More of the Translated Article Discussing Sharon's Career and a Great Article on Actor Ferdy Mayne Who Remembers Sharon Fondly

Novella 2000 August 21, 1969

The terrible death of Sharon Tate, the most beautiful of Hollywood (part III)

By Paolo Pietroni

Sharon Tate was born in Dallas, Texas, twenty-six years ago. Her father was in the U.S. Army and attended the service of safety signs (counter, then a sort of 007) when Sharon was only six months away, her mother sent some pictures to a beauty pageant and to baby foods. Sharon won the proclaimed Miss Baby of Texas.

She was pretty young, beautiful and she was to become great. At sixteen, she was elected to Miss Richland of Washington, and then "Miss Autorama."   A year after that her father was elemental in the technology in Italy, at the NATO base in Vicenza: Sharon was proclaimed High School Homecoming Queen.

In Verona one day she saw a film crew from Fox shooting a film. The director was occasionally impressed by the beauty of Sharon. Two years later, when the Tate family returned home, the director remembered her. And one fine day Sharon was taken almost bodily into the office of Martin Ransohoff, director of Filmways, who sealed a deal and made her sign a contract for seven years.

Sharon early in her career.

The first three years (so stated in the contract) Sharon was studying. Forbidden to do photography, film making prohibited except some minor bit part with wig, and fake name. The 'system' of Hollywood was once again put into motion to build, piece by piece.  She was to take the place of Marilyn Monroe, whose presence had been too long empty now.

What they said about her
 
Singing lessons, acting lessons, diction, carry oneself, exercise, nutrition, classical ballet. These three years of 'school' cost the producer Ransohoff the beauty of three hundred million.  But he was sure to have them invested in a fertile soil. They had coined slogans to launch the young actress. Here's one: "Nothing is more exhilarating for a tete-a-Tate."
 
At the end of three years of study the "doll-blonde-sexy-all" was ready to begin her first film, starting as the female lead. The first film is titled "Thirteen" (the same title of the last film!). Sharon personifies a fragile country girl with psychic powers and witchcraft. And she was so good as a witch that director Roman Polanski put her in his film writing about vampires (Italian title: Please do not bite on the neck) with Christopher Lee.* During the making of the film (even between Polanski and interpreters), Sharon and Roman fell in love.
 
Third movie: Plan, Do not Make Waves with Tony Curtis and Claudia Cardinale. The fourth movie: The Valley of the Dolls.  Fifth and final film, as we have said was Thirteen with Gassman. But the title was changed : we will call it One out of thirteen, or 12 + 1. Sharon embodies a rich heiress. But her montary legacy has been hidden by her grandmother inside one of thirteen chairs that were unfortunately sold. Gassman helps Tate helps to find them one by one--the thirteen chairs--through a thousand vicissitudes.** One becomes yellow-pink, in fact.

Sharon with Ferdy Mayne in The Fearless Vampire Killers.

*There must have been a goof in this article as it was Ferdy Mayne and not Christopher Lee that appeared in the film, "The Fearless Vampire Killers."

Sharon's final film, "12 + 1"

**I thought it was Gassman who was to inherit the money in the chairs and that Sharon helped him.  Sorry, I have still not seen the film "12 + 1".

Speaking of Ferdy Mayne I found a great interesting article on him where he mentions Sharon.

Mayne says of Tate: “Sharon was a very kind and sweet person in life and of course Roman adored her and that was obvious from the first day of filming.”

He talks more about Roman and Sharon in the article here:

http://www.filmsinreview.com/2009/04/02/camp-david-april-2009-ferdy-mayne/

Another interview with Sharon at the beginning of her career & more

New York Sunday News December

December 18, 1966

Sharon Tate is on a crash program to get to the top

It's difficult to imagine Sharon Tate as having ever been shy.

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.

Yet just three years ago, Sharon was a "painfully shy girl of 20 with blonde pigtails," according to her own recollection. The Dallas-born youngster had never acted or had a smidgen of dramatic training. But that didn't faze Filmway's top executive, Martin Ransohoff. When he first glimpsed her in the reception room of his office, Ransohoff ordered that she be singed to a seven-year contract.

Today, Sharon Tate is an actress. Some even label her a star though she has yet to be seen in a movie. Her first two MGM films--"13" and "The Vampire Killers"--won't be released for at least two months, and Sharon's latest movie "Don't Make Waves," isn't scheduled for screening until next summer.

And so no one really knows whether Ransohoff's gamble to make an instant star with his crash program technique has succeeded. Sharon, naturally, is convinced that she has made the show business grade. "I'm sure the three years I spent in training to be an actress will pay off," she says.

The training consisted of intensive schooling (10 hours a day, five days a week) in dramatics, singing, dancing, body building, walking, talking--everything except breathing. Sharon soon began to lose her shyness and gain a sense of permanency in her surroundings.

