More of Sharon's character from "Eye of the Devil", Polanski's Macbeth and his new film's stars talk about the director

Here's more from the novel version of "Eye of the Devil" by Philip Loraine:

....they heard the unmistakable roar of the Mercedes.

Francoise turned her head sharply.  "She's stopping."

They both looked up at the road which at this point followed the curve of the lake, divided from it by only a narrow field.  The white car was driving slowly round the bend, and the face of the girl at the wheel was turned towards them, very dark glasses masking her eyes; the brilliant hair shone in the sunlight.

"She is stopping."

Lindsay was shocked to recognize fear in her voice; he turned to look at her; she was staring up at the car, biting her lip.

"Steady on," he said.  "She's not really a witch, you know."

"I don't like her."

"Evidently."

But the white car was slowing down; it bumped on to the grass verge and came to a standstill.  The girl got out, waved to them, and began to climb the fence into the field.

"Now, why," said Francoise.  "Why?"  She looked reflectively at her children, who were sailing the grounded punt across oceans of the imagination; then she looked at Lindsay.

"You," she said.  "Yes, it must be something to do with you."

"Does it have to be something to do with something?  I mean, people do talk to people without motives."

Francoise gave him one of her unfathomable looks, when the light, the life, in her eyes seemed to have withdrawn into a deep dark cave.  She said nothing, but turned and watched the girl coming towards them.

To Lindsay she looked almost exactly like any one of the rather untidy maidens who slop around St. Tropez all summer.  She wore the same trousers that he had seen before and a shirt hanging outside of them; her feet were bare; she was very brown; whatever else she might be was obscured by the dark glasses.

Francoise said, "Odile!  I haven't seen you for ages.  This is James Lindsay.  Mademoiselle de Caray."

The girl smiled at Lindsay and sat down in one movement like a cat; the fact that she settled a little away from them--that is to say, a little farther from them than was quite natural--and then in a tuft of long grass, increased her likeness to that animal.

She said, "It's so hot; it makes me lazy."

Lindsay felt (quite wrongly as it happened), that he was beginning to get the measure of the people who frequented Bellac; in any case she had tickled his sense of humour so that he could not help laughing.  The dark glasses were levelled at him.  "You find this funny: that the heat makes me lazy."

"No," he said.  "It's nice of you, mademoiselle; you are so like a cat."

She smiled.  "How nice of you, monsieur; my mother says that I am like a ferret.  Now, I ask you, is that a nice thing to call your daughter?"

"Horrible."

She shrugged; clearly what her mother thought was of no interest to her.

The children had now rejoined them--Tante Estelle was not the only person at Bellac unable to resist strangers--and stood looking at Mademoiselle de Caray.

Gilles said, "Show us a trick, Odile."

"It's too hot."

From the sudden stillness of Francoise beside him, Lindsay gathered that this was the first time she had heard of  "tricks"; a moment later she verified his suspicion by saying, "But how interesting! What trick did Odile show you, darling?"

The small boy rubbed one leg against the back of the other.  "Oh, just tricks.  You know."

Odile, sucking a piece of grass, said, "I turned a frog into a goldfish, didn't I, Gilles?"

Antoinette, jumping up and down, shouted, "You didn't, you didn't; the goldfish was there all the time under the water-lily."

"No, truly," said Gilles, "truly Maman, she did turn the frog into a fish.  I saw."

Antoinette chanted, "Silly, silly, silly."

Francoise, pulling her son towards her and hitching up his trousers which seemed to be in danger of falling off, said, "You've got too much imagination, that's your trouble."

"No one," the girl replied, "can have too much imagination." 

"Wait until you have children."

"Children! Me!" She really was genuinely surprised--almost, Lindsay could have sworn, affronted.  "Francoise, what do you take me for?"

Something in all of this had made Francoise angry; she said, "I take you for a child yourself--sometimes a rather naughty one."

Odile lay down with her cheek against the grass.  Reflectively she said, "Yes.  I dare say you're right there.  But, Holy Face, what would life be like with no imagination."  She rolled over and took off the dark glasses.  "Don't you think so, Monsieur Lindsay?"

This was the first time that Lindsay had seen her eyes and they took him by surprise, for they were amber, two gleaming discs of tawny amber; and "discs" was the right word, for the pupils were very little darker than the iris; there was absolutely no denying that the effect was rather uncanny.  He could well understand that the local peasants might call her a witch.

"Imagination," he said.  "I'm the wrong person to ask; I never quite know where imagination begins and reality ends."

At this the girl sat up and looked at him; focused all her rather remarkable personality on him; the amber eyes widened.  "Ah," she said, "but this is the point: how intelligent of you!  There is no such thing as either reality or imagination; they are the same thing.  Gilles saw me turn the frog into a goldfish; Antoinette knew that the goldfish was underneath the water-lily all the time; as it happens neither of them are right, but where is the reality and where the imagined thing?  Which is which?"

"This," Lindsay said, "makes scientists the stupidest people in the world." He was absolutely fascinated by her eyes.

