fixed it in no time at all.’ Kent never pictured Manson as a cult leader. ‘I just thought he needed to get some rest and a good meal, but I wouldn’t have followed him across the street.”
Like all experienced stunt people, Kent had his share of injuries – in 1966, he broke all his ribs when run over by a motorcycle in The Vengeful Seven (1968) and cut his arm on a shattered shot glass a year earlier in 1967 during a Hell’s Angels on Wheels (1967) bar fight, “I wrapped my arm in a towel and on the way to the hospital we stopped for a couple of scotch and waters, so I was in a pretty good mood when they gave me 36 stitches,” Kent recounted, laughing.
The 1960’s were an era of filmmaking characterized by hanging around a set, where never saying no could get you a long way – and Kent was willing to do anything. Stunts, acting, cinematography, special effects, unit management, he'd do it, and behind the scenes he was also working on his own scripts. He got his chance at directing in 1971 with the now-lost X-rated relationship drama Secret Places, Secret Things (1971).
Kent’s half-century stunt career came to an end on the set of Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) when he tumbled down a hill and damaged his leg, but he kept working as a stunt coordinator, working as recently as 2019 on Sex Terrorists on Wheels. Kent passed away in Austin at the age of 89 in May 2023. [12]
Kent's last project, 2019's Sex Terrorists on Wheels
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GENE LEBELL, AKA “JUDO GENE” AND THE “GODFATHER OF GRAPPLING”
And last, but in no way least, was Martial arts instructor, actor, stuntman, and stunt coordinator Gene LeBell, the third Hollywood stuntman understood to have served as inspiration for Booth. LeBell was widely regarded – before becoming a stuntman – as America’s first martial arts “sensation,” and held a 10th degree red belt in Judo, 9th degree black belt in Jujutsu, and a 10th degree black belt in Kyokushin Budokai.
LeBell would take these skills to transition into a career as professional wrestler, actor, and then finally a stuntman. Raised by his mother, a boxing and wrestling promoter (and the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame), LeBell once sparred with legendary boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as a teenager. [13]
“In 1954 and ’55, LeBell won the AAU National Judo Championships heavyweight and overall divisions. He then embarked on his professional wrestling career, implementing his years of judo and catch wrestling and helping popularize the holds and submission attempts that remain in the sports entertainment industry to this day.”
LeBell, the 1954 and '55 AAU National Judo Championship heavyweight champion
Notably, LeBell was a pioneer in Mixed Martial Arts before there was MMA – one of the first martial artists to train in wrestling, judo, boxing, karate, and other combat arts, he blended the techniques into an efficient fighting style, beating fifth-ranked light heavyweight boxer in the world Milo Savage in 1963, causing a riot in the aftermath.
After his renown in judo and jiu-jitsu, LeBell began teaching his grappling techniques to famous actors – Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, Roddy “Rowdy” Piper, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall, and multiple others. During the same 1960s period, he also began acting and stunt work.
“In his 2005 autobiography The Godfather of Grappling, LeBell remembered grabbing Lee, who then ‘started making all those noises that he became famous for … but he didn’t try to counter me, so I think he was more surprised than anything else.’ He then hoisted Lee over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran around the set as Lee shouted, ‘Put me down or I’ll kill you.’ To LeBell, the altercation revealed Lee’s repertoire was without submission maneuvers, armbars, and takedowns. ‘He came to my school and worked out for over a year, privately,’ LeBell said, ‘and I went and worked out with him at his school.’” [14]
No less a figure than Joe Rogan, a friend of LeBell’s, took umbrage with Lee’s portrayal as someone who gets beaten up by “some random dude who is a stuntman” with no apparent martial arts training in Once Upon a Time... [15] Rogan said it would make sense if Tarantino based Booth’s character on LeBell, because he was a legendary stuntman and friends with Lee during the era the film takes place. “If that’s who he’s supposed to be portraying in the movie … if they showed that Brad Pitt was some judo champion that become a martial artist later, then OK, maybe,” Rogan said. “I guarantee you it didn’t go down like that between them,” he said.
Someone LeBell didn’t get along with? Vladmir Putin’s friend [16] and actor Steven Seagal. As the story goes, per a 2012 MixedMartialArts.com interview with LeBell, [17] “…in 1991, Gene LeBell was working as a stunt coordinator on ‘Out for Justice’ (1991).
At some point Seagal announced that due to his Aikido training, he was immune to chokes. When then 58-year-old LeBell heard about the claim, he gave Seagal the opportunity to test it. LeBell set the choke up, Seagal said ‘Go’ and Seagal promptly went."
"As the story goes, Seagal went to sleep and went #1 and #2 in his pants.” True? We don’t know – Hollywood is full of larger-than-life stories like his, and Seagal would vehemently deny it several years later. But it’s certainly entertaining.