Up to then, Sharon had led a tumbleweed type of existence. As an Army 'brat' (her father is Maj. Paul James Tate), she spent a great deal of her childhood packing and moving from one military base to another. Before Sharon was 15, she had lived in Tacoma, Houston, El Paso and San Francisco--just to name a few cities. When Maj. Tate was shipped overseas in 1959, he took his wife and Sharon with him. As a result, Sharon boasts a fluency in Italian and a diploma from a Vicenza, Italy, high school.

It was in Italy, too, that she met actor Richard Beymer, who was on location for the film, "The Adventures of a Young Man." Beymer gave her the old line that "she ought to be in pictures"--only he meant it. Sharon scoffed at the notion, but then came around to the idea when the actor introduced her to his agent.

On Sharon's return to this country, she tried out for a TV cigarette commercial at the agent's urging. She landed the job despite the fact that she had never smoked before. (Today, she goes through half a pack a day.) "The commercial required many takes," Sharon recalls. "Just when they were ready for the final one, I passed out from taking too many puffs on my first attempt at smoking."

Sharon was still a bit dazed at the enormity of breaking into show business when she stepped into Ransohoff's Filmways office. Ransohoff felt instinctively that she had movie star potential. However, it was only after she had several months of acting lessons that he placed her in CBS-TV's "Beverly Hillbillies". Sharon portrayed Janet Trego on the series, but wasn't given any TV credit. Ransohoff wanted to spring her on movie audiences as a "surprise."

Now that Sharon is an actress in the technical sense of the word, anyhow, she has set her goal on becoming "a light comedienne in the Carol Lombard style." But the 5'5 1/2, 117 pound newcomer does not care to hear that she resembles the late actress. "I don't think I look a bit like her," Sharon pouts. "It's not that I think I'm a sexpot, either. I don't have voluptuous hips and I'm not heavy-chested."

For the time being, Sharon isn't giving movies a thought. She left recently for London to continue her romance with Poland's famed, shaggy-haired director, Roman Polanski. "I've known him for nine months," says Sharon. "We have a wonderful relationship. I don't know if I'll marry him. He hasn't asked me yet." If Sharon does wed, her film career and Ransohoff's half a million dollar investment in her will go down the drain. "I'll give up acting the second I'm married," says Sharon, which leads many observers to believe it won't happen for some time.

Most actresses would rather shed a husband than a career, but Sharon is an unusual girl. What actress, for example, would go out her way to point up the scars on her face? Sharon has a noticeable diagonal scar under her left eye. She also has a small one to the side of the left eye, and another one--"caused by chicken pox"--on her forehead.

"I suffered the big scar," says Sharon, "when I fell on a piece of corrugated tin when I was five. I wouldn't dream of having the scar removed. I am very proud of it. It's me."

More news:

There are two movies that have been filmed on location in Italy that are coming out soon.  I mention this because Sharon graduated High School there and some of the locations may very well be places that she saw and visited when she was there.

1)  Is a movie called "Letters to Juliet".  An American girl on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered "letter to Juliet" -- one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by a the "secretaries of Juliet" -- and she goes on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.  It stars Vanessa Redgrave and Amanda Seyfried.

2)  Is a movie called "When In Rome".  Beth is a young, ambitious New Yorker who is completely unlucky in love. However, on a whirlwind trip to Rome, she impulsively steals some coins from a reputed fountain of love, and is then aggressively pursued by a band of suitors.  It stars Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel.

Both will be released next year.

Tomorrow another special issue of Photo Comparison of the Week.

Sharon Tate talks about it being creepy to live at Jean Harlow 's former home and how she got started

Here is another article I have had translated.  I am not sure what magazine it came from as I got it along with a group of clippings.  It looks to be from around 1965-66:

Two faces of this lady appear here, both the property of Sharon Tate.  Hollywood has bet $1 million on this face and is trying to make a star out of her.  On the right side photo she is pictured with her real hair, freshly washed and natural, the very important style that she is wearing is long like the new wave started by the top models of England.  (For instance, the leader, Jean Shrimpton).  On the left hand side photo she appears wearing a monocle wig made especially for her by Joshua--from Vidal Sassoon, the big London specialist of the geometric cut.  This style has also been copied by Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Denueve, and Jane Fonda.

There is something fascinating yet shameful that I must ask this pretty girl with two faces: Sharon Tate.  Remember that name, Sharon Tate because $1 million dollars are being invested on this 22 year old blond American born actress.  Born in Dallas (where the men are crazy and the women are gorgeous).  Who is this totally unknown lady?  Go to the Elstree Studios and go to the stage where they are filming "Eye of the Devil" and approach the reserved seats of the stars of the movie.  On the first one you'll read Kim Novak.  On the second one you will see David Niven and on the third one--written in the same big letters--it says: Miss Tate.  Sharon is the new star that Hollywood is trying to push.  That is why I have the right to ask this one question while I am driving in her very rich neighborhood of Belgravia to get to her home for the interview.  And that question is: What is left of the real Sharon Tate after her Hollywood transformation?  Read on.