The girl spread her hands.  "Who denies that they are?  Give a scientist enough time and he would arrive at what he would call the truth, which is that I had caught the goldfish, before the children appeared; then I saw the frog, and I thought, 'Here's a chance for some magic.'  What's childhood without a little magic?  And so I did my 'trick.'  But the reality was not the dry truth, it was what the children saw--and what they saw, they saw with their imaginations."

Lindsay could see, in his mind, the little cold body of the goldfish secreted in her brown hand; each golden scale was clear to him, and the magical sheen of the belly, as if it had been painted with a rainbow.  And the wonderful golden eye, ringed with a circle of black.  And in the golden eye of the golden fish cold be seen reflected the Chateau of Bellac and the lake and the round, surprised faces of the children--children watching a miracle in the golden eye of a goldfish...

Suddenly he felt violently sick; it began with a nausea, and suddenly gripped his stomach so that he had to fight in order not to vomit; he heard himself let out a groan.  The sea of quivering gold--it was like looking out to sea directly into the eye of the sunset--receded; lapped away into illimitable distance.

Francoise said, "James, are you all right?"

He opened and shut his eyes once or twice. "Yes.  Yes, perfectly."

He looked up.  Odile de Caray was plaiting three pieces of grass, very intent on what she was doing.

"I..." He shook his head again.  "I felt a bit sleepy, that's all."

The girl smiled.  "Ah," she said, "so I am not the only one the heat affects in that way.  Well--I'd better be going."

She stood up, again in one sinuous movement, and put on her dark glasses.  "Nice to see you again, Francoise--and you, monsieur."

She waved to the children, who had returned to the punt, and walked slowly away from them across the field.

Francoise said, "James, what on earth...?  I thought you were going to faint."

Lindsay, frowning at the slim retreating back, said, "What a little bitch!  She hypnotised me--just like that."

Francoise let out a gasp.

"Just like that," he said.  "I fell for it completely."

"Hypnotised you!"

"There's nothing extraordinary about it.  Masses of people can do it.  But not as quickly as that, not as effortlessly."

"But why?  Why did she?"

"I may be wrong, but I think it's a warning."  He told her then about the book of fairy tales that had taken the place of the Montfaucon history while he slept.

"Oh, no," she said.  "Oh, I don't like that at all, James."

"I do.  I like it very well."

"But I feel... It was my idea that you should come here; I feel responsible for you."

He ignored this.  Eyes narrowed against the glare, he watched the girl get into her glamorous car.

"I like it," he said, "because it proves that we're on the right track.  I must get back to my history, Francoise."

And that ends that chapter. 

Here is an interesting blog about why Roman chose to make "Macbeth" after Sharon's death:

http://mrconversesenglish3201blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/macbeth-filmmakers-wife-murdered-by.html

I have found an array of many interviews with the stars of "The Ghost Writer," Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor.  They discuss what it was like working with Polanski.  They are all quite interesting...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/earlyshow/leisure/boxoffice/main6219911.shtml

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ewan-mcgregor-praises-ghost-writer-director-roman-polanski/story?id=9873344

http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/2010/02/18/pierce-brosnan-interview-the-ghost-writer/

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-Ewan-McGregor-17134.html

http://wonderwall.msn.com/movies/polanski-picked-on-mcgregors-accent-1538837.story

http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=111147&fm=newsmain,nrhl

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/the-moviegoer-talking-with-ewan-mcgregor/

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1632272/story.jhtml

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1632272/story.jhtml

http://www.insidebayarea.com/entertainment/ci_14450918

http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/-235931--.html

http://www.austin360.com/movies/mcgregor-sees-parallels-in-polanskis-life-and-his-285371.html

More of the Translated Article: How Sharon's career got started, 'Macbeth' and Polanski and Polanski's First Wife

More of the Translated Article from Yesterday:

L'Europeo August 21, 1969



My meeting with Sharon Tate

by Adriano Botta

Continued...

The adventure of the body (if not the soul) for Sharon had begun very early in the second years of age. Sharon Tate is her real name. Her father, Paul Tate, was an officer of the American Army, department-- information. He lived in Dallas, making Sharon Texas-born. "In two years" her mother says, "I had her portrait taken with a bow on her head and her legs curled up on a round cushion. I sent the photos to a newspaper, for the Main Competition of Miss Baby and Sharon met her first triumph.  She was Miss Bebe. All the moms from Texas were full of envy."



