Sharon Tate

• 1. Introduction

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  Sharon Tate was six months old when she won the Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas Pageant. Her parents had no show business ambitions for her, and the crown was meant to lead nowhere. Yet the American actress and model, who lived from 1943 to 1969, grew up to be hailed as one of Hollywood's most promising newcomers. Critics compared her favorably with Marilyn Monroe.

  Today her name is tied to a single night in the summer of 1969. The record holds far more than that night. A girl her own family called shy ended up in front of cameras. A studio signed her and then kept her off the screen. Critics turned on the films that finally made her visible. How did she get from that pageant crown to the screen? What did the people who loved her build from the loss that followed?

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• 2. A Shy Girl Abroad

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  Colonel Paul James Tate, a United States Army intelligence officer, kept being promoted and transferred, and his eldest daughter paid for it in friendships. Sharon Marie Tate was born on the 24th of January 1943 to him and his wife Doris Gwendolyn, whose maiden name was Willett. By the age of sixteen she had lived in six cities. Her family described her as shy and short on self-confidence. As an adult she observed that people mistook her shyness for aloofness until they knew her better.

  Her school record reads like a route map. She attended South Shaver Elementary School in Pasadena, Texas, through 1955. Columbia High School in Richland, Washington, followed from September 1958 to October 1959. Irvin High School in El Paso came next. She finished at Vicenza American High School in Italy, graduating in June 1961.

  In 1959, at sixteen, she won the title of Miss Richland. She spoke of wanting to study psychiatry and of entering the Miss Washington pageant in 1960. Neither happened, because her father was transferred to Italy.

  In Verona, the family learned that she had become a local celebrity. A swimsuit photograph of her had run on the cover of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. At the American school in nearby Vicenza she met students whose backgrounds and feelings of separation matched her own. For the first time in her life she formed lasting friendships.

  The film Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man was shooting nearby, with Paul Newman, Susan Strasberg and Richard Beymer. Tate and her new friends found work as extras. Beymer spotted her in the crowd, introduced himself and dated her during production. He encouraged her to pursue a film career. In 1960 the singer Pat Boone hired her, and she appeared with him in an episode of The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, filmed in Venice.

  Later that year, Barabbas was filmed near Verona, and she was hired as an extra again. Jack Palance liked her look and her attitude, though the part was too small to show any talent. He arranged a screen test in Rome, but it led to nothing. She went back to the United States alone, saying she wanted to continue her studies, and looked for film work. After a few months her mother suffered a nervous breakdown, and Sharon was persuaded to return to Italy.

  The family came home to the United States in 1962, and Tate moved to Los Angeles.

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• 3. Held Back by Design

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  Harold Gefsky, the agent who represented Richard Beymer, agreed to take her on after their first meeting. He found her work in television and magazine advertisements. In 1963 he introduced her to Martin Ransohoff, the director of Filmways, Inc., who signed her to a seven-year contract. Ransohoff believed she lacked confidence. She was considered for the role of Billie Jo Bradley on the sitcom Petticoat Junction, but it went to Jeannine Riley. Ransohoff gave her small parts in Mister Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies instead, and refused anything larger.

  A 1967 article in Playboy quoted her explaining the strategy. "Mr. Ransohoff didn't want the audience to see me till I was ready", she said.

  In 1964 the director Sam Peckinpah tested her opposite Steve McQueen for The Cincinnati Kid. Ransohoff and Peckinpah agreed that her timidity and inexperience would sink her in so large a part. Tuesday Weld got the role. Tate also auditioned unsuccessfully for Liesl in the film version of The Sound of Music. Walk-on parts followed in two films Ransohoff produced, The Americanization of Emily and The Sandpiper.

  Her private life was moving as well. She met the French actor Philippe Forquet and began a relationship with him in 1963. They became engaged, but they argued often. Career pressures drove them apart in 1964. That same year she met Jay Sebring, a former sailor who had become a leading Hollywood hair stylist. She called him especially gentle. When he proposed, she declined. She said she would retire from acting once she married, and she meant to focus on her career.

  In late 1965 Ransohoff finally handed her a major film role. She played Odile in Eye of the Devil, a witch who exerts a mysterious power over a landowner and his wife. David Niven and Deborah Kerr played that couple, with Donald Pleasence and David Hemmings also in the cast. Odile had fewer lines than the other leads. Even so, her performance was considered crucial, because she had to set the ethereal tone. Niven called her a "great discovery". Kerr said that with "a reasonable amount of luck" Tate would be a great success. Tate said she learned a great deal simply by watching Kerr work.

  Ransohoff also arranged a 14-minute documentary, All Eyes on Sharon Tate. It showed her filming, dancing in nightclubs and sightseeing around London. The film's director, J. Lee Thompson, admitted his early doubts on camera. "We even agreed that if after the first two weeks Sharon was not quite making it, we would put her back in cold storage", he said. He added that she turned out to be "tremendously exciting".

