Sharon Tate (1943 – 1969)
American actress, model, wife of Roman Polański, and the most famous murder victim of Charles Manson and his followers.
She was the least hypocritical woman you could ever meet: once, when an executive told her that we should ask for single cabins in the transatlantic that brought us to the United States, she simply said, "Why? Everybody knows that we live together."
While I was working on Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: "Are you exploiting my sister's death by living in her house?" For the first time, the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, "No, it's just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I'm in this place where a weird part of history occurred." I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don't want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, "What if it was my sister?" I thought, "Fuck Charlie Manson." I went home and cried that night. It made me see there's another side to things, you know?
There was far more to Sharon than a lovely face and a sexy figure. What enchanted me about her as much as anything was her immutable good nature, her high spirits, her love of people and animals-of life itself. Over-demonstrative, over-solicitous women had always made me uneasy, but Sharon struck the perfect balance between affection and concern. Though more a spectator than a participant in our gags and shenanigans, she had a great sense of humour. She was also a born housewife. Aside from cooking like a dream, she used to cut my hair, a skill acquired from Jay Sebring. She liked to pack my bag whenever I had to take a trip. She always knew exactly what to put in-so much so that I can never pack or unpack, even today, without thinking of her.
In just the last few months Sharon was beginning to come into her own. She never cared about being beautiful. She never even really cared about acting. She just wanted to love and be loved. And have her baby. I know that if she'd lived and had the baby everything would have been different for her. Because that is what Sharon really wanted. She was just a little girl from Texas who was so incredibly beautiful that she got swept up in all of the Hollywood nonsense. But all she ever wanted was what every woman wants — a man to love and a baby of her own. I can't believe that the murderers knew her. To know Sharon, to really know her, was to love her. There is just no way that anyone who knew her could have hurt her so.
This could destroy Roman. Marriage vows mean nothing to him but few men have adored a woman as much as he adored Sharon.
She once told me to define my ideal woman:
"You're it," I told her.
She laughed. "Come on!"
"Seriously," I said.
"What would you like me to be that I'm not?"
"Nothing," I said with complete sincerity. "I wouldn't want you different in any way."
I'd like to be a fairy princess — a little golden doll with gossamer wings, in a voile dress, adorned with bright, shiny things. I see that as something totally pure and beautiful. Everything that's realistic has some sort of ugliness in it. Even a flower is ugly when it wilts, a bird when it seeks its prey, the ocean when it becomes violent. I'm very sensitive to ugly situations. I'm quick to read people, and I pick up if someone's reacting to me as just a sexy blonde. At times like that, I freeze. I can be very alone at a party, on the set, or in general, if I'm not in harmony with things around me.
Martin Ransohoff had to sell Roman on the idea of even considering me for the film. He arranged for the two of us to have dinner. Roman never said a word to me, we just sat there and ate and he just looked at me. Then we had a second dinner meeting and the same thing happened. Later he took me to his apartment. He lit some candles and then excused himself and left me standing there alone. A short while later he came storming into the room like a madman and he was wearing a Frankenstein mask. I let out a blood-curdling scream and while I was still crying from the scare, he was calling Ransohoff to tell him that the part in the film was mine.
Dear God, she was beautiful. Sharon was more beautiful as a teenager than she was in her twenties; in Europe people would turn around on the street just to look at her.
I'm forced to mix with people of this industry and I can swear that is really difficult to meet people with her nature and her spirit. Generally, everybody is opportunistic here. Sharon had grace and charm; she knew how to make anybody's life easier. When somebody was busy, she was there in a discreet manner to serve you a drink or a coffee.
Sharon Tate was my best friend. Once, we were roommates. She introduced me to my husband. She was the godmother to my baby daughter who is named for her. In the six years time that I knew her, she never said an unkind word about anyone.
Sharon Tate is divine, a real find. Just wait and see what happens when the critics and public see her in Valley of the Dolls. Sharon has everything Marilyn Monroe had - and more. She has the fascinating, yet wholly feminine strength of a Dietrich or a Garbo, a classically beautiful face, an exciting figure, the kind of sex appeal and personality appeal to become as glittering a star as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor.
Sharon is too nice. She doesn't believe in her beauty. Once when I was very poor in Poland, I had got some beautiful shoes, and I immediately became ashamed of them. All my friends had plain, ordinary shoes, and I was embarrassed to walk in front of them. That's how Sharon feels about her beauty. She's as embarrassed by it.
Sharon — it was fantastic what they were attributing to her. In death, they made a monster out of her. A monster out of the sweetest, most innocent, lovable human being. She was kindness itself to everybody and everything around her — people, animals, everything. She just didn't have a bad bone in her body. She was a unique person. It's difficult to describe her character. She was just utterly good, the kindest human being I've ever met, with an extreme patience. To live with me was proof of her patience, because to be near me must be an ordeal. She never had a bad temper, she was never moody. She enjoyed being a wife. The press and the public knew of her physical beauty, but she also had a beautiful soul, and this is something that only her friends knew about.
Until you have lost a child, you don't know what it is. Parents are supposed to die first. When your child is gone before you for an abnormal reason, it creates a whole abnormal situation... It was three years before I could even... I couldn't even look at Roman. Because, you see, I still expected Sharon to be with him, so I was playing games in my mind... Roman really loved Sharon, I know that, and he was very, very grieved.
It's weird. I always had the premonition that Sharon belonged to me just for a little while.
My friends used to tease me. 'How can you wake up in the morning and look at that face of hers?' It was a good question. Sharon was so over whelmingly, so incredibly beautiful that anyone not knowing her might think it took a lot to live with such a beauty. But you see that was another thing about Sharon. With all her beauty, everyone loved her. I never heard anyone say a bad word about her, not even another actress. And in this town that's not only a rarity, it's an impossibility!
I know I was horrible at times, I was. I really kept a tight rein on, I had to. I felt fine about Sharon being a star, as long as I was close by. You cannot protect your kids, you just can't. There are twenty-four hours in a day.
Without her I feel lost, I can't explain this in words. However there are things that I just can't stand thinking of; the way she and our son died.
She was always going out on a limb for everyone. Everyone but herself. There was an ethereal quality about her. She had this thing I sometimes wished I'd had, even though I knew that eventually it might be bad for me. Do you understand? She had this kind of beauty and fragility, and you just knew she was bound to get hurt because of it. But still you couldn't help but admiring that quality in her. She was just such a special person.