The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How Tate transfixed Hollywood
Actress killed 50 years ago is fleeting character in ‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.’
In death, Sharon Tate was born into myth, an “it” girl with a canyon house, a famous director husband, and a beauty Hollywood craved as its mirror in an age of acid trips and biker gangs, a time when America was unmoored and the studio system was giving way to brash, young independent filmmakers.
Tate lived at a moment when the counterculture barged in on the martini set and tore up the rules. She was that flicker between eras, wholesome daughter, libertine wife. Her murder in 1969 came as if a horror show had hijacked a pot-scented parade. Hollywood ran scared and Tate, who was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed 16 times by followers of Charles Manson, became a patron saint to the inexpressible.
She was 26. Her role as a suicidal soft-porn actress in the “Valley of the Dolls,” a tale of barbiturates and reckonings, did not win the reviews that crystallize a career. But her end, as with those of James Dean and Bobby Kennedy, was tragically American, a promise forsaken, a dream denied. She became inextricably linked to the crime that took her, and what’s left is a stunning, ageless face, an alluring portrait upon which to hang our what-ifs and insatiable fascinations.
Tate flashes as if a recurring candlelight in Quentin Tarantino’s new “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Played with trippy guilelessness by Margot Robbie, Tate, married to reallife Polish director Roman Polanski, shines in snippets through a gritty, nostalgic, musical joyride into 1960s Hollywood and the lives of washed-up fictional TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman confessor Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).
The film is as much homage to
Tate as it is to an era of halter tops, draft dodgers, Joe Namath and “Easy Rider.” She dances at the Playboy Mansion and races in a convertible with Polanski, whose “Rosemary’s Baby” had made him a heralded auteur.
Robbie has few lines, but her resonance carries a lasting, eerie enchantment. She embodies an actress who personified a time at the instant that time changed. “I always look at the character and what the character is supposed to serve to the story,” said Robbie when the film premiered at Cannes. “The moment I got on screen gave an opportunity to honor Sharon … I think the tragedy ultimately was the loss of innocence. To really show those wonderful sides of her, I think, could be adequately done without speaking.”
Tate’s sister, Debra, could not be reached for comment. She had misgivings about the film, but reportedly after receiving a script from Tarantino, regarded the director’s rendition as respectful to Sharon’s memory. Hollywood is much altered since the days of Sharon Tate when women were often cast more as types than talents. Sex abuse cases, including those against Harvey Weinstein, Tarantino’s former longtime producer, have raised awareness and given women more inroads in the industry on and off set.
Tate’s magic was that she was a fleeting ingenue, her face everywhere, as if on a pinwheel spinning through pop culture. Her brand could be recycled and reinvented. The 50th anniversary of her death brought the April release of the widely panned “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” starring Hilary Duff and the upcoming novel “Set the Controls for the Heart of Sharon Tate” by Gary Lippman. Her wedding dress was auctioned last year for $56,250.
A sex symbol — she appeared in a Playboy spread shot by Polanski — Tate also wore scarves, went barefoot and read Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” which a decade later Polanski would adapt for a movie. Their house on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon echoed with the parties of a new Hollywood, a set of filmmakers, artists, musicians and narcotic-induced wanderers changing the city, the country and the culture.
It wasn’t all glamour and discovered privilege. The real-life Tate had her problems. Polanski, whom Tate had first met at a party in London, was domineering and often on the road with a film, frequenting clubs and, according to a number of accounts, orchestrating trysts. Nine years after Tate’s death, he would flee the U.S. after being arrested on sex abuse charges against a minor, never to return.
“Roman was the star in that relationship and Sharon was the beautiful actress wife. You didn’t walk into a room and think this is Meryl Streep,” said Toni Basil, choreographer on Tarantino’s film, who knew Polanski and Tate and once dined with them in France. “Sharon was dear, sweet and aware of her sexuality but not competitive with other women.”
“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” imagines a day in Tate’s life. She’s out and about, walking past the marquee for “The Wrecking Crew,” which brought good reviews for her comedic gifts. Her hair is long, her sunglasses big. She is upbeat and free on a cloudless day. She goes into a bookstore and buys a copy of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.” She’s excited to give it to Polanski. She wants to teach him something new.