  Asked about her ambitions, Tate answered, "I don't fool myself. I can't see myself doing Shakespeare." She hoped to find a niche in comedy and told other interviewers she wanted to be "a light comedienne in the Carole Lombard style".

  In London she met Alex and Maxine Sanders, the Alexandrian Wiccan High Priest and High Priestess. After filming ended, she stayed on there, immersed in the fashion world and the nightclubs. Around then she met Roman Polanski.

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• 4. Roman Polanski

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  A red wig was the price Roman Polanski set for hiring her. He was planning The Fearless Vampire Killers, which Ransohoff was coproducing, and he wanted the red-headed Jill St. John for the female lead. Ransohoff insisted on Tate. After meeting her, Polanski agreed, on the condition that she wear the wig. The two later agreed that neither had been impressed by the other at first.

  The company filmed in Italy, where Tate's fluent Italian helped with the local crew. Polanski was a perfectionist with little patience for an inexperienced actress. He said in an interview that one scene took 70 takes. He also played one of the main characters, a guileless young man who is intrigued by Tate's character and begins a romance with her. As shooting went on, he praised her performances and her confidence grew. The two began a relationship, and she moved into his London apartment once filming ended.

  Jay Sebring flew to London and insisted on meeting Polanski. Friends later said he was devastated. Even so, he befriended Polanski and remained Tate's closest confidant. Polanski later described Sebring as lonely and isolated, a man who saw the couple as his family.

  Polanski next signed with Robert Evans, the head of Paramount Pictures, to write and direct Rosemary's Baby from Ira Levin's novel. He later admitted he had wanted Tate to star and had hoped someone else would suggest her, since proposing his own partner felt wrong. Nobody did, and Mia Farrow was cast. Tate visited the set often. Esquire photographed her there, and the pictures drew considerable publicity.

  A March 1967 Playboy article opened with the line "This is the year that Sharon Tate happens...". It included six nude or partially nude photographs that Polanski had taken during The Fearless Vampire Killers.

  The couple married in Chelsea, London, on the 20th of January 1968, four days before her 25th birthday. The wedding drew considerable publicity. Polanski wore what was described as "Edwardian finery", and Tate wore an off-white taffeta minidress. They settled into his mews house off Eaton Square in Belgravia.

  The photographer Peter Evans called them "the imperfect couple. They were the Douglas Fairbanks/Mary Pickford of our time.... Cool, nomadic, talented, and nicely shocking." Privately, Tate reportedly wanted a traditional marriage. Polanski stayed unfaithful and called her attitude to it "Sharon's big hang-up". He reminded her she had promised not to change him. Evans quoted her as saying, "We have a good arrangement. Roman lies to me and I pretend to believe him."

  Polanski urged her to cut ties with Ransohoff. She began to put less weight on her career, until he told her he wanted to be married to "a hippie, not a housewife". The couple then returned to Los Angeles.

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• 5. Reviews and Recognition

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  "Malibu, Queen of the Surf" was how Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer publicity billed Tate's character in Don't Make Waves. The comedy with Tony Curtis was meant to ride the beach-movie craze and the music of the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. She wore little more than a bikini for most of it. Disappointed, she began sarcastically calling herself "sexy little me". A major Coppertone sunscreen campaign ran before the film's release. The film drew poor reviews and mediocre ticket sales. "It's a terrible movie", she told a reporter, then added, "Sometimes I say things I shouldn't. I guess I'm too outspoken."

  Her first major role came in Valley of the Dolls, adapted from one of the bestselling novels in modern history. She played Jennifer North, an aspiring actress admired only for her body. Tate privately told Polanski she disliked both the book and the script. Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins and Judy Garland were cast as the other leads. Susan Hayward replaced Garland after Garland's substance abuse became a problem during early filming.

  Director Mark Robson was harsh on all three principal actresses. According to Duke, he aimed most of it at Tate. Duke said he "continually treated Tate like an imbecile, which she definitely was not, and she was very attuned and sensitive to this treatment". Yet Robson told Polanski, "That's a great girl you're living with. Few actresses have her kind of vulnerability. She's got a great future."

  Some magazines said the public saw Tate the same way as her character. Look called her "a hopelessly stupid and vain starlet". Still, Tate, Duke and Parkins became close friends, and the friendship outlasted the shoot. Tate told Parkins she was "madly in love" with Polanski. When a journalist asked about her nude scene, she said she had no qualms. She found it odd that children could watch television violence while love scenes drew outrage.

  The reviews came in hard. A cut version of The Fearless Vampire Killers reached theaters, and Polanski was disgusted at Ransohoff for "butchering" it. Newsweek called it "a witless travesty", and it lost money. Reviewers mostly ignored Tate, or mentioned only her nude scenes. Eye of the Devil found no audience either, though The New York Times singled out her "chillingly beautiful but expressionless performance".

