Iain Quarrier Never Recovered From Sharon's Death, A New Tour has its good points and bad ones, and More on Polanski

I found this in a autobiography by Mim Scala called "Diary of a Teddy Boy":

At this time Roman Polanski was getting married to the beautiful Sharon Tate, and Victor Lownes offered to host his stag-night (bachelor party) at the Playboy Club and later at Victor's town house. The guests included Richard Harris, Terence Stamp, Michael Caine, Iain Quarrier, Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, Harry Baird, Gene Gutowski and myself.

Our party started off in the normal fashion, drinks, a joint or two, small talk. We all knew each other pretty well. We were being waited on by the pick of the Playboy Bunnies and a dozen other gorgeous girls. The higher and drunker we got, the more outrageous the party became. I was sharing the sauna with Michael Caine and Gene Gutowski, and several of the girls, when the door opened and Richard Harris (drunkingly) staggered in. We all carried on with what we were doing. 'Come on you filthy bastards, come with me. I know where the real action is'-- whereupon he staggered out of the heat. Michael, Gene and I were not about to leave. As morning came and Roman had to prepare for his wedding, we discovered what had happened to Richard. He had burgled Sharon's hen party (bachelorette party), the only male present at that gathering of about twenty of the most beautiful girls in London. He was unable to remember a thing.

Richard Harris, the only man at Sharon's Bachelorette party.

And then some pages later:

Iain Quarrier and Jane Birkin in "Wonderwall"

A few awful things had happened since I had left. In August 1969 Charles Manson had murdered Roman Polanski's beautiful wife, Sharon Tate. At the time, Michael Pearson and Iain Quarrier were in the California desert shooting the last scene of their film Vanishing Point. From the mobile production office Michael called Sharon to invite her to the end-of-shoot party. Sharon was eight months pregnant with Roman's child. She said she would try to make the party but if not, they should drop by for a drink. It took longer than expected to shoot that last scene, and it was nearly 11 o'clock when Michael and Iain finally drove into Mulholland Drive and past the compound where the Polanski house was. They decided not to disturb Sharon with a phone call as it was late, and drove directly to the Vanishing Point party. As the party wound down a couple of blocks away, dawn broke over the Polanski household and the Manson massacre. Michael heard the chilling news on the radio as he drove away from his party. Had he and Iain dropped in on Sharon, the two would have been victims of Hollywood's most evil murder.

Not surprisingly, Michael and Iain took the whole thing badly. Iain was very close to Sharon. He never fully recovered, nor worked again as an actor or producer. When I last saw him, rock climbing in the Lake district, he was handsome as ever, but the lights seem to have gone out.

Here is a new tour in California that I have mixed feelings about.  I'll let the girl who's seen it tell you more here:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001790/board/nest/159370515

More on Polanski:

Roman directing "Vampire Killers" and yes, that is Sharon's back to the bottom right.

He gets defended here:

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/03/22/letter-movie-ghost-writer-director-roman-polanski/

And this critic says that "The Ghost Writer" is the best picture of the year:

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/calleri3.23.10.html

Photo of the Week, The Last Part of the Translated Article: Sharon Tate wanted to eventually have a baby girl, and More on Polanski

Photo of the Week:

Sharon looking as beautiful as ever.

Here is the last part of the Translated Article:
L'Europeo August 21, 1969
My meeting with Sharon Tate
by Adriano Botta

(Warning: take some of this part with a large grain of salt...)

Photos from the actual magazine I got this article from.

Sharon Tate caught her breath, as the "bunnies" continued to deploy rose petals that they knew had hashish and brought a giant wedding cake on which was written: 'Enough with stripping, Elda!' There was a laugh by contortions. Roman Polanski stopped drinking whiskey and promoted an investigation. He learned as he copied the voice of Groucho Marx that the pastry chef had mistaken the cake by sending it to them.  Instead it was intended for a stripper at the Playboy Club that was retiring. "I have only now begun to perform in stripping," said Sharon, making a joke of it. "That will become increasingly good at becoming essential in my eroticism. Could I really become the Marilyn Monroe of the seventies?  Not in the Martin Ransohoff way. I want to be a type of Monroe who, with her eroticism set the world on fire without burning it.Yes, I will continue to undress. In a I could be undressed forever. If only to die soon in a satanic way*. I adore the way of working and living that has Roman's genius written all over it. There is an absolutely horrible sense of hypocrisy in the world. I am shocked.  Too bad for them. I and Roman have been a pair for about three years and we did not get married and it did not bother me at all. Marriage is a bourgeois convention. How important is marriage? If two people love each other and do get along well together why should they have to marry to make everyone else happy? For three years I've been with Roman and Hollywood is shocked? To bad for them.  They don't understand.  I stay away from Hollywood as best I can.  I've had it with the whole of Hollywood and its false puritanism. It is no longer the Mecca of cinema but more of a graveyard of the past studio system. I prefer London and Rome to Hollywood. "