LeBell hugs his student, Ronda "Rowdy" Rousey
LeBell courted controversy in other ways, to include alleged involvement in murder, perhaps why Tarantino portrays Booth in the film as likely killing his wife while at sea). Former Chatsworth pornographer Jack Ginsburgs, a close friend of LeBell, was convicted of killing former friend and business associate private investigator Robert Duke Hall in mid-1976; Ginsburgs was allegedly assisted by LeBell, who was eventually acquitted of a murder charge but convicted as an accessory for driving Ginsburgs to and from the murder scene. [18] LeBell’s conviction was later overturned by the California state Court of Appeals. [19]
His acting roles and stunt work ranged from, “everything from Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964-1969), Mission: Impossible (1966-1973), Ironside (1967-1975), Batman (1966-1968) and The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971) in the 1960s, to The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-1978) and Starsky & Hutch (1975-1979) in the 1970s, Taxi (1978-1983), The Fall Guy (1981-1986) and Married … With Children (1987-1997) in the 1980s, and even Reno 911! (2003-2009) in the 2000s. On the big screen, he did stunts, often uncredited, for the original Planet of the Apes (1968-1973) films, disaster films Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (both 1974) and the Naked Gun films (1988-1994), as well as King Kong (1976), Airplane! (1980), RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Independence Day (1996), Bruce Almighty (2003) and Smoking Aces (2006), among others.” [20]
LeBell continued to teach judo, and his students included AnnMaria De Mars, the first American to win a World Judo Championships gold medal in 1984, and De Mars’ daughter, Ronda Rousey, the first American woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo by winning bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before embarking on her own illustrious MMA career. He then transitioned from teaching to refereeing MMA bouts.
Per press reporting, LeBell would eventually appear in more than 1,000 films, shows and commercials alongside names like Norris, James Garner, Anne Francis, Elvis Presley, and John Wayne – The Hollywood Reporter declared, “By his own admission, ‘every star in Hollywood beat me up’ when [LeBell] was a stuntman and actor. Wayne punched him square in the face in Big Jim McLain (1952), Presley karate-kicked him between the eyes in Blue Hawaii (1961), Gene Hackman went toe-to-toe with him in Loose Cannon (1990), and Burt Reynolds kicked him where it hurts in Hard Time (1998). Even Steve Martin roughed him up and threw him into a swimming pool in The Jerk (1979).”[21]
One of his last appearances was in Men In Black II in 2002. LeBell passed away in his sleep in mid-2022, at the age of 89, in Los Angeles.
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THE 1970S CITIZEN CHALLENGE TIMER BULLHEAD CHRONOGRAPH WATCH
Citizen's Ref. 8110 movement was the Japanese company's answer to Seiko’s famed 6139 automatic chronograph movement, and Citizen began production in 1972, and continued to make the reference into the 1980s (after Seiko ceased making the 6139 in 1979). One key difference between the Citizen and Seiko automatic chronographs – Citizen’s well-designed 8110, unlike the Seiko 6139, featured hand winding and a “flyback” complication, which allows the wearer to zero the chronograph while running, rather than stopping the chronograph first then restarting it, allowing the instant stop and re-start of the chronograph function.
The Citizen 8110 movement beats at a higher rate – 28,800 bph (Seiko’s own high beat watches that kept time at the same bph, the King and Grand Seiko, were labeled as “high-beat” by Seiko; this bph speed is far more commonplace in today’s watches) – than the Seiko 6139, allowing for more accurate timekeeping. It can also be hand-wound (unlike the Seiko 6139). The Citizen also features – in addition to the 30-minute subdial register (like the 6139) – a 12-hour register, which the 6139 does not.
The compact design of the movement in the 1970's flyback Citizen Challenge Timer Ref. 8110 automatic bullhead chronograph permitted a smaller case, rendering the Citizen bullhead lighter than the Seiko 6139 and most other automatic chronographs of the era. The Ref. 8110 was, naturally, far more compact than Seiko’s own bullhead design, the sizable Seiko 6138-004X automatic chronograph.
Citizen chronographs using the Ref. 8110 movement have the same column wheel/vertical clutch design, with quick setting mechanisms for date and day. Set when the crown is pulled out one position, the date was set by rotating the crown and the day by atypically pressing the chronograph reset pusher.
Compared to modern chronographs, chronographs in the contemporary watch market with similar features and construction sell at considerably higher price points – to include Blancpain, Vacheron Constantine, Patek, and Audemars Piguet (among others). The Citizen Ref. 8110 resides in a rarefied spot on the price range spectrum – the least expensive, yet most sophisticated chronograph made.
Chuck Norris pays his respect after LeBell's passing
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Which brings us to Cliff Booth’s Citizen bullhead – a gold 1970s Citizen Challenge Timer Ref. 67-9020 bullhead chronograph, utilizing the 8110 movement.
The dial on the gold bullhead – to paraphrase Worn & Wound’s review of the bullhead [22] – “…features a dual-register design with the day/date at six and a tachymeter along the outer edge. The sub-dial at three is a 30-minute counter, and the one at nine is a 12-hour counter. The sub-dials feature concentric circles and the tapering needle hands are painted black along the length and left exposed at the pinion. At six is what I would call a faux sub-dial. It contains the day and date, not unlike the way Seiko bullheads feature these two complications.”
Perhaps to balance the svelte size of the gold Citizen bullhead Booth wears, the Once Upon a Time… prop masters choose to mount the watch on a wide brown leather cuff-type strap; similar to a bund strap, which gives the watch an appearance much larger than its 38mm width would suggest. But the film’s one watch-related goof? The film is set in early 1969 Los Angeles, California, and Citizen hadn’t started producing the bullhead (1972) when Once Upon a Time… takes place (and the Seiko 6139 had only just started becoming available at this time). Oops!
