Sharon
Tate was born in Dallas, Texas, on January 24, 1943, the oldest daughter of U.S.
Army Major Paul J. Tate.
She
lived the typical gypsy existence of an army brat for 16 years, moving from
Dallas to Houston, El Paso, Tacoma, Washington, D.C., and Verona, Italy.
At 16 she was elected Miss Richland, Washington, and a short time later named Miss Autorama. At the age of 17 she was in Verona, Italy, where her father was stationed, and the prizes mounted. At Vicenza American High she was a cheerleader and baton twirler, and was chosen Homecoming Queen and Queen of the Senior Prom.
She
daydreamed at this time about becoming a psychiatrist and a ballerina, and had
little to do with her classmates. Yet if any far-out stunts or fads were
proposed, this terribly quiet girl was ready to lead the way, “If miniskirts
had come in then, ”she said, “I’d have worn the shortest one.”
Her
father was very strict with her as she budded through adolescence, turning
thumbs down on potential boyfriends and making her stay in nights. He was very
strong and knew how to take charge.
It
was in Verona that she met a handsome American actor named Richard Beymer who
was making a film called "The Adventures of a Young Man"
.
“Richard
told me ‘you oughta be in pictures’ and I believed in him,” said Sharon.
“I always had Hollywood on my mind.”
She worked as an extra in "The Adventures of a Young Man" and at the time she also dated him, seen in the picture below with Sharon, Ricardo Montalban and Susan Strasberg.
Beymer
gave her Hal Gefsky's phone number - who was his agent in Hollywood - and said
that she should call him whenever she went back to the States. In the same
spring, on a tour of Venice, she was spotted by the choreographer for The Pat
Boone Show, which was being filmed in Italy. She next appeared very briefly
in one of Boone’s TV shows.
While in Italy, she also got a bit part in "Barabbas"
"I
was so happy when my father was transferred from Italy back to Southern
California (February 1962), which is such easy distance of Hollywood."
Back in the United States, Sharon called Hal Gefsky. He later said that "she was so beautiful that I didn't know what to do with her. I think the first thing I did was take her to a puppet show.” And he signed her immediately.
with Hal Gefsky
She appeared in
television commercials for Chevrolet automobiles, Santa Fé cigarettes and also
took a job handing out Kelly-Kalani wine to Hollywood dinners (in the photo
below, with the Mayor of Los Angeles).
He
also got her work because her father, in Calvinistic style, had only given her a
few dollars to sink or swim on. People who knew her during this period agree on
one thing: She was the most beautiful girl in the world. “Everywhere I took
her she caused a sensation,” Gefsky said. “I would take her into a
restaurant and the owner would pay for her meal. Photographers kept stopping her
on the street. I’ve lived in Hollywood since the mid-Forties, but I’ve never
seen anything like it before or since.”
Since
they shared the same agent, Sharon and Richard Beymer dated for a while at the
time and he became her first lover.
In
1963 Gefsky tried to get an audition for Sharon for a new TV show and that's how
she met the producer Martin Ransohoff, who was so impressed with her beauty that
decided to sponsor her for motion pictures. “Draw up a contract,” he
shouted. “Get her mother. Get my lawyer. This is the girl I want! Sweetie,
I’m gonna make you a star!”. He had not seen a screen test, not even a still
photograph. She had hardly opened her mouth. But Marty Ransohoff had his
fantasies and Sharon Tate walked into one of his fondest ones. “I have this
dream,” Ransohoff said in an interview in 1967, “where I’ll discover a
beautiful girl who’s a nobody and turn her into a star everybody wants. I’ll
do it like L. B. Mayer used to, only better. But once she’s successful, then
I’ll lose interest. That’s how my dream goes, I don’t give two cents now
for Tuesday Weld or Ann-Margret...”
Sharon
signed an exclusive 7-year-contract with Filmways Inc. (she would receive around
$750.00 a month) and Ransohoff took charge. Gefsky, a nice man, bowed out. At
first, she lived in complete fear of Ransohoff, and did as she was told.
Sharon
Tate, the little girl from Dallas, was going into hiding. Sharon Tate, Movie
Star, was going to be manufactured.
“She
wouldn’t even eat a hamburger if he told her not to,” a friend from that
period said.
“They
said they had a plan for me. They would train me and prepare me,” she said in
an interview. “I was immediately put into training - like a racehorse.”
While
she was being prepared, she also appeared on the television series Mr. Ed,
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The
Beverly Hillbillies,
all produced by Ransohoff. Most of the time she was wearing a black wig. He
was believed to have invested over $100,000.00 to promote Sharon as the next
Hollywood star.
