Sharon Tate (1943 – 1969)
American actress, model, wife of Roman Polański, and the most famous murder victim of Charles Manson and his followers.
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.
Sharon Tate came up and introduced herself. She said, quietly, "I must tell you something before we start working together. I can't act, but I somehow get by without anyone realizing, so don't worry."
As far as Sharon's marriage was concerned, all I can tell you is that Sharon and Roman were in love. They were a combination of beauty and genius.
I can't play games. I have friends, older women, who tell me I'm foolish to let Roman know how deeply I care about him. They tell me all sorts of things like "keep a man guessing", "men become bored with too much devotion". They tell me I am being foolish. Well, foolish I am.
When I was in school, I dreamed about becoming a psychiatrist or a ballerina. Like most girls I would dream about being a movie star too. But those dreams are the impossible kind, the kind you don't really set your heart on.
I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived — always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way. And my father was rather strict with me and my two younger sisters. He insisted on proper behaviour and very often vetoed our choices of boyfriends. There was always a curfew whenever my sisters or I would go out on a date — we had to be home on time or else. But I never resented his authority. In fact, I'm thankful for my strict upbringing; I feel it has helped me learn discipline — and that's very important in this business.
She always had a way of finding such goodness in others. If someone hurt her, she'd say, "Oh, Sheliah, I'm sure they didn't mean to.' She'd always make excuses for others. Sharon was just totally loving and also totally vulnerable. She was just a remarkable person, she never gave up on anybody.
Sharon was the type of a girl who had no defenses, no pretenses, she was just herself all the time... She was so trusting, so eager to accept people as they were, so generous... Sharon never shut her door to anyone.
Sharon was more than just stunning to look at. She wasn't naive or stupid or a cliche starlet. What had impressed me most about her, quite apart from her exceptional beauty, was the sort of radiance that springs from a kind and gentle nature; she had obvious hang-ups yet seemed completely liberated. I'd never met anyone like her before.
I honestly don't understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It's silly. On TV, the children can watch people murdering each other, which is a very unnatural thing, but they can't watch two people in the very natural process of making love. Now, really, that doesn't make any sense, does it?
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.
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.
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.
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!
It's weird. I always had the premonition that Sharon belonged to me just for a little while.
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."
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.
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 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 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.