So, which stuntman was the main inspiration for Booth? Only one person knowns – Tarantino – and he didn’t return my calls. Regardless, as any fan of Once Upon a Time… knows, it’s easy to see elements of all three in Pitt’s character (and even easier to imagine all three acclaimed stuntmen knew one another, given how small Hollywood is – not to mention often working on the same TV and films, sometimes concurrently). And, after all, Once Upon a Time… is fictional…but also damn entertaining.
Also entertaining? In mid-2024, Citizen released an updated version of its bullhead chronograph, the limited-edition Citizen Promaster Tsuno Chrono Racer Ref. AV0088-01L. The busy design is questionable, in our humble opinion, and we’d have to agree with Gear Patrol’s review of the watch by Johnny Brayson – “If Citizen were to make such a watch that also brought back the simpler styling and smaller sizing of the original Bullhead, then a significant portion of the enthusiast community — present company included —would go bananas.” [23]
The film trailer for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
[1] Esquire, “The Stuntman Who Inspired Brad Pitt's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Character Is More Badass In Real Life,” 25/JUL/2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190731051154/https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a28504994/brad-pitt-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-character-true-story-stuntman-hal-needham/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Variety, “Burt Reynolds on Stunts, His First TV Series Role and Friendship With Hal Needham,” 2/OCT/2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20190727203702/https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/burt-reynolds-stunts-first-tv-series-role-friendship-170023220.html
[4] NPR, “The Story Behind The Stunts: Remembering Hollywood's Hal Needham,” 01/NOV/2013, https://web.archive.org/web/20230205060025/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/242347760
[5] Ibid.
[6] Esquire, “The Stuntman Who Inspired Brad Pitt's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Character Is More Badass In Real Life,” 25/JUL/2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190731051154/https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a28504994/brad-pitt-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-character-true-story-stuntman-hal-needham/
[7] The Hollywood Reporter, “Director-Stuntman Hal Needham Dies at 82,” 25/OCT/2013, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hal-needham-stuntman-director-dies-651039/
[8] Deadline, “Gary Kent Dies: Director, Actor And Stuntman Who Helped Inspire Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Was 89,” 26/MAY/2023, https://deadline.com/2023/05/gary-kent-dead-stuntman-quentin-tarantinos-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-1235381093/
[9] The Hollywood Reporter, “Gary Kent, Fabled B-Movie Stuntman, Actor and Director, Dies at 89,” 26/MAY/2023, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gary-kent-dead-stuntman-1235501781/
[10] Ibid.
[11] The Credits, “How Stunt Man Gary Kent Inspired Brad Pitt’s Character in Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood,” 19/AUG/2019,
[12] Los Angeles Times, “Gary Kent, Stuntman Who Inspired Taratino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Dies at 89,” 27/MAY/2023,
[13] Los Angeles Daily News, “Gene LeBell, Iconic Martial Arts Pioneer, Dies at the Age of 89,” 11/AUG/2022, https://www.dailynews.com/2022/08/11/gene-lebell-iconic-martial-arts-pioneer-dies-at-the-age-of-89/
[14] The Hollywood Reporter, “Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and ‘Godfather of Grappling,’ Dies at 89,” 10/AUG/2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gene-lebell-dead-famed-stuntman-godfather-of-grappling-dies-1235196322/
[15] South China Morning Post. “Could Gene LeBell Beat Up Bruce Lee? Meet the Real Life Cliff Booth from ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’,” 15/AUG/2019, https://www.scmp.com/sport/martial-arts/kung-fu/article/3022773/could-gene-lebell-beat-bruce-lee-meet-real-life-cliff
[16] Reuters, “In Pictures: Putin Sworn in for Fifth Term as Russian President,” 07/MAY/2024, https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-putin-sworn-fifth-term-russian-president-2024-05-07/
[17] MixedMartialArts.com, “Steven Segal Denies Gene LeBell Made Him Poop His Pants,” 17/DEC/2015, https://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma/rousey-i-bet-i-could-beat-steven-seagal
[18] New York Times, “Los Angeles Stirred by Detective's Mysterious Death,” 13/SEP/1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/13/archives/los-angeles-stirred-by-detectives-mysterious-death.html
[19] Los Angeles Times, “Killer’s Impending Parole Scuttled by Extortion Plot,” 08/OCT/1986, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-08-mn-4860-story.html
[20] The Hollywood Reporter, “Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and ‘Godfather of Grappling,’ Dies at 89,” 10/AUG/2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gene-lebell-dead-famed-stuntman-godfather-of-grappling-dies-1235196322/
[21] Los Angeles Daily News, “Gene LeBell, Iconic Martial Arts Pioneer, Dies at the Age of 89,” 11/AUG/2022, https://www.dailynews.com/2022/08/11/gene-lebell-iconic-martial-arts-pioneer-dies-at-the-age-of-89/ and The Hollywood Reporter, “Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and ‘Godfather of Grappling,’ Dies at 89,” 10/AUG/2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gene-lebell-dead-famed-stuntman-godfather-of-grappling-dies-1235196322/
[22] Worn & Wound, “Chronography 11: The Citizen “Bullhead” Challenge Timer,” 19/DEC/2016, https://wornandwound.com/chronography-11-citizen-bullhead-challenge-timer/
[23] Gear Patrol, “A Classic 1970s Chronograph Gets a Thoroughly Modern Makeover: The Bullhead’s Back, But is it Better than Ever?,” 12/AUG/2024, https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/citizen-tsuno-chrono-racer-super-titanium/
Once Upon a Time..., Inspirations for Cliff Booth & His Watch
Leonardo DiCaprio's fading film star Rick Dalton alongside his stunt double, Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth
In 1972, after years of research and work, Citizen launched its unique vertical-clutch column wheel Ref. 8110 automatic chronograph as a direct challenge to the world’s first automatic chronograph, Seiko's legendary 6139. Decades later, in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 ode to Hollywood, "Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood," Brad Pitt – playing the stunt double to Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading film star character, Rick Dalton – would wear this Citizen chronograph throughout the film on a leather bund strap, making the small watch look, much like Cliff Booth, look larger than life while bringing considerable attention to a once seemingly obscure watch.