It was also Gefsky who introduced her to Phillipe Fourquet later in 1963 at 20th Century Fox where he was shooting Take her she's mine with Sandra Dee.
According
to her biographer ,their relationship was rather turbulent and once she was even
rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.
But
these allegations were never proven as is mentioned in Biography Channel's bio
of Sharon Tate. The relationship lasted for over a year and he eventually went
back to France.
Note
from the webmaster: I got an e-mail from former model Linda Morand, in
which she told me how she met Sharon and Roman: “I was engaged to and
later married Philippe Forquet, the French
actor she was engaged to in 1963 or
1964. I had dinner with Sharon and Roman Polanski in Paris and a drink
with them in Rome. You may have heard of Philippe. He achieved notoriety
as having beaten up and raped Sharon. But this was not true. What
happened is that Martin Ransohof was forcing himself on Sharon and Philippe beat
him up. Ransohoff was a very powerful man in Hollywood. Phillippe
was a young star with 20th Century Fox. Ransohoff had Philippe blackballed
and reported the twisted story. Philippe was sent packing, his contract
anulled.”
In
1964 Ransohoff wanted to cast her in "The Cincinnati Kid” –
his own movie - with Steve McQueen, Ann Margret and Edward G. Robinson, directed
by Sam Peckinpah. She had her first screen test but the director thought she
didn't have enough experience and they decided to cast Tuesday Weld
instead.
On
Thanksgiving Day she met Jay Sebring and they soon became an item.
Jay
Sebring was one of the remarkable Hollywood figures at that time. He was the
first celebrity barber, and he became part of the scene. He was also part of
Warren Beatty’s composite character in the film Shampoo.
“Jay was a wonderful guy and when he was in a good mood, he could be very funny. I think he had a social hang-up about being a barber, feeling that it put him on a lower step than the crowd he palled around with. He craved acceptance. He lived in the house where Jean Harlow’s husband Paul Bern had committed suicide shortly after they were married. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were Jay’s special buddies. They all loved motorcycles. Jay was credited with launching the trend of hairstyling for men. He was called a hairstylist, never a barber. Practically every male movie star in town went to him. He brought out his own line of products. Jay had a private room for his steady clients so that they wouldn’t have to be seen by the other customers “ Dominick Dunne later recalled. It was in that room that Sharon Tate would often be sitting in a chair, just to be with Jay as he worked. “Jay was so proud of her. He couldn’t stop looking at her. It was as if he couldn’t believe he had a girlfriend that beautiful. I’ve never seen a guy more madly in love than Jay was with Sharon”
At Jay's home
Later that year she was offered a role in Tarzan and The Valley of Gold but Ransohoff turned it down because he thought that it wasn't good enough for her.
Some
time later Sharon was persuaded by Jay and Steve McQueen to change agents and
with some reluctance she signed with Stan Kamen, of the famous William Morris
Agency. But Sharon was loyal to Gefsky and was adamant that he should
continue to benefit from her career. Kaman would pay Gefsky ten percent of
Sharon’s income, while he himself also took a regular commission. She was in
effect paying commission to two different men, one of whom was no longer
representing her. “It was one of the most selfless and loyal things anyone’s
ever done for me in this business,” Gefsky later said.
Jay
Sebring really wanted to get married but Sharon feared she was too young. In an
interview in 1966 she said that she had not married him because she was
“not organized” and “not ready for wifehood”.
In the summer of 1965 Ransohoff finally found a suitable role for her and in September she went to Europe to shoot Eye of the devil .
“Sharon was ecstatic, and Jay was ecstatic for her. The movie was being shot in England and France, and before Sharon left, we drank champagne in Jay’s private room and wished her well.” remembers Dominick Dunne.
While making that movie, she met Roman Polanski in London in a party thrown by Filmways for Martin Ransohoff at the Dorchester. Gene Gutowski, who was Polanski's partner at Cadre Films and later would be his best man, remembers that day: "Sharon was wearing the shortest of the shortest gorgeous little mini-dresses showing that lovely body of hers. She was absolutely a scene stealer and a show stopper. I remember Roman turned to me and said: 'Would you mind moving Sharon from where she's staying to where I'm staying next to me?'. I said: 'Roman, you got it.' That was really the beginning of their relationship."
Polanski was going to direct and act in "The Fearless Vampire
Killers",
produced by Ransohoff, who wanted Sharon to play Sarah. At this point, Polanski
was already a well-known European director, having directed "Knife in
the Water", "Repulsion" and "Cul-de-Sac".
And during the making of the movie they became involved.
Sharon
was feeling very guilty about Jay and when she realized she was deeply in love
with Polanski, she decided to break up with Jay because it wasn't fair to him.
