TMS Muse of the Week: Sharon Tate
(via facebook.com)
How much more can one person’s memory endure? A few months ago I discussed the long term exploitation and overexposure of Marilyn Monroe’s image for easy publicity. There are only a few other iconic, deceased women to experience the same attention, and one of them is Sharon Tate. If it’s not Marilyn, Princess Di, Selena or Aaliyah; it’s Sharon and her unborn child pop culture and true crime aficionados are continuingly dissecting the tragic end of. And unlike Marilyn and Diana Spencer, Sharon’s fame was an even shorter amount of time [just six years from 1963 to 1969]. So many questions can be asked regarding how Sharon’s life and career would have turned out if she had lived beyond age 26. Would she have become A-list? Would she have stayed married to Oscar winning filmmaker and infamous fugitive Roman Polanski? [No, in my opinion.] Did Goldie Hawn have the career Sharon was originally predicted to have? I wish Sharon could have lived long enough for us to get the answers to these ponderings.
Just this past week we honored the 53rd anniversary of Sharon’s murder, along with her fellow victims of Manson Family cult. The summer of 1969 was a pretty depressing season in retrospect. Not only did we have the Manson murders in August, but Sharon’s friend, fashion designer Jeannie Franklyn [AKA, Genie the Tailor], died in a bus crash earlier in May while in leaving Birmingham, England; and another acquaintance of Sharon and Genie—rock girlfriend Christine Hinton—sadly lost her life in an LA car accident that September. And of course, July is when founding member of both the Rolling Stones and the ’27 club,’ Brian Jones drowned in his own swimming pool. It was as if the summer was leading up to the worst of the worst case scenarios. Like the rest of her ill-fated contemporaries, Sharon barely reached her potential by the time of her death. She had one big box-office hit on her resume—Mark Robson’s melodrama Valley of the Dolls (1967)—and a recurring role on a classic sitcom: CBS’ “The Beverly Hillbillies” (1963-65). Two of Sharon’s closest friends were Dolls co-stars Barbara Parkins and Patty Duke; and two of her former boyfriends were actor Richard Beymer and hair stylist Jay Sebring [also a Manson victim].
(Bridgeman Images)
Even researching back to when the blonde starlet was alive, it’s hard to find any bad stories or claims about her. Words like ‘sweetheart,’ ‘free spirit,’ ‘hippie’ and ‘caring,’ are often used to describe Sharon. Dean Martin was so upset over her murder that he had the planned sequels cancelled to their spy comedy, Phil Karlson’s The Wrecking Crew (1968). Unfortunately, despite her talent, beauty and star quality, most of Sharon’s screen projects were pretty mediocre, including Valley of the Dolls. But the Golden Globes committee apparently liked her performance enough to nominate her for Most Promising Newcomer [she ultimately lost to Katharine Ross for Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967)]. And Sharon’s arguably the best part in the horror B-movies of J. Lee Thompson’s Eye of the Devil (1966) and Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). It’s a shame Sharon’s memory is forever connected to psychotic cult leader Charles Manson and his lackeys. Her association to Polanski is unfortunate too. One has to wonder why they even tied the knot with so many conflicting life views [she wanted a family, he wanted to continue bachelorhood, even after the wedding].
Like most famous people with historic deaths, Sharon’s life has been portrayed many times on screen. The most tasteless is Daniel Ferrands’ The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019) with Hilary Duff; while Margot Robbie in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) might be the most respectful to date, a few fanfic adjacent scenes withstanding. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with wishing Sharon and her future son Paul could have lived long, happy lives. I just worry sometimes people go from fascinated with real victims’ fates to obsessed with their own perception of the deceased. But we definitely shouldn’t forget what happened to eight innocent people on August 8th-10th in 1969. And we can continue enjoying the little of Sharon we have on film.