Polanski connected to attempted murder? And one new article on Sharon and one old one...

Apparently, Roman Polanski is in the news again...

http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-10-playboy-playmates-who-got-in-trouble-with-the-law/

Playboy Playmates are known for being bastions of class and social distinction, but sometimes something in them snaps and they go bad. This was apparently the case with1968 Playmate Angela Dorian, who tried to kill her husband in October, using a gun given to her by Roman Polanski 40 years ago. Dorian was besties with Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, who was murdered by Charles Manson. Polanski apparently gave her the gun to protect herself. But now the Playmate could face life in prison, after shooting her husband during an argument.

Some sites have been bringing up Polanski's tainted past and accusing him of being responsible.  Actually, if Dorian were Sharon and Roman's good friend, I can see why he would given her a gun to protect herself.  After the Manson murders everyone in Hollywood was terrified that it could be them next.  However, I am sorry to hear about what happened recently, Roman, by no means, really had anything to do with it. 

For more positive news...

Here is a recent article on Sharon...

http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/589/Sharon_Tate

Vintage Style: Sharon Tate - November 3, 2010

When referencing iconographic 60s style, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton and Jane Birkin are arguably the most name-checked people, but there is one often-missed celebutante whose characteristic style typifies not just the mood of the decade but the unique psychedelic microcosm of California where she lived. Actress Sharon Tate is rarely mentioned in style retrospectives, press romanticism of the swinging era perhaps not sitting so comfortably with the horrific murder of the starlet at the hands of the Manson “family” in 1969.

Whilst in Britain the 60s aesthetic came to be typified by the bird-like Twiggy in jarring monochrome geometric prints, Hollywood’s poster 60s chick was actress Sharon Tate, made famous by her role in cult 1967 film The Valley of The Dolls. Instead of an elfin frame and sleek boyish hair, Tate’s look was notably more feminine and whimsical with bell sleeve, chemise-inspired mini dresses and heavily printed fabrics, which provided an altogether more ethereal feel than the London-centric cool Brit girl look of the day. Speaking to American news program Inside Edition, Deborah Tate described her sister's style as, “very eclectic, very free-spirited, and a combination of sexy and child-like innocence.” The archetypal Californian hippy-boheme, Sharon routinely weaved leather strings around her feet mimicking sandals so that she could go barefoot into restaurants and shops in Beverly Hills.

The allure of Tate’s beauty was hypnotic. The New York Sunday News described her poetically in a 1966 article: “Wearing an abbreviated miniskirt, she seems to enjoy the commotion she causes wherever she goes. Sharon also affects thick, black, false eyelashes, brown eye shadow around her lips, and long ash-blonde hair that falls freely about her shoulders. Her presence in a crowd is as insignificant as a floodlight in a blackout.” (New York Sunday News December 18, 1966)

The distinctive style of the 1960s bombshell has lingered around the catwalks for several seasons. Miu Miu’s A/W10 collection boasted a pretty take on retro 60s trends melding mod-like shift dresses with girly moulded fills, and metallic floral adornments nodding towards the free-loving flower-children of the era. Next season, Sharon Tate’s spectre is a tangible presence in fashion with Julien Macdonald citing her as the influence for the beauty looks in his S/S11 presentation. The revival of trends trailblazed by Tate, such as the heavy taupe eyes under sky-high hair, bohemian prints on feather-light fabrics, and the fact her name, not just her style, is being referenced by designers, is the biggest indicator that fashion at least has come to view Roman Polanski’s late wife as a reference point for inspiration, and no longer as just a tragic heroine.

Text by Laura Havlin


Thanks so much to Laura Havlin for writing such a positive and great article about Sharon!  And yes, Amen to the idea of Sharon being no longer thought of as just a tragic heroine!

And here is an older article submitted by our contributor Andrea!  Thanks, Andrea!

Career Girl Magazine 1966:

Sharon Tate comes from Dallas, Texas and is the eldest of three daughters.  She made her film debut with Deborah Kerr and David Niven in "13" and follows with the female starring role in MGM's satirical horror-drama, "The Vampire Killers."  Oddly enough, Sharon was discovered in Italy where she met Eli Wallach, Susan Strasberg and Richard Beymer who were shooting "The Adventures of a Young Man" in Verona.  Impressed by potential as an actress, director Marty Ritt advised her to get in touch with agent Hal Gefsky in California with a view to breaking into pictures.  She took his advice and went to Los Angeles.  Her "break" was just around the corner.  While auditioning for a small part in Filmway's tv series, "Petticoat Junction," she was seen by producer Martin Ransohoff, Filmways chief.  He signed her to an exclusive seven-year contract the same day.

And, may I add, it is easy to see why!

Another Reporter Remembers Sharon and Roman Plus Vampires and Beautiful Women

CAD Magazine February 1970

Our Life is our Jungle by Bruce Harper

When I encountered vibrant and intense Roman Polanski at Paramount Studios he was in the midst of editing Rosemary’s Baby, the brilliant film on satanism and witchcraft in our time that was to bring worldwide acclaim.

It was the spring of 1968 and the slight, intense, lean, young man who sat next to me at the small table was as happy as he possibly would be in his life.