"Why did you get married then?" someone asked. Sharon replied, "We said why not have a wedding?  The idea of it was fun. And the wedding reception at the Playboy Club was well worth the effort of a formal ceremony like marriage but it does not change anything. We are like a middle class couple, we strive to make sacrifices for each other and to encourage each other. There is no duty or restriction imposed on each other. And we often forget even to be married. I want to have children, yes. I'd like a girl. And I wish that she inherits my looks."

 
Sharon Tate is dead in Hollywood, in the cemetery of the old studio heads from which she was intended to flee. And she died like in a film by Roman Polanski, hanging from a cord of nylon, the beautiful body pierced by daggers.  And she died with four others, one of whom was also her ex-lover, the hairdresser of the stars, Jay Sebring.  He was stabbed and his head wrapped in a black hood. A morbid aggression, a crime that is crazy and repeated two days later, a few miles away, in another villa, two Italian spouses killed with the same ferocity and the same technique, with the same left written on the walls, 'pigs.' Two crimes like the demonic films inspired by the fantasy reminiscent of Polanski.  The face of America now bitter and dark. Sharon Tate was twenty six years old. She was to give birth to a baby in four weeks. Even Polanski has fallen to such a degree of shame with his cruel curse of literature.

*This sentence makes no sense with the rest of what Sharon is talking about.  And why would anyone say that anyway?  The only thing I can think of is that the reporter heard about the rumors of a possible santanic murder and added that comment to go along with it. I think a lot of reporters added this kind of thing for sensationalism. 
 
And it sounds like the reporter also went along with the Polanski makes macabre films so it imitates his life.  Like it is his fault for making movies like "Rosemary's Baby" that is the reason why he deserves this suffering in real life. 
 
Like I said, this kind of thing must be taken with a large grain of salt.
 
On a better note, here is a person who is trying to watch 1001 Greatest Movies of all time and reviews Polanski's "Chinatown." :
 
http://1001plus.blogspot.com/2010/02/separating-man-from-his-art.html
 

More on working with Polanski by The Ghost Writers stars Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor:
 
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

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Translated Article from Italian Magazine: 'No need to be embarrassed about being nude' and More on Polanski

L'Europeo August 21, 1969

My Meeting with Sharon

by Adriano Botta

Producer Martin Ransohoff wanted to make her another Marilyn Monroe, the 'sex symbol' of the seventies. But Sharon reacted and got to attend the Actor's Studio. The meeting with Roman Polanski, Sharon called it 'a drug', radically changed her life.

I was one of six hundred and forty invited to the wedding of Sharon Tate in London on 20 January 1968, which was performed in place less for married couples than any place in the world, the Playboy Club. Roman Polanski, the husband, called 'genius and profligacy' by British film critics, dashed down streams of whiskey and told stories that nobody seemed to listen to. The 'bunny' club had distributed rose petals that they knew had hashish. The lights were low, like from a cabaret. On the tables there was no shadow of dishes, so I buy food. Her husband, extolling her, the bride, who looked out of the modern novel of a masochist. She appeared sheathed by Elizabethan costume: lace, high collar and starched puffed sleeves of silk, and a skirt that barely covered her bottom. After alluding to the guests to smile, Sharon Tate sat at the center of the room, in a large bed with black sheets. On her legs that black shining white, long and thin, as in a framework designed for antolgia seduction. We all looked at those legs, our eyes were riveted.  We also watched Polanski--who appears to have a taste for suffering--together with a Raymond Chandler film style, the director who turns a cocktail of seduction-perversion-bloody cruelty in a commercial product with a large circulation. "A drop of blood at the spectacle of the wedding would have been in Polanski film fashion," said one of the critics present. Seduction and perversion were squandered, spurting from the contrast between the violent beauty of Sharon and her features delicate and innocent, like the Madonna of Siena, between his hard and sterile voice to hers an icy, sexy, girlish, rich, soft one.

