Recorded Books Inc. - Sharon Tate: a Life

Sharon Tate

Sharon Tate

A Life

Ed Sanders

Illustrations by Rick Veitch

Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Copyright 2015 by Ed Sanders

Illustrations copyright 2015 by Rick Veitch

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

Designed by Jack Lenzo

Set in 10 point Caslon by The Perseus Books Group

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sanders, Ed.

Sharon Tate: a life / Ed Sanders; Illustrations by Rick Veitch.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-306-82240-7 (e-book) 1. Tate, Sharon, 1943-1969. 2. ActorsUnited StatesBiography. 3. Models (Persons)United StatesBiography. 4. Murder victimsCaliforniaLos AngelesBiography. I. Veitch, Rick, illustrator. II. Title.

PN2287.T168S36 2016

791.43028092dc23

[B]

2015034145

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

www.dacapopress.com

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.

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Contents

Early Years

Discovered by a Producer

Early Films: Eye of the Devil, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Dont Make Waves

1967: The Year of Love, Dolls, Rosemary

1968: Marriage and Rising in Hollywood

1969: Cielo Drive and Pregnancy

Sharons Final Film

The Summer of 1969

A Cult at the Spahn Ranch Kills

Sharon Tates Final Few Days

Death on Cielo Drive

Night and Morning

August 910: More Carnage and Grief

Aftermath and Investigation

The Manson Group Keeps Killing and Moves to the High Desert Near Death Valley

The Breaking of the Case

The idea of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the idea of redemption. The same applies to the idea of the past, which is the concern of history. The past carries a secret index with it, by which it is referred to its resurrection.

Walter Benjamin

On the Concept of History, 1940

T he author would like to thank Paul Whiteley, Charles Guenther, Miriam Sanders, Evans Frankenheimer, Joanne Pettet, Sheilah Wells, Greg King, Shahrokh Hatami, Sharmagne Leland-St. John-Sylbert, Kristine Larsen, Michael McGovern, William Federici, Judith Hansen, Jim Fitzgerald, Paul Dostie, Ben Schafer, and others for providing help and information useful to this book.

T his book is dedicated to the memory of Larry Larsen, investigator extraordinaire, good friend, and exemplary person.

Larry Larsen and I had a long history together, beginning in 1970 and 1971 when he helped research my book, The Family, and then continuing through the 1970s and beyond. He was doing good work in 20092010 on the life of Sharon Tate when suddenly he was diagnosed with leukemia. Larry struggled mightily, with the help of his wife, Toni, and went into remission, after which Larry continued to help with research, but then it came back and he passed away in December of 2010. His daughter Kristine, also a private investigator, brought her skills and expertise helping with research while I completed this book, but then she too was struck with illness.

Larry Larsen was raised in Nebraska, he met his high school sweetheart, Toni, in Omaha in 1954, and they were married in 1958. He graduated from the University of Omaha in 1965. Then they moved to California, driving along Route 66 hauling a small trailer. I wanted to go to theology school, he told me. He attended Claremont College in 19671968. At the same time as studying theology, he began working as a private investigator. He was a devout Christian. He was probably the only private investigator in the history of Western civilization to have been a fan of the writing of Sren Kierkegaard. It may have been the either/orness of the private investigator world. He and Toni had two daughters, Lynda and Kristine, both of whom became private investigators.

He was a brilliant investigatorfirm, with a never-give-up technique, yet liberal and forgiving in his world outlook. Larry had the uncanny ability to hang out for hours and hours with crusty homicide detectives or even intelligence officers to pick up information no one else could have acquired. He was just plain amazinghe could generate literally entire bankers boxes full of useful data for the many cases he took on.

I knew he had strong feelings and didnt like to be rejected. As a private eye, he had many a door shut in his face, and many people were even rude in refusing to talk with him, yet he carried out his work always with a smile on his face. He told me once, a no is always a qualified yes. His utter calmness under the most trying of circumstances during those years investigating the Manson group showed his profound sense of right and wrong.

Throughout his life Larry donated much time to working for a better world, for a more ethical and humane social structure. For instance, in the early 1970s Larry was one of the four founders of a nonprofit group, Community Information Project, to do pro bono public research to help good causes. Larry said, One of the many concrete things we did was to write a city lobbyist registration and regulation municipal ordinance for the City of Los Angeles.

From around 1975 to 1981, Larry served as a Los Angeles County deputy supervisor, with responsibilities for the investigation of public corruption. One of his duties was to help his boss, Supervisor Baxter Ward, conduct a lengthy investigation into the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy. Larry was active in alternate energy in the early 1980s as president of a company called Pacific Solar and Wind, and oversaw construction of a wind farm on a mountain ridge near Tehachapi, located in Kern County, California.

Later he wrote a series of articles for my and my wifes newspaper, The Woodstock Journal, on hydrogen fuel cells. Throughout the thirty years we knew one another, Larry hungered to write a book. Together we collaborated on a number of book proposals. Among them were proposals for books on computer crime, on the Unabomber, and one on possible ballot fraud in the 2004 federal election.

Heres a poem I wrote in 1974 for Larry Larsen, in the midst of our early investigations:

Homage to Data

The incoming data-torrent

bejewels the Investigation Lotus

and only one addicted to

clusters of information fresh

will know the thrill

to hear the doorbell buzz

at 7:30 A.M.,

on a chilly winter morning

& the postman proffer

a 7 pound special delivery package

teeming with data:

of tapes, of court transcripts, of xeroxd secret files

from secret filing cabinets, and hard-won photos,

from Larry Larsen, Private Eye

in the course of a tortuous

path of investigation,

looking far and near

upon a ruthless Secret Society,

say, or now a killer,