Little was in Dallas. His father was transferred frequently. California, Washington, Omaha, Italy. And Sharon was a department mascot on a training airplane in California, she was Miss Richland in the federal capital and Miss Nebraska at Omaha. Her career in films was born in Verona. She was seventeen years old and spoke good Italian. She buttoned her blouse too low and waited for a secret audition in Technicolor in Venice before her father came home. Renzo Avanzo was a long-time public relations man for Technicolor's film lab in Rome and a cousin of Roberto Rossellini. Avanzo was to do the audition.  The audition and participation in a fleeting show of Pat Boone kindled her imagination. Returning to America for the new transfer of Paul Tate, who was now the rank of major, Sharon decided to try her luck in Hollywood. She was eighteen years old, her body was sometimes something of a spectacle. Major Tate was beginning to get tired of hearing the full regiments, the officers in his head, whistling to the passing of his daughter. Yes, it was time that she was on her own. The last time she buttoned her blouse too low her father said, "I recommend that you keep yourself covered in the best possible way. 'Now you're a woman.' "

Sharon debuted pouring wine to customers at a restaurant in Los Angeles, in an Irish costume, for twenty-five dollars a week.   She poured wine and seduction. A director from TV filled his glass up, got drunk and took Sharon to Filmways, the editor was his friend, Martin Ransohoff, and Martin cried when he saw Sharon and told his secretary to make up a contract for her. "She is the girl I always wanted. She could be another Marilyn Monroe to the seventies, I am willing to bet my reputation."

More tomorrow as Sharon decides she does not want to be the Next Marilyn Monore...

Here is an interesting theory on why Polanski chose Shakespeare 's "Macbeth" after the death of Sharon. 

http://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/time-music-in-third-ear-bands_14.html

Paul Minns (Musician and was in the band, 'Third Ear Band', this band did the music for Polanski's Macbeth):

"Macbeth" was done at Air Studios playing live to black/white rushes. Often we repeatedly watched gory scenes. Polanski related quite a bit but was under pressure from the bankers as things dragged on. He had strong views about film music such as doing the complete opposite to that on the screen. This was contrasted with "cartoon" type sound for each action in the fight scenes. We spent a long time in the studio with very little material to show for it. The engineers didn't know what the hell was going on (I don't blame them). I was struggling and had to restrained from attending the last sessions. Buckmaster reminded us of his needing to protect his reputation and there was general jockeying for Polanski's favour. The Sharon Tate murder had happened not long before and I felt that by choosing "Macbeth" Polanski hoped to substitute one grisly act by another, so erasing his memory. My playing was very shaky on the record which I produced - everyone else having done a runner.

Also, some said that one of the articles on my blog said something about Sharon being Roman's first wife.  This is apparently a mistake as Barbara Lass-Kwiatkowska was his first wife and Sharon his second.  Hope that clears that up.  Here is a photo of Barbara and Polanski:

A closer view of Lass:

Speaking of Polanski, here is another interesting take on his current situation:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/02/is-roman-polanski-really-no-different-than-leni-riefenstahl.html

And a great review of "The Ghost Writer" by Rolling Stone Magazine's Peter Travers:

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/32254953/review/32254955/the_ghost_writer

Photo of the Week, A Tribute to "Fearless Vampire Killers", Sharon Tate done in Embroidery? and more

Photo of the Week:

A nice tribute to FVK:

http://inewmovie.com/8125/my-tribute-to-fearless-vampire-killers/

A very artistic embroidery done of Sharon:

http://sabrinaparolin.blogspot.com/2010/01/dream-machine.html

From a David Bailey photograph.

What happened to the teacher that showed Polanski's "Macbeth?"

http://www.dailypress.com/news/chesapeake/dp-teacher-nudity-pilot-0129,0,4307310.story

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Rare Sharon Tate Memorabilia, Yorkie Necklace and Can a Teacher be Arrested for Showing a Polanski film?

Here is some rare Sharon Tate memorabilia I have come across.  I have not seen these before:

A rare magazine cover.

A rare book cover.

Rare "Wrecking Crew" French Poster.

A rare Polish article on "The Fearless Vampire Killers."

For those of you who are fans of dogs I found a lovely set of necklaces that are being offered through Bradford Exchange that include two of Sharon's favorite breeds: Poodle and Yorkie:

Here is a website if you are interested in these necklaces? :

http://www.collectiblestoday.com/ct/product/prdid-109217001.jsp

And here are more great items that depict animals including dogs:

http://bradfordexchange.collectiblestoday.com/ct/store/brad/Pet+Gifts/_prod/_14

Can teacher be arrested for showing Polanski's Macbeth? 

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/01/27/Can-teacher-be-arrested-for-showing-movie/UPI-10151264626142/

NORFOLK, Va., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- The father of a Virginia high school student threatened to have a teacher arrested for showing a class Roman Polanski's 1971 movie of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

Bill Thompson, a Norfolk police officer, told The Virginian-Pilot he would take out a warrant for contributing to the delinquency of a minor if Great Bridge High School does not take action.

The teacher showed the class several filmed versions of the play. The Polanski movie, which got mixed reviews when it came out, is marked by graphic violence and nudity.

Tom Cupitt, a spokesman for the Chesapeake schools, said the district is investigating. He said the teacher is likely to be disciplined for using outside materials without getting them approved by an administrator.

Morgan Thompson said she was not the only student upset by the movie. She said the nudity started with the first scene.

"It was disgusting. All the boys in the class were making noise, hollering and hooting," she said. "It was entirely offensive to show that. Even if you were going to show that version, at least fast-forward through that."

I guess some of Polanski's vintage films are still causing a stir.