He was thirty-four and looked ten years younger. He was already a world renowned festival prize winning film director, of Polish origin but now very mobile in the far-flung film world – Paris, London, Rome and now the heart of the industry, Hollywood.

But above all Roman Polanski had just wooed, won and married the unbelievably beautiful and talented young film star, Sharon Tate. If there was one young couple among the beautiful people who had everything going for them – love, immensely successful talent, exciting careers and the unlimited admiration of their peers – it was Sharon and Roman.

At this point a reddish-haired movie-star handsome, turtleneck-sweatered young fellow stopped to say hello to Roman. “Krysztof Komeda,” Roman said, “my composer. He is also a doctor. I told him he better leave the hospital, always rushing for an operation or something, and really stay in music. So he abandoned, of course, the study of medicine.” Polanski pointed to a mark on his upper lip. “I had a cut here,” he said. “He pulled my stitches out. I had a fight in Paris a few days ago, I came back with the stitches and I said, ‘I must have it pulled.’ Kris said ‘All right, I’ll pull it.’ He sat down and cooked the scissors and pulled it out. ‘You can do it so fast,’ I said, ‘I’m going to start being in doubt about the music!’”

I wanted to know about the fight. Did it have anything to do with moviemaking? “The fight?” Polanski responded dryly. “No, I just had a fight on the street. I got married, you know, I was in Paris on my honeymoon with my wife Sharon Tate. We were just going to the cinema. On the street there were three guys going in the opposite direction, and one stuck his hand under my wife’s skirt, so I punched him. And he had the stupid idea to punch me back. He had a little ring on his finger and he cut my lip.” This was instantly more than I expected, this insight into the contrasts shadowing Roman Polanski’s life. He was newly rich, famous, ensconced in that room at the top of his profession, just happily wed to fabulous Sharon Tate – and he had to fight with his fists against three toughs on the streets of Paris!

In Hollywood and London Polanski met Sharon Tate, and his life took on a new radiance. She was five-foot-five, a stunning ash-blonde--so glamorous that producers and directors kept discovering her. First it was director Martin Ritt who met her as a sixteen-year-old nymphet in Venice, where her father was then posted as a colonel in Army Intelligence. “You ought to be in pictures!” Ritt told Sharon, but Papa was against it. But later on a visit to Hollywood she remembered Ritt’s advice and went to agent Hal Gefsky. “All I know is,” he has said of that encounter, “when she walked into the my office she was the most beautiful girl in the world.”

She began making her own way, appearing in TV commercials, trying to break in the hard way. “I was just a piece of merchandise,” she said of that difficult period. “No one cared about me, Sharon.” The producer Martin Ransohoff saw her, signed her and groomed her for a superstar.

Now fate twisted together the bright-and-dark strands of Roman and Sharon’s lives. He was bewitched by the stunning, hypnotic witch (she played one in Eye of the Devil) on the screen and cast Sharon in a film he was then about to make that spoofed the vampire films, titled The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck! She romped through this wild satire in a red wig –and nothing else in a fantastic nude scene! This is how Cynan Jones saw her at that buoyant time of her life:

Sharon is the eternal woman, yet paradoxically she twists and turns her lithe body in the eager coltish manner of a careless tomboy. She affects the no-make-up Italian look, except for black eyeliner which serves to emphasize her wide hazel eyes and thick natural eyelashes. She has high cheekbones in an oval pre-Raphaelite face and her coloring is fresh and vivid with natural glowing cheeks. Her usual attire when not working is a huge oatmeal-colored sweater and skin tight jeans… She apparently cares little for clothes – and why should she with such an exquisite healthy body?

Sharon herself once said, “I’m really different underneath. All my life I’ve been told that I’m beautiful. But beauty has nothing to do with me – the real me. Anyway, you can stay covered up to your neck and still be sexy, you know. I would like my image to be somewhat secretive, simple and down-to-earth. I adore the little girl look." But when Roman Polanski entered her life he had still a different idea of her potential. “I’m trying to make her a little meaner,” he said. “She’s too nice and everyone walks all over her. She’s embarrassed by her own beauty.”

For her part, Sharon was fascinated by her brilliant young husband. “When I first met Roman,” she said, “I couldn’t believe he was a director because he looked so young. He’s the youngest looking man for his age I’ve ever seen. But he really isn’t as young as he looks. He’s thirty-five.” Her luminous eyes glowed as she rhapsodized about Roman. “He is wise, wonderful, brilliant and he knows everything! Above all, Roman is an artist.”

An interviewer found that she had “an aura, a magic, a curious mystique . . . a face of extraordinary beauty and a body that won’t quit,” and predicted that Sharon Tate would be with us a long time. It was a just prophesy, if some perverted destiny had not interfered with the right course of things…

Here is another article mentioning the recent vampire craze and it includes Roman and Sharon in The Fearless Vampire Killers:

http://www.whitefieldconsulting.com/wordpress/?p=1695

And another blog includes Sharon as one of the most beautiful women of the 1960s:

http://www.retrokimmer.com/2009/11/retrokimmer-favorite-1960s-beautiful.html