Once the film proved to be a success, the combination of Booth's on-screen swagger - not to mention his insane fight scenes - led to an overnight spike in prices for the gold Citizen bullhead, with some unscrupulous eBay sellers selling the watch for upwards of $3k! Thankfully, prices soon stabilized a year after the film left the theater.
Cliff Booth's watch of choice in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, the 1970s Citizen Challenge Timer Ref. 67-9020 bullhead chronograph
BEFORE THE WATCH, THE MAN – CLIFF BOOTH
In Once Upon a Time..., Cliff Booth was a Green Beret war hero — a WWII vet who served in the European (after all, Pitt stared in the 2014 film, “Fury”) and Pacific theaters and then in the Korean War, earning two Medals of Valor, per Tarantino. The director wrote – in a subsequent Once Upon a Time… novel, in which he delved deeper into Booth’s character – that Booth briefly considered becoming a pimp in Paris after the war, but instead became a stuntman, and later a “ringer” — a substitute stuntman you could pay to “accidentally” hit movie stars on set. Booth also loved Akira Kurosawa films, with his favorites "Ikiru" (1952) and "Seven Samurai" (1954), which may explain Booth’s choice of the Japanese company’s Ref. 8110 chronograph bullhead.
Though Booth is a work of fiction, Tarantino appears to have based him on at least three of Hollywood’s most iconic stuntmen –Harold “Hal” Needham, Gary Kent, and Gene LeBell. And when a film bases characters on real-life people, the film version tends to be embellished more than a little – but, incredibly, with all three of these stunt men, the inverse is true
Harold "Hal" Needham - gold chain, chest hair, and all
HAL NEEDHAM
Stuntman, actor, writer, film director, and NASCAR team owner Needham first served as a U.S. Army paratrooper during the Korean War and broke into film stunt work by accident – a friend (also a paratrooper) got him his first two stunt jobs.
During this time, he also worked as a tree topper — an arborist who performs tree topping services), and as a billboard model for Viceroy Cigarettes (which makes one wonder — did Jack Heuer see Needham’s billboards when coming up with the idea for the famous Heuer Autavia linkup with auto racer Parnelli Jones and Viceroy? Needham was soon on his way to stunt work in films that were breaking box offices (and a total of 56 of his bones).
Needham's first big break was stunt double for actor Richard Boone on the popular TV western Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, 1957 – 1963), and he trained under John Wayne’s stunt double and quickly became a well-known 1960s stuntmen on How the West Was Won (1962), McLintock! (1963), The War Lord (1965), The Bridge at Remagen (1969), and Little Big Man (1970). In The Undefeated (1969), Needham claimed he had to show Wayne how to throw a convincing fake punch, something “he’d pay for later when the cast and crew were out boozing, and the Western legend put him in a headlock. ‘A few seconds passed and I wasn’t sure whether he was going to release me or tear my head off,’ Needham wrote, escaping with a friendly head rub.” [1]
Burt Reynolds poses with Jim Nabors and Needham during the filming of Stoker Ace
During this period, Needham regularly stunt doubled for Clint Walker and…Burt Reynolds. Needham became good friends with Reynolds – the friendship Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton and Pitt’s Booth is said to be based on, per Esquire [2] – after working on TV Western Riverboat (NBC, 1959 to 1961). In a 2015 Variety interview, Reynolds, in true cocky Rick Dalton fashion, said he was confident doing his own stunts—but the producers brought in Needham anyway. [3]
“I told [Needham], ‘Look, I don’t want to take away from your talent. I’m sure you’re very good, but I do my own stunts.’ He smiled and said, ‘If you knew how many actors I’ve taken to the hospital that said that to me. But I want to watch you do this.’ I said, ‘OK,’ and I did the stunt. He said I was pretty good and asked me what else I could do. I said, ‘Anything you can teach me.’ He said, ‘OK, come out to my house.’” A firm friendship ensued, and Needham would reside in Reynolds' guesthouse for the better part of 12 years. [4]
Needham established himself as the best type of stuntman, a daredevil willing to take on anything. In 1970s Little Big Man, Needham jumps between the backs of galloping horses (not Dustin Hoffman). In an interview with NPR, Needham explained a dangerous stunt he did – his second at that point in his career (!) – for Have Gun, Will Travel.
The stunt called for jumping from a rock, 30 feet in the air, onto a moving stagecoach without any safety landing pads. "[The stagecoach] really looked small. It looked like a postage stamp," he said. "They brought the coach, and I hit it right in the center. But I broke through the top right up to my armpits, and that kind of shocked the folks inside the coach." [5]
Separate from Westerns, Needham gained acclaim for his car stunts — in White Lightning (1973), he jumped his car 80 feet from a riverbank onto a moving ferry, and in Gator (1976) he flew across a swamp via boat, flying 138 feet through the air, all unheard-of-feats at the time.