  Valley of the Dolls opened to almost uniformly negative notices. Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times that "all a fairly respectful admirer of movies can do is laugh at it and turn away". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called Tate "a wonder to behold". Even so, he said he could not take her any more seriously as a sex symbol than Raquel Welch. The Hollywood Reporter called her the film's most sympathetic character.

  In the summer of 1968 she began The Wrecking Crew, playing Freya Carlson, an accident-prone spy and romantic interest for Dean Martin's Matt Helm. She did her own stunts after training in martial arts with Bruce Lee, her friend and teacher. The film succeeded, and many reviewers praised her comic work. Vincent Canby of The New York Times disliked the film but wrote, "The only nice thing is Sharon Tate, a tall, really great-looking girl." Martin said he wanted her back for another Matt Helm picture.

  The honors followed. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year - Actress for Valley of the Dolls. She was runner-up to Lynn Redgrave in the Motion Picture Herald poll for "The Star of Tomorrow". Her career was accelerating, and she negotiated a fee of $150,000 for her next film.

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• 6. Cielo Drive

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  In the latter part of 1968, the Polanskis leased Patty Duke's house on Summit Ridge Drive in Beverly Hills, after a few months at the Chateau Marmont. Their social circle read like a Hollywood guest list. It included Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Steve McQueen, Peter Sellers, Jim Morrison and the Mamas & the Papas. Jay Sebring remained a frequent companion. Polanski's friends from Poland included Wojciech Frykowski, and his girlfriend was the coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

  The house was often full of strangers. Tate treated that as part of the free spirit of the times, and her motto was "live and let live". Her close friend Leslie Caron saw it differently. She called the Polanskis too trusting, "to the point of recklessness", and said it alarmed her.

  Tate became pregnant near the end of 1968. On the 15th of February 1969 the couple moved to 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon. Their friends Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen had lived there before. Tate was thrilled it had become available and called it her "love house". The parties continued, though some friends still worried about the strange people who turned up at them.

  For her next project she chose the comedy The Thirteen Chairs, largely for the chance to co-star with Orson Welles. She went to Italy to begin filming in March 1969, and Polanski went to London to work on The Day of the Dolphin. Frykowski and Folger moved into the Cielo Drive house. After the shoot, Tate joined Polanski in London. There she posed for the photographer Terry O'Neill in casual domestic scenes, such as opening baby gifts. She also completed a glamor series for the British magazine Queen.

  She sailed home on the Queen Elizabeth 2 and arrived in Los Angeles on the 20th of July 1969. Polanski was due back on the 12th of August, in time for the birth. He had asked Frykowski and Folger to stay with her until then.

  On the 8th of August, Tate had lunch at home with the actress Joanna Pettet and confided her disappointment at Polanski's delay. He telephoned her that day. Her younger sister Debra also called, asking if she and two friends could collect a saddle Sharon had bought for her in Europe. Tate said no, and offered to have them over another time. That evening she reportedly dined at El Coyote Cafe with Sebring, Frykowski and Folger. She returned home at about 10:30.

  Shortly after midnight, on the 9th of August 1969, members of the Manson Family cult killed Tate, Sebring, Frykowski and Folger. Tate was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, and her unborn son died with her. She was the last of the victims to die, and she had pleaded with the killers to take her with them so that she could give birth. Her housekeeper Winifred Chapman found the bodies the next morning. Police also found Steven Parent, a young man shot dead in his car in the driveway.

  The property's caretaker, William Garretson, lived in the guest house and was the only survivor at the address. He took a polygraph test, told police he knew nothing that could help and was released.

  Polanski flew back to Los Angeles to be questioned. On Wednesday the 13th of August, Tate was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, with her son, who was posthumously named Paul Richard Polanski. Sebring's funeral followed hours later the same day, so friends could attend both.

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• 7. After the Headlines

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  Life magazine devoted a long article to the murders and ran photographs of the crime scenes. Polanski gave an interview and let himself be photographed at the front door of the house, where a word written in blood was still visible. He was widely criticized. He argued that he wanted to learn who was responsible and was willing to shock readers if it brought forward information.

  Curiosity about the victims sent Tate's films back into theaters, where they did better than on their first runs. Some newspapers speculated about motives. Some published photographs were alleged to show a Satanic ritual. They were in fact production stills from Eye of the Devil.

  Her friends pushed back. Mia Farrow called her "sweet and pure a human being as I have ever known", and Patty Duke remembered "a gentle, gentle creature". At a news conference Polanski tearfully berated the journalists. "Did you ever write how good she was?" he asked them. He said he came to suspect various friends and associates, and his paranoia eased only when the killers were arrested.

