Sharon Tate

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Sharon Tate (1967).

Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (* 24. January 1943 as Sharon Marie Tate in Dallas , Texas ; † 9. August 1969 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American film actress and fashion model . In her time, Tate was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world and a style icon of the 1960s ( swinging sixties ). She and four other people were murdered on August 9, 1969, heavily pregnant by members of the Manson Family . These murders and the double murder of the LaBianca couple on the following day went down in US criminal history as the " Tate / LaBianca murders " and became known worldwide.

Life

Childhood and youth

Sharon Tate was the first daughter of Paul Tate (1922-2005), an intelligence officer in the United States Army , and his wife Doris Gwendolyn Willett (1924-1992). She had two sisters, Debra Ann Tate (* 1952) and Patricia "Patti" Tate (1957-2000). She had traveled widely as a child through her father's military career and had to change high schools five times due to the many moves .

Tate often appeared shy to her classmates, and her parents complained about their lack of self-confidence. Nevertheless, she got enthusiastic about school theater performances early on, appeared in commercials as a teenager and won several regional contests . Although she originally wanted to study psychology , she eventually continued to pursue her passion for acting.

Career

After her first successes as a photo model, she appeared in a television show with Pat Boone in Venice in 1960 . In 1961 she got her first supporting role in the feature film Barabbas in Rome , but without being named in the credits. The actor Jack Palance had enabled her to take part in the filming by chance because he was impressed by the attractiveness of the young woman and the way she acted. Palance got her a few auditions for further test recordings, but these did not lead to engagements. Finally, disappointed, Tate traveled back to the United States to work on her acting and to work in smaller television productions that focused primarily on her beauty. After positive reviews as a comedian , for example in supporting roles for the television series Mr. Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies , the extremely intelligent and educated Tate was treated as a promising newcomer to Hollywood . She soon acted at the side of stars like Deborah Kerr , Donald Pleasence or David Niven and got her first major supporting role in 1967 in the feature film The Black 13 .

Tate's international breakthrough came also in 1967 with the horror comedy Dance of the Vampires on the side of Roman Polanski , who also directed. The role of Sarah Shagal should actually be filled with the red-haired actress Jill St. John . Polański, however, convinced the producers of Tate. In the film, the blonde Tate ended up wearing a red wig.

Marriage to Roman Polański

Tate had been in a relationship with leading US hairstylist Jay Sebring since 1964 . However, she did not accept his marriage proposal because she initially wanted to concentrate on her film career and saw no room for this in a marriage.

The first time Tate and Polański met , neither of them were particularly impressed with each other, but that changed during the filming of Dance of the Vampires . In the fall of 1967, Tate and Polański moved to London , where they were often the subject of the gossip press and appeared in numerous magazine articles. In conservative England at the time, it caused a sensation that a young couple lived together before the wedding; the poles ( Jewish descent) Polanski and Tate Texan were regarded as foreigners already critical, especially since Polański films did not always correspond to the average public taste. In addition, Tate's fame and her role as a style icon of the Swinging Sixties grew among young people after fashion magazines began to publish her as a cover girl (for example for Playboy ) with photographs that were daring and lascivious at the time (sometimes also nude shots with Polański). Tate and Polański were married on January 20, 1968, to great public interest in London.

In the following years, Tate increasingly withdrew into private life. The young couple returned to Los Angeles and quickly became members of Hollywood high society . The two plunged into party life and met other stars such as Steve McQueen , Peter Sellers , Mia Farrow and Peter and Jane Fonda . They quickly made contact with the art and cultural scene and surrounded themselves with musicians like Jim Morrison and the Doors , the Mamas and the Papas or the music producer Terry Melcher (the son of Doris Day ) and his girlfriend Candice Bergen . There were also numerous friends and acquaintances from Polański's youth in Poland, such as the composer Krzysztof Komeda , the writer Wojciech Frykowski and his girlfriend Abigail Folger , the heiress of the US coffee empire Folgers Flavors .

