Sharon Marie Tate was born January 24th 1943, one day before the first wedding anniversary of her parents, Colonel Paul and Doris Tate. By the time Sharon was six months old she had won her first beauty contest- Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas Texas. As Sharon entered her teens she began-along with winning various beauty pageant such as Miss Richland and Miss Autorama-to work as a model. In the spring of 1960 Sharon appeared on the cover of Stars and Stripes, an American military newspaper. It was this small taste of fame that set her eyes on Hollywood at a young age.
Italy would end up laying the ground work for Sharon's career in Hollywood. While living there she met Richard Beymer on the set of Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man. Beymer encouraged her to pursue her interest in acting and modeling and gave her the card of his agent Hal Gefsky. Also while in Italy Sharon and some of her friends from school were extras in a movie being filmed there, Barrabas. Again, Sharon made a great impression on the stars of the film, Anthony Quinn and Jack Palance. Whenever there was a production in Italy the studios would call and try to get Sharon.
Back in the US, she hitchhiked part of the way into Hollywood, and became a regular on the TV show, "The Beverly Hillbillies". She also had small parts in the movies including "The Americanization of Emily" (1964) and "The Sandpiper" (1965). Her first real role, in "Eye of the Devil" in 1965, opposite David Niven and Deborah Kerr, was filmed in London. There, she met the movie director Roman Polanski after auditioning successfully for his horror spoof, "The Fearless Vampire Killers" in 1967. They soon became a couple and were married in January 1968. Tate’s breakthrough came in "Valley of the Dolls", the hit 1967 film based on the Jacqueline Susann novel. She followed this with "Don’t Make Waves", which starred Tony Curtis.
With Polanski achieving huge critical acclaim with "Rosemary’s Baby" in 1968, the couple became increasingly famous. Returning from filming "12 + 1" in Italy in 1969, Tate arrived at the couple's home in Bel Air, while her husband was in London. Eight-months pregnant, Tate, along with three other guests, was viciously murdered by members of apocalyptic fantasist Charles Manson cult. Manson and four of his followers were convicted of what notoriously became known as ‘The Tate Murders’, and spawned the unsavoury and enduring Manson legacy.