Suddenly Sharon Tate picked up her white panty-hosed, long, and beautiful legs that bewitched so many of us, and came over to me and held a conversation with me for most of that extravagant banquet:

"I'm in love with Roman Polanski because he is beautiful and a genius to the bone and he has the unruliness of a man who is truly wise.  My father always told me to cover my legs and never to button my blouse too low.  And he scolded my mother since I was two years old when she sent my photographs to newspapers. With my husband, however, I was taught that nudity is not shameful but a way to be free, happy, full of life, and that we have only one duty, to be ourselves.  We do only what we want to do, ignoring the opinions of the world. We especially have fun. Roman has taught me that when women like me show themselves nude and beautiful that it is the most pure thing a woman can do. When we were going to shoot our first film together, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Polanski did not want me. The producer had to impose himself and put his foot down to get me the role. I had to shoot three sequences completely naked. I arrived on the set wrapped in a sheet like a ghost and when I opened it I was terribly embarrassed. I bent over and tried to cover my breasts and the rest.  Then Polanski told me: 'If you do that it attracts even more attention from the technicians and the matter becomes sordid and dirty. They are embarrassed if you yourself are embarrassed. You must learn to be naked in a natural sort of way, given that you're beautiful, with pride. This is the right attitude.'


"Roman was right. His talent subdues me. And the week after that he photographed me in color for Playboy, naked and natural. By this point I was already at ease. I had already forgotten the stupid complexity of modesty. The nude body has become the symbol of an era, or at least is becoming one. Like the sound of a new era and a new moral--morality naked--without the veil of hypocrisy. The morality of pleasure sought by the soul and the light of the sun. Body and soul: is that not the title of a popular ballad?"



To be continued tomorrow...

Polanski has some good news come his way:

Roman Polanski in Pole Position at Berlin Film Festival

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9838779

By Mike Collett-White

BERLIN (Reuters) - Roman Polanski can enjoy a break from sensational headlines about his arrest and misdemeanors and bask in the glow of mostly positive reviews for his latest movie "The Ghost Writer."

The 76-year-old director, under house arrest in his chalet in Gstaad, is among the early frontrunners for prizes at the Berlin film festival this year, although the 10-day competition has yet to reach halfway.

The political thriller based on a novel by Robert Harris is one of 20 movies vying for the Golden Bear for best picture, which Polanski won in 1966 for "Cul-de-Sac."

The fact that it is among the favorites is remarkable given that post-production was completed while Polanski was in a Swiss prison and, later, under house arrest.

"With this immensely enjoyable, satisfyingly convoluted thriller he demonstrates exactly why he is still a force to be reckoned with," Wendy Ide wrote in the Times newspaper.

"From the opening scene it is clear Polanski had complete control, whether or not he was behind bars when he finished it."

The United States is seeking to extradite Polanski to face justice after he fled the country in 1978 on the eve of his formal sentencing for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian said: "This is his most purely enjoyable picture for years, a Hitchcockian nightmare with a persistent, stomach-turning sense of disquiet, brought off with confidence and dash."

Hollywood trade publications were more circumspect, however.

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter described the film about a disgraced British prime minister loosely based on Tony Blair as "sleek" and "hypnotic," "but once the credit roll frees you from its grip, it doesn't bear close scrutiny."

Derek Elley of Variety was one of the few dissenting voices in Berlin:

"All the ingredients are here for a rip-roaring political thriller ... but ... Polanski simply transfers Harris' undistinguished prose direct to the screen and ... there's little wow factor in the revelations as they appear."

GRITTY DRAMAS ALSO SHINE

The Ghost Writer stars Ewan McGregor as a writer brought in to spice up the memoirs of an ex-premier (Pierce Brosnan).

The politician soon becomes embroiled in a bid to have him tried for war crimes, while the writer, who remains nameless, begins to uncover uncomfortable truths about the former leader and his wife, played by Olivia Williams.