Tate became pregnant in late 1968, and in February 1969 she and Polański moved into the house on Cielo Drive as a replacement for music producer Terry Melcher. Tate and Polański had been there before, and Tate was delighted that it was now available. She affectionately called it “ my love house ”.

Tate had received positive reviews for her comedic talent, so she chose the comedy Twelve Plus One as her next project . In March 1969, she flew to Italy to film and Polański to England to look for suitable locations for his new feature film The Day of the Dolphin .

After filming, which was very exhausting for the pregnant Tate, was completed, she flew to London to see Polański. In her apartment she posed for the photographer Terry O'Neill happily unpacking baby clothes and took glamor photos with him for Queen magazine . She wanted to have the baby at home in California, close to her family, and since she was no longer allowed to fly because of her advanced pregnancy, she arrived back on home soil on July 20, 1969 after a ship passage on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 . Polański should arrive on August 12 in good time for the expected due date.

assassination

Tate and Sebring, Folger, and Frykowski returned to their home on Cielo Drive late that evening after a meal at El Coyote Cafe, a Mexican restaurant . Around midnight, four members of the Manson Family , Susan Atkins , Charles Watson , Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian , entered the property. They murdered Steven Parent , who happened to be visiting the estate's young caretaker that evening, William Garretson, and Tate and her three guests. Tate was killed with 16 knife stabs by Atkins or Watson or both. Atkins wrote the word "PIG" in Tate's blood on the door as he left the house.

After her death

Polański was still filming in England at the time. Upon learning of his wife's murder, he immediately returned to Los Angeles. In a demonstrative act of desperation, he allowed photo reporters for Life magazine access to the blood-smeared rooms of his house and gave the press a comprehensive statement about the atrocity.

Grave of Sharon Tate in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Los Angeles County

A decade after the murders, Tate's mother, Doris Tate - appalled by the killers' growing cult status and terrified of the possibility that some of them might be pardoned - joined a campaign to ensure they remained in prison. Her determination to draw public attention to the inadequacies of the state's educational punitive measures , and her criticism, were among other things the trigger for the changes to the California Penal Code in 1982. These changes made it possible for crime victims and their families to make so-called Victim Impact Statements during the To hand in court hearings of detainees and at subsequent hearings on detention leave. Doris Tate was the first person to make such a statement under the new law when she testified at the parole hearing of one of her daughter's killers, Watson. She later said that she believed the changes in the law restored her daughter to the dignity she was previously denied and that she "succeeded in turning Sharon's legacy as a murder victim into a symbol of victim rights." After Doris Tate's death in July 1992, Sharon's younger sister Patti continued her mother's work until her own death in June 2000. Tate's sister, Debra Ann Tate, has since watched over her family's legacy and runs a website in memory of her sister.

Tate's unborn child was posthumously named Paul Richard Polański ; it was buried in his mother's arms in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City , California .

Polański dedicated his film Tess to her , the opening credits of which end with the words to Sharon ("for Sharon"). He cast the leading role with Nastassja Kinski , whose birthday is on the same day (January 24th) as Tate.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Film adaptations

Sharon Tate has been portrayed in many films by various actresses:

literature

  • Greg King: Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders. Barricade Books, New York 2000, ISBN 1-56980-157-6 (English)
  • Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry: Helter Skelter. The True Story of the Manson Murders. Norton, New York 1994, ISBN 0-393-08700-X (English)
    • German edition: Helter Skelter - the murder rush of Charles Manson , Riva Verlag, Munich 2010 ISBN 978-3-86883-057-6 .
  • Louis Paul Boon : The Jesses Girls (orig .: De Meisjes van Jesses , Dutch)
  • Andreas jacket : Roman Polanski - Traumatic soul landscapes. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8379-2037-6 .

Web links

Commons : Sharon Tate  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Overview of actors from "Sharon Tate" on imdb.com
personal data
SURNAME Tate, Sharon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tate, Sharon Marie (full name); Polanski Tate, Sharon Marie (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film actress and model
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Dallas , Texas , United States
DATE OF DEATH 9th August 1969
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States