“Jay
was devastated by the turn of the event. It was painful to see his sadness over
losing Sharon”, said one of his friends. Although he really loved her, from
that moment on they became very good friends.
When the filming was over she had to go back to the States to shoot "Don’t Make Waves" (with Tony Curtis and Claudia Cardinale) and as soon as he completed the post-production of his movie Polanski followed her.
Sharon
didn’t enjoy making that movie. The atmosphere on the set was tense and got
even worse when a stunt man drowned after parachuting into the Pacific. Soon
after that Robert Evans, Paramount’s vice-president, invited Polanski to
direct “Rosemary’s Baby”.
Sharon
was absolutely convinced of her feelings for Polanski: “I’ve learned a lot
about me from being with Roman. My definition of love is being full. Complete.
It makes everything lighter. Beauty is something you see. Love is something you
feel.”
And
love meant Roman. “He’s wise and wonderful and brilliant and he knows
everything.”
“Roman
is strong, and so true, so honest,” she said. “I don’t like glamour
boys.”
“I
can’t play games. I have friends, older women, who tell me I’m foolish to
let Roman know how deeply I care for him…Well, foolish I am!”
And
love didn’t necessarily mean marriage: “When I love, I love…I won’t
marry for a long time…I’ll give up acting the second I’m married…I
believe a wife must immerse herself completely in her husband and family and
that’s what I intend to do. Few women can handle marriage and a career
successfully at the same time.”
“I
would never marry just to be respectable…It’s just a legal piece of paper
and a lovely financial set-up. I’ve learned great happiness from being with
Roman that I didn’t have before. Why would I want to ruin a perfect affair by
turning it into a mediocre marriage for society’s sake.”
After Don’t Make Waves, still under Ransohoff’s guidance, she appeared in "Valley of the Dolls" , which is the role she is best remembered for (but she didn’t like the book or the movie - she considered them too commercial).
The
movie got terrible reviews when it was released in December 1967 but Sharon got good ones. She was even nominated for the Golden Globe
as The Most Promising Newcomer Female but she lost to Katharine Ross (The
Graduate). The other nominees were Pia Degermark (Elvira Madigan),
Katharine Houghton (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), Faye Dunaway (Hurry
Sundown) and Greta Baldwin (Rogues' Gallery).
Sharon
had many things in common with Jennifer, her character in Valley. Both
were acutely conscious of the value their bodies held in the flesh commerce of
Hollywood.
“I
am like Jennifer,” said Sharon, “because she is relatively simple, a victim
of circumstances beyond her control. But I have more confidence in myself…”
“I’m
so afraid of hurting other people’s feelings I don’t speak out when I
should. I get into big messes that way,” she once said.
But
beyond Jennifer, Sharon was also developing amazing similarities to Marilyn
Monroe, the actress on whom the character of “Jennifer” was rumored to be
based.
Both
Marilyn and Jennifer were the “Beautiful Blondes” of their day. Both had
astonishing figures. Both were treated very badly by those producers who
exploited their sex appeal for the moviegoers. Both posed nude before they
gained stardom. Both rejected their “dumb blonde” images to marry
intellectuals.
“I
will never be another Marilyn Monroe,” Sharon said then. “But I had to do
what they wanted, at first.”
And
they, meaning the moneymen, wanted her to be a well-trained sex symbol
with a vacuum for a head. Sharon was tortured by their demeaning attitude
towards her.
“They
see me as a dolly in a bikini, jumping up and down on a trampoline,” she said
of her producers.
Jeff
Corey, one acting coach, said, "An incredibly beautiful girl, but a
fragmented personality. I tried to get reactions out of her, though. Once I even
gave her a stick, and said, "Hit me, do something, show emotion’...If you
can’t tap who you are, you can never act."
Charles
Conrad, another acting teacher, said, "Such a beautiful girl, you would
have thought she would have all the confidence in the world. But she had
none."
“It’s
not that I think I’m a sexpot …I don’t have voluptuous hips and I’m not
heavy-chested,”
"Many
people thought she was the most beautiful woman in Hollywood. She had
almond-shaped eyes and the high cheekbones that go with being photogenic. She
had the legs that miniskirts were created for. Her voice was soft, her manner
gentle. She smoked a little pot because the others did, and she did not pursue
her career with the ravenous ambitions indigenous to her business", read
the article in Life Magazine.