Polanski is not alone in impressing critics in Berlin this year, with two other competition entries scoring strongly.

"If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle" is part of the "new wave" of Romanian film-making that has wowed festivals around the world in recent years.

It follows an 18-year-old young offender who is days away from being released from a correction facility. He discovers his mother, who abandoned him as a child, plans to take his brother to Italy, forcing him to take dramatic measures to break free.

Screen International wrote of its "outstanding quality," and the same publication was even more positive about "Submarino," a tough Danish drama which contains scenes of domestic abuse.

"Rarely has there been such a downbeat feel-good movie, but feel-good it is: Submarino works like an emotional massage, leaving the viewer pummeled but invigorated," Screen wrote.

The Berlin film festival awards ceremony is held on February 20.

New Sharon Tate Article, Polanski Wins Some Damages, and Love Story Author Passes

I found a few interesting things in this otherwise rather dramatic, gossipy magazine called Screenplay for December 1969. 

Hollywood's Reign of Terror -- The Tate - Lennon Murders.

(The vintage magazine discusses both the Tate murders and that of the Lennon Sisters family murders.  I'll focus on Sharon for obvious reasons and because the article is rather lengthy and you have to take a grain of salt when you read it.)

"I love America, and I love working, but I am frightened by the violence.  Nowhere else in the world--Italy, France, England--do you see such violence!"

These were the words of Roman Polanski, the brilliant 36 year-old Pole who directed Rosemary's Baby.

Roman Polanski's beautiful movie star wife, 26-year-old Sharon Tate, was stabbed to death, along with their unborn son and three of their closest friends, in their Benedict Canyon Hollywood Mansion, early on Saturday morning, August 9th.  Sharon (as were the Lennon Sisters' dad) were buried at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Cemetery.

The Polanskis enjoyed all the wild excitement of Hollywood's hip youth scene.  In fact, he was almost too exciting for her, and their first encounter in London in 1965 was almost their last.  He invited her to dinner in his home, when she came to him for a part in his horror-comedy, The Fearless Vampire Killers.  In part of a screen test, he suddenly reared up behind her, wearing a Frankenstein mask and making horrible monster noises in his gloomy, shadowy dining room.  Naturally, she screamed hysterically.  He decided that she had expressed just the right reactions for the role.  She, in turn, decided that the long-haired director was the craziest nut she'd ever met!

But soon she realized that his eccentricity was that of genius.  They fell deeply in love, and by the time she went back to Hollywood to star in Valley of the Dolls, she was telling everyone about the affair.  "He is my first real, serious romance!" she exclaimed.  "He is so strong, so true, so honest.  But at the same time he leaves me free to be myself.  He's also very sexy, because what makes a man sexy to me is vitality and intelligence."  They had a beach house in Hollywood, where they lived together, and they enjoyed going into the desert to race his car.  They always kept a home in London, too.  Sharon loved the new freedom and tolerance there.

For the first time in three years, Sharon insisted, "I'm not going to spoil a great affair by turning it into a mediocre marriage, for convention's sake."  She had been born in Texas, but as the daughter of a career army officer, Colonel Paul Tate, she was educated in Europe.  She explained, "I have the European attitude towards sex and life in general.  Everything is so much more liberal and open over there."

By January 20, 1968, they had decided they could have a great marriage too.  The wedding was held in a London registry office, with a star-studded reception in the Playboy Club.

Instead of competing with each other, the Polanskis were always trying to help each other succeed.  Sharon often visited the set of Rosemary's Baby, the movie which made him America's most famous director.  Valley of the Dolls failed to make her an equally-famous star, even though she'd been built up before hand as "the next Marilyn Monroe," and possessed a perfect, immaculate beauty.  But Roman always had enthusiastic faith in her.  He tried to get her the role of Rosemary, then encouraged her to appear in The Wrecking Crew with Dean Martin, and he sent her to Rome to make 13 Chairs.  They celebrated her return with a gala party; all the guests noticed how happy the Polanskis were and how much in love.