Fast forward to 1976, which saw Needham transitioning from stunt work into directing. What was the film? Smokey and the Bandit (1977) starring Reynolds, which Needham also wrote the screenplay for. The film was a huge hit film, quickly followed by Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), and Stroker Ace (1983), all directed by Needham and starring Reynolds. Smokey and the Bandit centered on a quite illegal cross-country street race. And Needham did the actual race himself - he claims he made the trip in 32 hours in a Dodge van rigged to look like an ambulance, replete with lights and sirens. [6]
Needham had launched a new movement in film, with a Playboy film critic calling it "Redneck Cinema" — all of which featured films movies with fast cars, faster women, bar fights, country music and devil-may-care men who’d do anything for a friend in trouble and a good time. Most prominent in the films? Car stunts. All of these films featured two things — Needham directing and Reynolds driving. All were panned by critics, who were forced to swallow their pride when Needham was given an honorary Oscar in 2012, a year before his death.
Needham, Barrett, and the Budweiser rocket car team prepare to beat the World Land Speed Record
Needham moved out of stunt work, focusing his energy on the World Land Speed Record project – in 1979, Needham, Budweiser and Stan Barrett combined their celebrity, cash and cojones, respectively, to make a supersonic land speed record. The car, the Budweiser Rocket, was no more, or less, than an earthbound missile: three wheels and a stabilizing wing attached to a liquid-fuel rocket sporting an additional engine from a Sidewinder.
The driver, Barrett, and Needham claim to have verified the speed and heard a sonic boom, but not a single bystander interviewed in the intervening years has corroborated the account. In addition, the absence of a sanctioning organization and the fact that the Budweiser Rocket did not duplicate the run meant that today, almost no one believes that the car broke the sound barrier. Needham insisted until the day he died his rocket car had succeeded.
Giving up his career as the highest paid stuntman in Hollywood, Needham would transition - yet again - to directing and writing and continue both well into the 1990s, directing over 20 films in addition to the dozens he did stunt work on. He told the Los Angeles Times, “I know one thing; I’ll never win an Academy Award. But I’ll be a rich son of a bitch. And that’s what it’s all about.” [7] Needham died of cancer in late 2013 in Los Angeles at the age of 82.
Needham and Colonel Charles Yeager - yes, THAT Chuck Yeager
GARY KENT
Up next? Actor, director and, most notably, stuntman Gary Kent. After a short stint in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, Kent moved to Hollywood with his wife and son while working as a parking lot attendant while looking for acting jobs. His feature film debut came in Battle Flame (1959) and he had a range of roles in several low-budget films in the 1960s, including The Black Klansman (1966) and biker film The Savage Seven (1968). [8] In 1969, he served as a stunt double for Bruce Dern in the now-cult-classic exploitation film, Psych-Out.
Per entertainment industry periodical Deadline, “While stuntman and director Hal Needham was also an important inspiration, there’s particular overlap between Kent and [Brad Pitt’s character Cliff] Booth in their crossing paths with The Green Hornet‘s (1966 – 1967) Bruce Lee and, perhaps even more striking, Kent’s encounters with the Charles Manson Family during late-1960s film shoots at the Spahn Ranch.” [9]
Kent and Penny Marshall on the set of 1968s biker exploitation film, The Savage Seven
Kent’s career took off, per The Hollywood Reporter, when he talked Jack Nicholson into hiring him for two Westerns shot back-to-back in 1966 in Kanab, Utah – the Nicholson-penned Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) and The Shooting (1966). [10] He doubled for Nicholson in those movies, impressing the actor with his willingness to fall off a horse without the use of safety landing pads. Among his other credits were such drive-in movie favorites as Peter Bogdanovich’s first film Targets (1968), featuring Boris Karloff, 1970’s Hell’s Bloody Devils and, the following year, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant and Angels’ Wild Women.
Kent also coordinated stunts (and stunted, as it were, himself) on dozens of pictures, working with everyone from Penny Marshall to Bogdanovich. He would perform stunts and act on The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee during the mid-1960s, while also doing same on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964 – 1968). Also key to the discussion, Tarantino interviewed Kent as he was putting together his script for Once Upon a Time…, according to Joe O’Connell, who directed documentary Danger God (2018) about Kent. [11]
Kent, in the 2018 documentary on him, Danger God
Another tie-in to Once Upon a Time…? In a mid-2019 interview, Kent explained that during a lunch with Tarantino, the stuntman recounted his Charles Manson cult leader story. During the 1960s, Kent made “low-budget westerns at Spahn Ranch in the San Fernando Valley… ‘They had a bunch of horses and about 200 acres with no telephone poles or TV antennae so you could shoot period pieces,’ Kent recalls. ‘Charlie Manson and the girls were living out there. We just thought they were hippies, and sort of ragged ones at that. They’d beg our lunches from us while Charlie sat on this big rock at the periphery.’”
“One afternoon in 1969, second unit director Bud Cardos’ dune buggy camera car broke down. ‘I asked Patricia Krenwinkel if she knew any mechanics and she brought over Charlie Manson. He had little squinty eyes, looked like a shoplifter. Charlie said he’d fix the dune buggy but he needed $70 in advance for parts. Bud gave him $70. We came back the next day and the dune buggy hadn’t been fixed. I told Charlie, ‘You’d better fix it right away because if you don’t, Bud is going to give you a new anus.’ He got under there and fixed it in no time at all.’ Kent never pictured Manson as a cult leader. ‘I just thought he needed to get some rest and a good meal, but I wouldn’t have followed him across the street.”
