King Greg - Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders

Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders

Greg King

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

To Chuck and Eileen Knaus

Prologue

It stands in a far corner of the park, high on a green hillside dotted with monuments. Meandering stone paths cleave past an imposing grotto, where candles burn before a statue of the Virgin. Here, the lawn levels out, reaching to an exquisitely manicured hedge; beyond, the city bustles with life, the Hollywood Hills rising sharply in the distance. In this tranquil spot, undistinguished from its neighbors, lies a small, brightly polished black marble plaque. To one side sits a stand for an American flag; in the grass before it, a vase is sunk deep in the ground. Even after thirty years, it is nearly always full of fresh flowers. Those who come to satisfy their morbid curiosity are not disappointed. Below them, embedded in the lawn, is the tombstone:

OUR LOVING DAUGHTER &

BELOVED WIFE OF ROMAN

SHARON TATE POLANSKI

19431969

PAUL RICHARD POLANSKI

THEIR BABY

Although only twenty-six when she died, Sharon Tate, like other stars whose lives were cut tragically shortRudolph Valentino, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroestands as a twentieth century icon. On the edge of stardom, she was violently cut down, screaming, crying, pleading with her murderers, left to die in an exclusive Hollywood mansion whose front door had been smeared with an ugly epithet written in her own blood. The ultimate irony is that Sharon Tate only received that fame because of her gruesome end. Her death one hot summer night in 1969 changed America forever. It touched a raw nerve in a country disillusioned, shocked by the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy and Malcolm X. The Manson Murders scared the hell out of an entire nation torn apart by war and shattered by riots. In the media frenzy which surroundedand still envelopsthe Manson murders, the victims were nearly forgotten, relegated to second place behind their notorious killers. Murder in Hollywood, writes Mikita Brottman, is a far more frequent, more brutal, and more talked-about event than it is anywhere else in the world. The glamour and tinsel, the beautiful people and daring love affairs have their dark sidethe realm of greed, lust, jealousy and shame. As long as there is a celebrity elite living in an illusory world of sparkle and style, as long as Hollywood fuels dreams of a glamorous, sexually charged, thrill-packed universe, there will continue to be intolerable pressures, violence and catastrophe.

To many, Sharon Tate remains a minor character in an American saga of mass carnage, counter-culture, and insanity, a cast member whose glittering orbit encompassed the elite of Hollywoods movie and music worlds, but whose beautiful surface cloaked a dark reality. To her family and friends, however, Sharon Tate, remains an unforgettable presence, a vibrant ghost whose beauty, gentle spirit, and love cannot be erased by the passage of time.

By the beginning of 1943, America had weathered thirteen months of involvement in the Second World War. After two years of isolationist debate mixed with patriotic fervor and European pleas for assistance, Japanese bombers at Pearl Harbor made the decision that President Franklin Roosevelt had avoided and thrust the United States into the conflict. In the Pacific, the combat made headlines: Lieutenant James Doolittles bombing raids on Tokyo; the intense naval battles at Coral Sea and Midway Islands, and the Battles of Guadalcanal. Slowly, surely, allied forces were turning the equation against the Japanese troops. American soldiers were ferried across the Atlantic on passenger liners converted to troop ships to combat the Axis powers. Here, the land battles were drawn-out, grim. In Russia, thousands died during the prolonged battle of Stalingrad before the Soviets finally managed to surround the German Sixth Army and force a surrender. Hitlers blitz devastated London. Then the Allied forces retaliated, their bombs wreaking catastrophic destruction across Germany. For a week, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Casablanca, to discuss plans for the Allied land invasion of Europe, a move that would begin the following year at Normandy on June 6, that was to be known as D-Day.

Life on the American home-front was a mixture of war frenzy and fervent optimism coupled with an ominous foreboding of the unknown. Few failed to believe in an eventual Allied victory, but the deaths of husbands, brothers, sons, and fiancs brought the horrors of war into the living rooms of America. Daily life was completely subjugated to the war effort. As rationing took hold, hundreds gardened for victory, and housewives incorporated meatless Tuesdays and Fridays into their weekly menus. Sugar, shoes, coffee, and cheese were precious commodities. When not engaged in creative household-planning, women manned the welding stations and operated heavy machinery at the industries that provided the ammunition, planes, and ships needed to win the war. At the same time, there was a giddy recklessnessa frivolity hastened by the terrible uncertainties of the conflict in Europe and the Pacific. Late into the night, young lovers jitterbugged and lindy-hopped to the music of Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters. A certain sentimentality crept into popular culture, where The White Cliffs of Dover and Ill Be Seeing You perfectly captured the unsettled mood of life on the edge of the abyss. It was also a time of romance. Young women, unsure whether they would see their suitors again once they went off to fight, eagerly embraced whatever fleeting moments of happiness they might find as war brides.

Paul James Tate was eager for life. A twenty-one-year-old native of Houston, Texas, he had watched the ominous rumblings from Europe with growing interest. Most healthy young men found it difficult to resist the excitement of war, and Tate, filled with patriotism, had joined the ranks of the United States Army. A dark-haired, handsome man whose short stature masked a surprising presence, he was intrigued with the burgeoning field of military intelligence. Through sheer determination and long hours of work, he would eventually rise through the ranks to that of colonel. Tate had a knack of impressing those he met with his honor, dedication, and loyalty, although he remained something of an enigma, silent and reserved, traits which worked well in his assigned career of military intelligence. But he was also a man with a sense of purpose, whose determination in pursuit of his goals proved attractive to the impressionable young women he encountered.

Undoubtedly, some of this had worked well in his quest of Doris Gwendolyn Willet, a pretty, twenty-year-old who was, like himself, a native of Houston. Although as she grew older, Doris had a tendency to stoutness, as a young woman, a friend recalls, she was really beautiful, very, very attractive. From a solidly middle-class background, Doris was raised as a southern belle, gracious and charming. Her genteel manner and soft, melodic voice were powerful tools when she chose to focus them, and her attentions were always genuine.

Paul and Doris had married on 25 January, 1942. If the complexities of the war shadowed their happiness together, such thoughts had been dispelled that summer when Doris learned that she was pregnant. It was not the most opportune time for a baby. The Tates were unsettled, with Pauls military career at its beginning stages, and the outcome of the war still uncertain. There was no promise that the situations in Europe or the Pacific might not worsen and lead to a new military assignment, leaving Doris alone to care for the baby. And yet this very uncertainty also meant that the time Paul and Doris had together was precious. With no guarantee for their future, the Tates happily anticipated the birth of their first child.