Sharon Tate: A Life

by Ed Sanders

  A follow-up story in the Daily News of August 17, by another reporter, had the following text: “A day after [Polanski arrived at Los Angeles International Airport] a source close to the investigation declared that here had been a ‘wild party’ attended by some of ‘the biggest freaks and weirdos’ in Hollywood. What’s more, probers said Sharon and the other four might have been victims of an assassin hired by a member of the cult that met regularly in the Polanski home for sex-drug rituals.” (During the trial in 1970 I became acquainted with Mike McGovern, who was continuing to cover the case for the Daily News. He filled me in on the federal source and circumstances of the information he and Federici had received in the LA restaurant. He also said they had been told by the federal narcotics agent that black hoods were found in the house, and some sort of black aprons shaped like a downpointed ace of spades.)

  The swirl was swirling.

  Another Early Theory

  There was another early theory on the killings from my friend, the poet Allen Katzman, who was editor of the underground newspaper, The East Village Other. I had finished recording my album, Sanders’ Truckstop, for Reprise Records, and was about to go out to Los Angeles to plan its promotion just after the murders occurred. Katzman had been in Los Angeles right after the horrible events, and then returned to New York City, where he told me excitedly about some things he had heard about the killings from Dennis Hopper.

  Hopper, one of the stars of the recently released Easy Rider, was on top of the film world at the time of the murders. He was living with Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. In the fall of 1970, he and Michelle were actually married, though only for a few days.

  Allen Katzman was in San Francisco the weekend of the murders, and decided to go to Los Angeles right away as the guest of Los Angeles Free Press publisher Art Kunkin. Hopper called Kunkin and offered to supply the inside story of the killings. Kunkin and Katzman met with Hopper at the Columbia Pictures studios. They then went to a restaurant, and Hopper explained that he and Michelle Phillips were then living together, and as Katzman described in his autobiography, The Perfect Agent: An Autobiography of the Sixties, “through her [Michelle] he had recently been caught in the maelstrom of the Tate murders.”

  “He explained that the four murder victims had been involved in a sado-maso club run out of Mama Cass’s house. A coke dealer had ‘burned’ Sebring and Frykowski for a large amount of money, and as revenge he was kidnapped by them, taken to Mama Cass’s where in front of 25 prominent rock and movie stars he was ‘stripped, whipped and buggered.’” Hopper implied his source was Michelle Phillips. After that, the tale went, vengeance occurred.

  A. E. Hotchner quoted Terry Melcher, in a biography of Melcher’s mother, Doris Day: “I hadn’t been in the house since I moved out, but I had presumed that the murders had something to do with the weird films Polanski had made, and the equally weird people who were hanging around that house. I knew they had been making a lot of homemade sadomasochistic-porno movies there with quite a few recognizable Hollywood faces in them.” His source was Michelle Phillips, whom he had been dating during 1969 following his break-up with Candice Bergen. (Michelle Phillips has denied telling Melcher about any “sadomasochistic-porno movies . . . with quite a few recognizable Hollywood faces in them.”)

  The police examined allegations that residents at 10050 Cielo Drive were into collecting humans from Sunset Strip and from various clubs in the area for casual partying at the estate. It was thought initially that the murders might be the result of one or more of these pickups “freaking out.”

  There were other swirly theories that blew forth into the horrified yet eager curiosity of newspapers, columnists, and TV reporters. There was speculation from Frykowski’s friends that it had been done by the Polish secret police, who took a plane from Los Angeles to Rome right after the crimes, in reprisal for Polanski’s defection from Poland.

  The LA County coroner, Thomas Noguchi, after his autopsies, suggested that the murders could have come about from a “death ritual.” On August 15, the Los Angeles Times reported that detectives were looking into the possibility that the deaths related to gambling debts owed by one of the victims. A well-known gossip columnist of the era speculated it was some highly placed Satanists who had threatened Polanski during the filming of Rosemary’s Baby.

  Writer Jerzy Kosinski told me, during the later trial, that well-known publisher Bennett Cerf held to the theory that the murders were committed by right-wing Polish nationalists who felt Polanski was a traitor to his country.

  Or how about the rubicund necks? Sharon and Roman friend Michael Sarne suggested to a reporter during these fear-spattered days: “We’re deciding that there’s a group of nasty people with short haircuts who carry their service revolvers around with them and hate the rich and leisured class. A large part of our civilization is being taken over by rednecks.”