Like all experienced stunt people, Kent had his share of injuries – in 1966, he broke all his ribs when run over by a motorcycle in The Vengeful Seven (1968) and cut his arm on a shattered shot glass a year earlier in 1967 during a Hell’s Angels on Wheels (1967) bar fight, “I wrapped my arm in a towel and on the way to the hospital we stopped for a couple of scotch and waters, so I was in a pretty good mood when they gave me 36 stitches,” Kent recounted, laughing.
The 1960’s were an era of filmmaking characterized by hanging around a set, where never saying no could get you a long way – and Kent was willing to do anything. Stunts, acting, cinematography, special effects, unit management, he'd do it, and behind the scenes he was also working on his own scripts. He got his chance at directing in 1971 with the now-lost X-rated relationship drama Secret Places, Secret Things (1971).
Kent’s half-century stunt career came to an end on the set of Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) when he tumbled down a hill and damaged his leg, but he kept working as a stunt coordinator, working as recently as 2019 on Sex Terrorists on Wheels. Kent passed away in Austin at the age of 89 in May 2023. [12]
Kent's final project, Sex Terrorists on Wheels (2019)
GENE LEBELL, AKA “JUDO GENE” AND THE “GODFATHER OF GRAPPLING”
And last, but in no way least, was Martial arts instructor, actor, stuntman, and stunt coordinator Gene LeBell, the third Hollywood stuntman understood to have served as inspiration for Booth. LeBell was widely regarded – before becoming a stuntman – as America’s first martial arts “sensation,” and held a 10th degree red belt in Judo, 9th degree black belt in Jujutsu, and a 10th degree black belt in Kyokushin Budokai.
LeBell would take these skills to transition into a career as professional wrestler, actor, and then finally a stuntman. Raised by his mother, a boxing and wrestling promoter (and the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame), LeBell once sparred with legendary boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as a teenager. [13]
“In 1954 and ’55, LeBell won the AAU National Judo Championships heavyweight and overall divisions. He then embarked on his professional wrestling career, implementing his years of judo and catch wrestling and helping popularize the holds and submission attempts that remain in the sports entertainment industry to this day.”
LeBell, the AAU National Judo Championship heavyweight champion
Notably, LeBell was a pioneer in Mixed Martial Arts before there was MMA – one of the first martial artists to train in wrestling, judo, boxing, karate, and other combat arts, he blended the techniques into an efficient fighting style, beating fifth-ranked light heavyweight boxer in the world Milo Savage in 1963, causing a riot in the aftermath.
After his renown in judo and jiu-jitsu, LeBell began teaching his grappling techniques to famous actors – Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, Roddy “Rowdy” Piper, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall, and multiple others. During the same 1960s period, he also began acting and stunt work.
“In his 2005 autobiography The Godfather of Grappling, LeBell remembered grabbing Lee, who then ‘started making all those noises that he became famous for … but he didn’t try to counter me, so I think he was more surprised than anything else.’ He then hoisted Lee over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran around the set as Lee shouted, ‘Put me down or I’ll kill you.’ To LeBell, the altercation revealed Lee’s repertoire was without submission maneuvers, armbars, and takedowns. ‘He came to my school and worked out for over a year, privately,’ LeBell said, ‘and I went and worked out with him at his school.’” [14]
No less a figure than Joe Rogan, a friend of LeBell’s, took umbrage with Lee’s portrayal as someone who gets beaten up by “some random dude who is a stuntman” with no apparent martial arts training in Once Upon a Time... [15] Rogan said it would make sense if Tarantino based Booth’s character on LeBell, because he was a legendary stuntman and friends with Lee during the era the film takes place. “If that’s who he’s supposed to be portraying in the movie … if they showed that Brad Pitt was some judo champion that become a martial artist later, then OK, maybe,” Rogan said. “I guarantee you it didn’t go down like that between them,” he said.
Someone LeBell didn’t get along with? Vladmir Putin’s friend [16] and actor Steven Seagal. As the story goes, per a 2012 MixedMartialArts.com interview with LeBell, [17] “…in 1991, Gene LeBell was working as a stunt coordinator on ‘Out for Justice’ (1991)."
"At some point Seagal announced that due to his Aikido training, he was immune to chokes. When then 58-year-old LeBell heard about the claim, he gave Seagal the opportunity to test it. LeBell set the choke up, Seagal said ‘Go’ and Seagal promptly went."
"As the story goes, Seagal went to sleep and went #1 and #2 in his pants.” True? We don’t know – Hollywood is full of larger-than-life stories like his, and Seagal would vehemently deny it several years later. But it’s certainly entertaining.