  Hollywood changed its habits. Newspapers reported stars leaving the city, and others installed security systems. Dominick Dunne recalled that children were sent out of town and guards were hired. Steve McQueen carried a gun to Sebring's funeral. Joan Didion wrote that many people she knew in Los Angeles believed the Sixties ended at the exact moment word of the killings on Cielo Drive spread through the community. "The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled", she wrote.

  In the early 1980s, Stephen Kay, who had worked for the prosecution at the trial, grew alarmed. Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten had gathered 900 signatures on a petition for her parole. Kay contacted Tate's mother, Doris, who said she was sure she could do better. Together they collected more than 350,000 signatures supporting the denial of parole. Van Houten had seemed the most likely of the killers to be freed, and her petition was denied.

  Doris Tate became a vocal advocate for victims' rights. For the rest of her life she opposed the parole of every Manson killer and worked beside other victims of violent crime. At parole hearings she confronted Charles "Tex" Watson and Susan Atkins. "I feel that Sharon has to be represented in that hearing room", she explained. In 1990 she spoke to Watson directly, asking what mercy he had shown her daughter when she was begging for her life.

  In 1992 President George Bush named her one of his "thousand points of light" for her volunteer work. She had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and the meeting was her final public appearance. She died later that year.

  Her youngest daughter, Patricia Gay Tate, known as Patti, carried on. Patti helped found the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau in 1993, a nonprofit that aims to influence crime legislation across the United States. In 1995 the Doris Tate Crime Victims Foundation was founded to raise public awareness of the judicial system and support victims of violent crime.

  In 1993 Patti confronted David Geffen and board members of Geffen Records. The label planned to include a Charles Manson song on the Guns N' Roses album "The Spaghetti Incident?". She told a journalist the company was putting Manson on a pedestal for young people who did not know who he was.

  Patti died of breast cancer in 2000. Her older sister Debra took over representing the family at parole hearings. Debra said of the killers, "They don't show any personal responsibility." She has also lobbied unsuccessfully for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her sister. Colonel Paul Tate avoided public comment but attended the trial and later parole hearings, and he wrote letters strongly opposing parole. He died in May 2005.

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• 8. Afterlife on Screen

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  Roman Polanski gave away all his possessions after the murders, unable to bear any reminder of what he called "the happiest I ever was in my life". He stayed in Los Angeles until the killers were arrested. His 1979 film Tess is dedicated "to Sharon". She had read Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles during her last stay with him in London. She left it for him with a note that it would make a good story for them to film together.

  In his 1984 autobiography, Roman by Polanski, he wrote that the opposite of finding solace in religion happened to him. His faith, he said, was shattered, and it "reinforced my faith in the absurd". In July 2005 he won a libel suit against Vanity Fair over an allegation about his journey to Tate's funeral. Debra Tate and Mia Farrow were among the witnesses on his behalf. After the verdict, he said the memory of his late wife had been at the forefront of his mind in bringing the action.

  Critics have reassessed her work. Leonard Maltin has described her potential as a comedian. He called a restored version of The Fearless Vampire Killers "near-brilliant", and named Don't Make Waves and The Wrecking Crew her two best performances. Eye of the Devil, with its supernatural themes, and Valley of the Dolls, with its overstated melodrama, have each gained a degree of cult status. Her biographer Greg King wrote in 2000 that her real legacy lay in victims' rights, because of the work of Doris and Patti Tate.

  In 2012 the book Restless Souls appeared, written by Alisa Statman, a close friend of Patti Tate. Two short chapters came from Sharon's niece, Brie Taylor Ford. Debra Tate has questioned its veracity. On the 10th of June 2014 Debra released the coffee table book Sharon Tate: Recollection. It was the first book devoted only to her sister's life and career, without covering her death.

  In 2009 the artist Jeremy Corbell presented ICON: Life Love & Style of Sharon Tate, a 350-piece exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of her death. It had the blessing of the Tate family. It showed her wardrobe, including designs by Christian Dior, Thea Porter, Ossie Clark and Yves Saint Laurent.

  Many actresses have played her since. They include Whitney Dylan in the 2004 television film Helter Skelter and Amanda Brooks in the series Aquarius from 2015 to 2016. Katie Cassidy appeared in Wolves at the Door in 2016. Rachel Roberts played her in American Horror Story in 2017, and Grace Van Dien in Charlie Says in 2018. In 2019 Hilary Duff starred in The Haunting of Sharon Tate. Musicians have named her too, among them the Jim Carroll Band, John Cale and Lana Del Rey.

  The best-known recent portrayal is Margot Robbie's, in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It borrows two of Tate's real habits: biting her nails and going barefoot in public. At restaurants with a "No Shoes, No Service" rule, she wrapped rubber bands around her ankles to pretend she was wearing sandals. Tarantino also reimagined her fate. In his story, other characters inadvertently prevent her death, and she lives. He later expanded that story into a 2021 debut novel.

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