  Meanwhile, Rosemary’s Baby producer William Castle was in San Francisco when he first heard of the murders. He headed to Los Angeles, arriving after Polanski had flown in from London and was residing, as Castle later described in his autobiography, “incommunicado at Paramount Studios, hidden from the ugly glare of publicity. Security guards surrounded the studio.”

  Castle was brought to where Polanski was residing. “Alone and stunned,” as Castle described the scene, “Roman stared at me. Handing me a piece of paper, he spoke in a monotone, ‘Print PIG.’

  “Confused, I looked at him, ‘Why, Roman?’

  “‘Do as I ask, please.’ I printed the word. ‘Again, please, Bill, again!’

  “Pausing, I looked at him. Then his eyes welled with tears. ‘Sharon, my poor Sharon. . . . And our baby.’”

  Roman had already begun his personal investigation into the murders, trying to determine who possibly might have written the word PIG on the front door.

  The photographer Shahrokh Hatami recalls how one day Polanski, when he was being guarded at Paramount, “came to the Chateau Marmont, and took me in his limousine, which Paramount had put at his disposal, and took me to the villa [the Cielo Drive house] with him. I didn’t want to go with him; when I was there, I couldn’t listen to what he was explaining about what had happened there. Because I was totally dumb and blocked in myself, to hear him. . . . to go to the place and show it to me, ‘oh that’s what has happened, that’s where she was putting her hands on the wall,’ describing what had happened.

  “But, he was thinking, I think, to bring somebody to the crime scene who could break down, for instance. That . . . somehow when he’s bringing me to the house, he’s explaining to me what happened, showing, oh that’s her hand on this floor, this is her hand there on that wall, he’s explaining to me, and I’m thinking that he’s watching me with the corner of his eye, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, because as I told you I didn’t want to know anything about it.”

  Hatami agreed with me when I suggested Roman was trying set him up. Hatami: “that I was one of the killers.”

  On August 13, the day of the funerals, Roman moved from Paramount into Michael Sarne’s beach house in the Malibu Colony where he stayed a few days. Sarne was at the time directing the movie Myra Breckinridge. Nearby residents of the Malibu Colony put together a petition, with language such as: “The presence in your house of Mr. Polanski endangers our lives.”

  Shortly thereafter Polanski moved to Richard Sylbert’s more secluded beach house on Old Malibu Road, which was built on stilts. Sylbert was very solicitous of Roman’s well-being, making him breakfast and in general “mothering” him. “I didn’t let on, though,” Polanski later wrote, “not even to him, that I was conducting my own private investigation.”

  The Tate, Folger, and Sebring Funerals

  “Stars Attend Services for Slain Actress Sharon Tate—Rites Held for 3 Others,” was the headline in the August 14 article in the Los Angeles Times, by staff writer Dial Torgerson, on the funerals on Wednesday, August 13, for the victims. In graceful, threnodic prose, the
article traced how at Holy Cross Cemetery, Roman Polanski “stared a long moment at the silver casket, then leaned over and kissed it in a farewell to his wife, Sharon Tate.”

  And how “Across the city, at an El Monte Church, six teenagers carried the body of their friend, eighteen-year-old Steven Parent, to a waiting hearse” while in Portola Valley, a suburb of San Francisco, a Requiem Mass was held for Abigail Folger.

  At Forest Lawn Memorial Park, at the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, a gathering of friends and film stars gathered for services in honor of Jay Sebring.

  Given the headlines, the article was careful to note that “investigators denied other rumors that evidence of weird sex rites were found in Miss Tate’s home.”

  Attending Sharon Tate’s funeral in the chapel at the summit of Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City were actors such as Kirk Douglas, Stuart Whitman, Warren Beatty, James Coburn, Yul Brynner, and Peter Sellers. In the front of the chapel sat Paul and Doris Tate, Roman Polanski, and Sharon’s two sisters, Patricia and Debra. The family sat quietly as the Reverend Peter O’Reilly of Good Shepherd Church in Beverly Hills started a brief service.

  Father O’Reilly noted how Sharon “was a fine person, and we were in no small measure devoted to her.” Doris Tate, wearing black gloves, placed her arm around Roman Polanski when he cried, and patted his head.

  Mother Doris retained her outward calm until Father O’Reilly, when the service was completed, went up to the casket and said: “Goodbye, Sharon, and may the Angels welcome you to heaven, and the martyrs guide your way.” Doris then broke into sobs, and when the family stood to say a final farewell in front of the closed casket, Roman helped Mrs. Tate to her feet.