LeBell alongside his protege, Olympic medalist and MMA fighter Ronda "Rowdy" Rousey
LeBell courted controversy in other ways, to include alleged involvement in murder - perhaps why Tarantino portrays Booth throughout the film as suspected of killing his wife and "getting away with it." Former Chatsworth pornographer Jack Ginsburgs, a close friend of LeBell, was convicted of killing former friend and business associate private investigator Robert Duke Hall in mid-1976; Ginsburgs was allegedly assisted by LeBell, who was eventually acquitted of a murder charge but convicted as an accessory for driving Ginsburgs to and from the murder scene. [18] LeBell’s conviction was later overturned by the California state Court of Appeals. [19]
His acting roles and stunt work ranged from, “everything from Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964-1969), Mission: Impossible (1966-1973), Ironside (1967-1975), Batman (1966-1968) and The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971) in the 1960s, to The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-1978) and Starsky & Hutch (1975-1979) in the 1970s, Taxi (1978-1983), The Fall Guy (1981-1986) and Married … With Children (1987-1997) in the 1980s, and even Reno 911! (2003-2009) in the 2000s. On the big screen, he did stunts, often uncredited, for the original Planet of the Apes (1968-1973) films, disaster films Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (both 1974) and the Naked Gun films (1988-1994), as well as King Kong (1976), Airplane! (1980), RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Independence Day (1996), Bruce Almighty (2003) and Smoking Aces (2006), among others.” [20]
LeBell continued to teach judo, and his students included AnnMaria De Mars, the first American to win a World Judo Championships gold medal in 1984, and De Mars’ daughter, Ronda Rousey, the first American woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo by winning bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before embarking on her own illustrious MMA career. He then transitioned from teaching to refereeing MMA bouts.
Per press reporting, LeBell would eventually appear in more than 1,000 films, shows and commercials alongside names like Norris, James Garner, Anne Francis, Elvis Presley, and John Wayne – The Hollywood Reporter declared, “By his own admission, ‘every star in Hollywood beat me up’ when [LeBell] was a stuntman and actor. Wayne punched him square in the face in Big Jim McLain (1952), Presley karate-kicked him between the eyes in Blue Hawaii (1961), Gene Hackman went toe-to-toe with him in Loose Cannon (1990), and Burt Reynolds kicked him where it hurts in Hard Time (1998). Even Steve Martin roughed him up and threw him into a swimming pool in The Jerk (1979).”[21]
One of his last appearances was in Men In Black II in 2002. LeBell passed away in his sleep in mid-2022, at the age of 89, in Los Angeles.
THE 1970S CITIZEN CHALLENGE TIMER BULLHEAD CHRONOGRAPH WATCH
Citizen's Ref. 8110 movement was the Japanese company's answer to Seiko’s famed 6139 automatic chronograph movement, and Citizen began production in 1972, and continued to make the reference into the 1980s (after Seiko ceased making the 6139 in 1979). One key difference between the Citizen and Seiko automatic chronographs – Citizen’s well-designed 8110, unlike the Seiko 6139, featured hand winding and a “flyback” complication, which allows the wearer to zero the chronograph while running, rather than stopping the chronograph first then restarting it, allowing the instant stop and re-start of the chronograph function.
The Citizen 8110 movement beats at a higher rate – 28,800 bph (Seiko’s own high beat watches that kept time at the same bph, the King and Grand Seiko, were labeled as “high-beat” by Seiko; this bph speed is far more commonplace in today’s watches) – than the Seiko 6139, allowing for more accurate timekeeping. It can also be hand-wound (unlike the Seiko 6139). The Citizen also features – in addition to the 30-minute subdial register (like the 6139) – a 12-hour register, which the 6139 does not.
The compact design of the movement in the 1970's flyback Citizen Challenge Timer Ref. 8110 automatic bullhead chronograph permitted a smaller case, rendering the Citizen bullhead lighter than the Seiko 6139 and most other automatic chronographs of the era. The Ref. 8110 was, naturally, far more compact than Seiko’s own bullhead design, the sizable Seiko 6138-004X automatic chronograph.
Citizen chronographs using the Ref. 8110 movement have the same column wheel/vertical clutch design, with quick setting mechanisms for date and day. Set when the crown is pulled out one position, the date was set by rotating the crown and the day by atypically pressing the chronograph reset pusher.
Compared to modern chronographs, chronographs in the contemporary watch market with similar features and construction sell at considerably higher price points – to include Blancpain, Vacheron Constantine, Patek, and Audemars Piguet (among others). The Citizen Ref. 8110 resides in a rarefied spot on the price range spectrum – the least expensive, yet most sophisticated chronograph made.
Chuck Norris pays his respects to LeBell
Which brings us to Cliff Booth’s Citizen bullhead – a gold 1970s Citizen Challenge Timer Ref. 67-9020 bullhead chronograph, utilizing the 8110 movement.
The dial on the gold bullhead – to paraphrase Worn & Wound’s review of the bullhead [22] – “…features a dual-register design with the day/date at six and a tachymeter along the outer edge. The sub-dial at three is a 30-minute counter, and the one at nine is a 12-hour counter. The sub-dials feature concentric circles and the tapering needle hands are painted black along the length and left exposed at the pinion. At six is what I would call a faux sub-dial. It contains the day and date, not unlike the way Seiko bullheads feature these two complications.”
Perhaps to balance the svelte size of the gold Citizen bullhead Booth wears, the Once Upon a Time… prop masters choose to mount the watch on a wide brown leather cuff-type strap; similar to a bund strap, which gives the watch an appearance much larger than its 38mm width would suggest. But the film’s one watch-related goof? The film is set in early 1969 Los Angeles, California, and Citizen hadn’t started producing the bullhead (1972) when Once Upon a Time… takes place (and the Seiko 6139 had only just started becoming available at this time). Oops!