In 1962, Colonel Tate from the US Army was based in Verona, Italy.  Tate is miraculously still alive.  He was in Pearl Harbor and was burned under the bombs of the Japanese.  "The surgeons saved my father's life by throwing just about anything on his skin," she says.  The only remaining sign of this: the black eyeglasses that the Colonel never removes from his face.  In Verona, that summer some people were making a movie.  Sharon was watching them and it wasn't long before they too, were watching her.  If destiny had it then Sharon would have gotten a small part in that movie.  But the movie was eventually released in 1963 and it was a flop.  Who would have noticed the young beginner anyway?

Her destiny improved.  When the young girl came back to California (where her father got transferred), she called a number she got from one of the actor's on the set of that movie in Verona.  She was hired immediately for a 15 second commercial ad.  She only needs to look pretty and to smile as she takes a puff from a Cool cigarette and then say in a soft voice, these are the best cigarettes in the world.  That was the first major step.  Nothing big but still a first step.

"I never had money at that time," explains Sharon.  "It was always my mother who had to buy my clothes."

When her big day came, Sharon smiled to the camera and lit a cigarette but didn't say a word.  The poor girl had never smoked a cigarette and was now coughing non-stop.  Ashamed, Sharon left the studio and went to the hallway crying.  At this point, she was frustrated and she hated herself, she hated the orange dress she was wearing, she hated television, Cool Cigarettes and even America--everything.  She was now only a sore throat and two wet eyes.  She was very upset and humiliated.  At that moment a man saw her, looked at her for a few moments and told his assistant: I want her.

That man was 33 year old Martin Ransohoff and, of course, he is a movie producer. 

Sharon still wearing her orange dress and wet eyes is now with Ransohoff.  He is a proud man and promises her glory, fame and fortune.  He says he is going to make a star of her.  She is shocked.

In her contract she must take some courses: diction, dramatic art, dance, singing, gymnastics, equitation, ect.  That's the price to pay to become a star.  She is not allowed to go out for the next 1000 days.  No galas and no parties with friends.  Nothing.  During her years as 19, 20 and 21 year old she is not to be seen.  Even if only one photo is shown in a newspaper of her during this time the contract will be canceled. Did Sharon accept these conditions?  Yes, she did.

"Actually," Sharon says, "I didn't have anymore liberty at home."

Sharon keeps her composure and patience in this inhuman and majestic mechanism that is suppose to make a star of her.  Is it patience or laziness?

"I was raised very Catholic and then I started doubting things like everybody does at some point.  I read some books on Hinduism.  I don't read them anymore but I have learned from them how to stay calm in front of whatever is thrown at you in life."

So I finally ask her the shameful question: if she realizes she is an object?  A very nice and expensive object that is manipulated very carefully but still an object.  "Yes, I know," she said. "Just a thing."  She says this without any sadness or bitterness.

What are your feelings for being reduced to an object only existing for others?

"I'm confident.  These people selected me.  If they invested so much on me it must be because I have a human quality that justifies their risk.  It's up to me to keep that quality."

Aren't you afraid to loose what you are by acting the way they want you to act?

"I have to admit that I lost my calm and got upset many times.  There were times I couldn't continue.  I ran to the phone a few times and called Marty.  I told him this was inhuman.  He answered that I was free to break the contract if I wanted but that it would be a big mistake."  She hung up and continued to resist. 

It was probably the old trick that consists of hiding the merchandise as long as you can.  When it's the right time, you show your merchandise to the whole world with a maximum of intensity and impact.

Sharon has a lot of self confidence.  If Ransohoff asks her to do something that she doesn't want to what would be her reaction?  Would she follow the instructions or throw the contract in the garbage? 

"None of the above," she answers.  "I would explain to him that I think it's a bad idea for me to do that and I would convince him."

And if Marty doesn't understand?

"I would explain it differently until he understands."

She definitely has some interior power. She uses it quietly but efficiently.  Maybe Ransohoff uses her but perhaps she is also using Ransohoff to get where she wants to be: At the top.

The scenarist Jerry Lee Thompson says that she is very talented.  A talent she developed at the Actor's Studio and in some Tv sitcoms where she appeared with brown wigs and eyeglasses in order to hide her beauty.

"I haven't really changed," she continues, "I have improved my makeup and I feel more comfortable with my body.  But I am still the same little Sharon who, at five years of age, jumped from a garage roof to land on my dog like it was a horse.  The problem was my dog left while I was still jumping in the air..."

After she finishes the movie, she is going back to Hollywood.  When I asked her if she has a nice villa with a pool she started laughing.  She then described the house she stays in that was formly owned by Jean Harlow and then husband, Paul Bern.

"At night in the area, people swear they see and hear Paul Bern's ghost."  He ended up committing suicide there.  "It's a house where you get scared."

In her very nice styled British apartment that the production is renting for her she goes to the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of bourgogne that she purchased in the afternoon.  She makes me a glass and gives it to me.  She continues in her soft voice:

"The Harlow house is lugubrious but the day I brought over my little sisters they had so much fun.  Life was back to normal," she laughs.