She went with him to London, where he was working on The Day of the Dolphin.  He ran into a problem there.  When her little Yorkshire terrier, 'Saperstein,' was run over by a car, Roman couldn't find a way to break the sad news to the tender hearted girl.  He finally told her that her pet had run away, as he handed her an identical dog.  After Sharon died, Roman kept repeating, "She was such a good person."  That wasn't just a husband's opinion.  Even a notorious woman-hater like Mort Sahl described her, during her lifetime as "a very nice girl."

Sharon and Roman were looking forward very eagerly to the birth of their first child.  They hardly ever talked about anything else.  Sharon left London a few days early, by boat, because she didn't want to fly during her eighth month.  Roman planned to be home in time for the birth, and he hired an Irish nanny for the child.  He was also looking forward to his own birthday on August 18, because Sharon was planning another big party for him.

Because he didn't want her to wait for him all alone, he asked some friends to come and stay with her, Voytech Frykowski, who'd been his movie partner in Poland, and Frykowski's girl friend, Abigail Folger, who was doing social work in Watts, even though she was the heiress to the coffee company.  The famous men's hairstylist Jay Sebring, who had been Sharon's boy friend before she met Polanski, was also visiting them on the fatal night.  They became her companions in death. 

(There is a complete rundown of the murders and how the victims were found.  There is also a mention of drugs and black magic and the article says: "Roman had a brilliant, original, searching mind and his movies all showed a strong interest in the macabre.  At the Polanski's last party, Sharon had wore a transparent white gown... While Sharon and Roman were a very devoted couple, they were also a very unconventional one."  I'd take some of that with a grain of salt.)

The shocking facts gave rise to rumors.  Roman had to defend his dead wife's honor in the midst of his own grief.  Through his partner, Gene Gutowski, he sternly told the press, "Jay Sebring was a close and dear friend of both Sharon and Roman.  It was wrong to suggest that there was any romantic involvement at this time between Sharon and Jay.  Sharon and Roman were a storybook couple, deeply in love.  She was very devoted to him, and he was very protective of her."  Jay originally planned to bring his own girl, Connie Kreski, a starlet and Playboy Magazine Playmate of the Year.

Gutowski also insisted, "There was no party going on, and Sharon and the others were rational, nice people, not Hippies or cultists.  What happened to them could have happened to anyone, as it did to the Clutters in Kansas."

(There is more falseness in the next part about mutilated bodies that are just not true, so I will not include them here.)

Roman Polanski was obviously in no condition to say anything to the press himself.  It was hours before he was composed enough to talk to the police.  He had taken the first plane from London, but he was under deep sedation from the time Gutowski gave him the news, and he cried, "They have killed my wife and baby!"

The drugs did not dull his grief.  He sobbed through Sharon's funeral, and knelt to kiss the casket, as Sharon's mother tried to comfort him by sadly patting his head.  By the time he arrived at Jay's funeral, he ws so near collapse that he needed two friends to support him.  In his bitterness and heartbreak, his is now planning to leave Hollywood forever, and stay in London. 

Both his love and his fear (of America) have been justified.

He came to us as an immigrant, bringing his talent and energy--they won him a beautiful movie star wife, exciting friends, and a Hollywood mansion--and thus he helped prove that our cherished American dream can still come true.  How shameful it is that for Roman Polanski, the great American dream has ended in a nightmare.

(The next part is all about the Lennon Sisters and their family and their father, who was shot to death.)

(The article also mentions the LaBianca's murders and how Garretson had been taken into custody but since there was no evidence to be found against him, he was released.  Speaking about the LaBianca's the article says, "So a third family--not related to show business at all--helped to prove the dreadful moral of Hollywood's reign of terror--that violence can strike anyone, anywhere, regardless of his character or way of life.")

The Polanskis and the Lennons--the most modern and the most conventional--the most daring and the most devout--the most glamorous and the most typical--neither were spared.

If you want to write condolence letters to the bereaved, expressing your own sympathy, you can send them to Roman Polanski, c/o Rogers, Cowan & Brenner Public Relations, 250 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, California, and for the Lennon Sisters, c/o Jay Bernstein Public Relations, 9110 Sunset, Beverly Hills, California.

Apparently, Roman Polanski won some damages in his case against the press but not as much as he had hoped:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/19/polanski-wins-privacy-damages

Not sure if Roman and Sharon knew him but another great from the Sixties has passed away.  "Love Story" Author Eric Segal dies at 72:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9604208