So, which stuntman was the main inspiration for Booth? Only one person knowns – Tarantino – and he didn’t return my calls. Regardless, as any fan of Once Upon a Time… knows, it’s easy to see elements of all three in Pitt’s character (and even easier to imagine all three acclaimed stuntmen knew one another, given how small Hollywood is – not to mention often working on the same TV and films, sometimes concurrently). And, after all, Once Upon a Time… is fictional…but also damn entertaining.
Also entertaining? In mid-2024, Citizen released an updated version of its bullhead chronograph, the limited-edition Citizen Promaster Tsuno Chrono Racer Ref. AV0088-01L. The busy design is questionable, in our humble opinion, and we’d have to agree with Gear Patrol’s review of the watch by Johnny Brayson – “If Citizen were to make such a watch that also brought back the simpler styling and smaller sizing of the original Bullhead, then a significant portion of the enthusiast community — present company included —would go bananas.” [23]
The Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood film trailer - the Citizen bullhead is visible throughout
[1] Esquire, “The Stuntman Who Inspired Brad Pitt's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Character Is More Badass In Real Life,” 25/JUL/2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190731051154/https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a28504994/brad-pitt-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-character-true-story-stuntman-hal-needham/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Variety, “Burt Reynolds on Stunts, His First TV Series Role and Friendship With Hal Needham,” 2/OCT/2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20190727203702/https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/burt-reynolds-stunts-first-tv-series-role-friendship-170023220.html
[4] NPR, “The Story Behind The Stunts: Remembering Hollywood's Hal Needham,” 01/NOV/2013, https://web.archive.org/web/20230205060025/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/242347760
[5] Ibid.
[6] Esquire, “The Stuntman Who Inspired Brad Pitt's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Character Is More Badass In Real Life,” 25/JUL/2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190731051154/https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a28504994/brad-pitt-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-character-true-story-stuntman-hal-needham/
[7] The Hollywood Reporter, “Director-Stuntman Hal Needham Dies at 82,” 25/OCT/2013, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hal-needham-stuntman-director-dies-651039/
[8] Deadline, “Gary Kent Dies: Director, Actor And Stuntman Who Helped Inspire Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Was 89,” 26/MAY/2023, https://deadline.com/2023/05/gary-kent-dead-stuntman-quentin-tarantinos-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-1235381093/
[9] The Hollywood Reporter, “Gary Kent, Fabled B-Movie Stuntman, Actor and Director, Dies at 89,” 26/MAY/2023, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gary-kent-dead-stuntman-1235501781/
[10] Ibid.
[11] The Credits, “How Stunt Man Gary Kent Inspired Brad Pitt’s Character in Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood,” 19/AUG/2019,
[12] Los Angeles Times, “Gary Kent, Stuntman Who Inspired Taratino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Dies at 89,” 27/MAY/2023,
[13] Los Angeles Daily News, “Gene LeBell, Iconic Martial Arts Pioneer, Dies at the Age of 89,” 11/AUG/2022, https://www.dailynews.com/2022/08/11/gene-lebell-iconic-martial-arts-pioneer-dies-at-the-age-of-89/
[14] The Hollywood Reporter, “Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and ‘Godfather of Grappling,’ Dies at 89,” 10/AUG/2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gene-lebell-dead-famed-stuntman-godfather-of-grappling-dies-1235196322/
[15] South China Morning Post. “Could Gene LeBell Beat Up Bruce Lee? Meet the Real Life Cliff Booth from ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’,” 15/AUG/2019, https://www.scmp.com/sport/martial-arts/kung-fu/article/3022773/could-gene-lebell-beat-bruce-lee-meet-real-life-cliff
[16] Reuters, “In Pictures: Putin Sworn in for Fifth Term as Russian President,” 07/MAY/2024, https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-putin-sworn-fifth-term-russian-president-2024-05-07/
[17] MixedMartialArts.com, “Steven Segal Denies Gene LeBell Made Him Poop His Pants,” 17/DEC/2015, https://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma/rousey-i-bet-i-could-beat-steven-seagal
[18] New York Times, “Los Angeles Stirred by Detective's Mysterious Death,” 13/SEP/1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/13/archives/los-angeles-stirred-by-detectives-mysterious-death.html
[19] Los Angeles Times, “Killer’s Impending Parole Scuttled by Extortion Plot,” 08/OCT/1986, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-08-mn-4860-story.html
[20] The Hollywood Reporter, “Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and ‘Godfather of Grappling,’ Dies at 89,” 10/AUG/2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gene-lebell-dead-famed-stuntman-godfather-of-grappling-dies-1235196322/
[21] Los Angeles Daily News, “Gene LeBell, Iconic Martial Arts Pioneer, Dies at the Age of 89,” 11/AUG/2022, https://www.dailynews.com/2022/08/11/gene-lebell-iconic-martial-arts-pioneer-dies-at-the-age-of-89/ and The Hollywood Reporter, “Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and ‘Godfather of Grappling,’ Dies at 89,” 10/AUG/2022, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gene-lebell-dead-famed-stuntman-godfather-of-grappling-dies-1235196322/
[22] Worn & Wound, “Chronography 11: The Citizen “Bullhead” Challenge Timer,” 19/DEC/2016, https://wornandwound.com/chronography-11-citizen-bullhead-challenge-timer/
[23] Gear Patrol, “A Classic 1970s Chronograph Gets a Thoroughly Modern Makeover: The Bullhead’s Back, But is it Better than Ever?,” 12/AUG/2024, https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/citizen-tsuno-chrono-racer-super-titanium/