“At
the time, The Daisy was “the” place to go in Hollywood. It was the first of
the private discotheques in the city. On any given night, if you managed to get
in, which could be difficult, you were apt to see Joan Collins, Michael Caine,
Ryan O’Neal, Mia Farrow, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, the Sinatra sisters, and
maybe a Vegas figure or two. The
Polanskis were often there. So was Jay Sebring. You could slip out to the garden
in back for a snort or a toke. The smell of pot was often in the air. It sounds
absurd to call the scene innocent, but it was. Everybody knew everybody. It was
a nightly party, even though plenty of dramas took place there” wrote
Dominick Dunne.
at The Daisy
“Roman
became sort of a Polish YMCA in America,” said a friend. “He loaned them
money, he even borrowed money to loan them money, he read their scripts and got
them jobs, and it didn’t matter if some of them had no talent. What was
important was that they were Polish. There was this incredible bond.”
And
all of a sudden, Roman and Sharon decided to get married.
On
January 20, 1968 they got
married
in London because it was his home and most of their friends lived there.
"Half-Hollywood attended the ceremony", said Polanski in his
autobiography.
At
this point things turned ugly between Roman and Ransohoff, whom Polanski calls a
butcher, who cut 20 minutes and dubbed all the dialogues of The Fearless
Vampire Killers and Sharon, of course, took Roman’s side.
"Rosemary’s
Baby” was
released soon after that and was a huge success upon its release in the summer
of 1968. It is still considered one of the best movies of the 60’s.
In the same summer Sharon filmed "The Wrecking Crew" , with Dean Martin and during the making of this movie she became friends with Bruce Lee who was "karate advisor" for the cast.
When
Sharon was away for any extended time, Roman was not averse to an evening out
with somebody else. “He has the
European attitude toward sex,” said a friend. “ It’s not big deal, nothing
to get nervous about. But there was never any doubt that he loved Sharon and
only Sharon.”
"Sharon
and Roman had been married less than a year and already she knew of several of
his extramarital affairs. Sharon had always known about them in the two years
prior to their wedding and she thought that he would change after the
marriage but he didn't. Even though he really loved her, he had no intention to
stop playing around. On the surface they seemed to be the perfect Hollywood
couple but Sharon was terribly hurt on the inside and even considering divorcing
him", wrote Greg King in her biography.
“She
was not nor had she ever been promiscuous. Sharon was out of bounds,” said one
of the town’s most successful bachelors. “You just looked, and God it was
just to look, but you couldn’t touch.”
“When
she became pregnant, she announced the news”, said a friend, “as if she had
invented having babies.”
When
she found out she was pregnant, the change in her state of mind had been almost
immediate. Once Roman began to show enthusiasm for the baby, she hoped that all
problems between them would become things of the past.
They
would need a bigger place and that was the reason why they decided to rent that
house on Cielo Drive.
They signed the papers on February 12, 1969. On March 15, Roman came to Brazil
for The Rio Film Festival and a week later Sharon flew to Rome to start
a new film.
Sharon’s
final role was in "12+1"
which
was filmed in Italy and England in the spring of 1969 and had a great cast that
included Orson Welles, Vittorio Gassman and Vittorio de Sica.
When
Sharon went back to the States in July to have the baby, Polanski stayed in
London because he had to finish writing the script of "The Day of the
Dolphin" but intended to meet her soon.
Dominick
Dunne remembers that one night in 1969, he was at a party at Tony Curtis’s.
“At one point that night, I went out into the garden, and there was Sharon,
all alone, walking on a path by the white roses in full bloom. She was pregnant,
and dressed in something white and billowing. It was like a scene in a movie,
watching her. She made me think of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.
Since
she had become Mrs. Polanski, I hadn’t seen her as much as I had when she was
with Jay. We talked about old times at the barbershop and the marvelous turns
her life had taken. I was smoking a joint, and she took a few tokes. Everybody
smoked joints back then. It was no big deal. She was joyous about having the
baby, and she had never looked more beautiful. She spoke with fret affection
about Jay, and told me that he had become a family friend to her and Roman.
There were rumors that all was not well in her marriage, but no such thing came
up in our conversation. The baby seemed to be the solution to everything. I have
always remembered that little interlude, because it was the last time I ever saw
her. As always, she was dear, sweet, and utterly nice. After a while we went
back in to the party.”
According
to Greg King, as soon as she got back to the States she learned that Roman
(while in London) had had an affair with a mutual friend, Michelle Phillips,
from “The Mamas and the Papas.” And she also learned from other friends in
London that he regularly picked up girls in nightclubs and took them home, after
she left. She had no doubt that he loved her but she realized that nothing would
ever change him.
A
divorce had long been expected by many of their friends, said Victor Lownes, one
of Polanski’s closest friends at the time.
Whatever
her feelings may have been Sharon was preparing a birthday party for Roman,
which would be on August 18.
Unfortunately,
she would never have the baby and they would never see each other again.
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Sharon Marie Tate
January 24, 1943 August 09, 1969
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