  In a later article, Mrs. Tate recalled an event that occurred at the funeral that helped her keep her composure. She approached Sharon’s closed casket. “I went over to kiss it,” she said, “and I heard her say as plain as if she was standing beside me. ‘Mother, that’s not me.’ That’s what saved my sanity and that’s what gave me strength, because I do believe in life after death. I feel Sharon’s presence here in the house and I am certain that, somewhere, some day, we will be together.”

  At the close of the service Roman kissed the casket, and the funeral director handed Doris Tate five pink roses from a large array of roses and carnations atop the casket, after which the family left the chapel. Thereafter the 150 or so attending the service began to file out. Flowers sent by friends were piled on the lawn in front of the chapel.

  Sharon’s Funeral at the chapel at Holy Cross Cemetery

  Sebring’s funeral, two hours later, drew an overflow crowd of fellow hairstylists and a number of Sebring’s customers who had become close friends. Among them were Steve McQueen, who delivered a brief eulogy, Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda, Paul Newman, Alex Cord, George Hamilton, and Keely Smith. A friend, Alvin Greenwald, also eulogized Sebring as “an individual human person who earned and deserves the trust and respect of us all.”

  “Many mourners—men and women—wept openly as they were ushered from the flower-banked Chapel,” the article concluded. “In a black limousine in a funeral procession, three beautiful young women sat sobbing, their mini skirted legs stretched before them, crossed and bare footed, on the lowered jump seat.”

  The Police Face a Difficult Investigation

  The police investigation was complex and fact-packed. Officers put together reports of strange noises, gunshots, and screams from the nearby canyons and hillsides during the night. In spite of the “ritual” appearance of the crime scene, drugs were the early focus. After clearing the caretaker William Garretson, police concentrated on four individuals with whom Wojtek Frykowski had been connected in the drug trade, and who had been visitors to Cielo Drive during the summer before Sharon returned from London. An LAPD lieutenant polygraphed all four, and they too were cleared.

  The American flag that lay stretched across the divan in the murder room was taken by the police as possible evidence.

  Among the hundreds the Los Angeles Police Department interviewed in the days after the murders was Jay Sebring’s on again/off again girlfriend (and the future wife of Polanski’s set designer, Richard Sylbert), Sharmagne Leland-St. John. The author asked Leland-St. John about her interview, and she replied by e-mail, “I was ‘grilled’ for 6 hours. Apparently at that point they were following the ‘witchcraft lead’ and some asshole told them I was a witch! I was a suspect because of the ritualistic aspects of the murder, the fact that I was Jay’s girlfriend, the fact that I had spoken to him that afternoon.” Also interviewed by the police was rock star Jim Morrison. Why is unknown.

  Meanwhile, money hunger prevailed as quickly the movies in which Sharon Tate had performed were reissued. Valley of the Dolls went into twelve theaters in the Los Angeles area, with Mrs. Polanski receiving top billing. Also showing up in theaters was The Fearless Vampire Killers, starring Sharon and Roman Polanski. And also resuscitated was a movie made in 1966, called Mondo Hollywood, a portion of which was devoted to Jay Sebring as hairstyler of the stars. Also in a brief section in Mondo Hollywood was Bobby Beausoleil, who portrayed Cupid addressing his bow. His role in the film was the origin of Beausoleil’s nickname, Cupid.

  Void-Scan at the Murder House

  Two lawyer friends of Jay Sebring, Harry Weiss and Peter Knecht, hired a Dutch psychic named Peter Hurkos to void-scan the murder scene in order to try to pick up vibrations regarding the identity of the killers. Accordingly, on Sunday, August 17, Peter Hurkos, accompanied by an assistant, Roman Polanski, a writer named Tommy Thompson, and a photographer named Julian Wasser went to the house at 10050 Cielo Drive to enable the psychic to undertake a death-scan. It was John Phillips, the songwriter, who talked Roman Polanski into allowing Hurkos into the house. Mr. Hurkos crouched down in the blood-stained living room, picking up the vibes, while Roman Polanski gave Mr. Thompson a running narrative about the crime scene. The photographer took Polaroid snapshots and some color photos of the event. The entire event was written up for a photo spread in Life magazine several weeks later.

  After his void-scan, Mr. Hurkos announced that “three men killed Sharon Tate and her four friends—and I know who they are. I have identified the killers to the police and told them that these three men must be stopped soon. Otherwise, they will kill again.”

  (Later, during the Manson trial, I spoke to the photographer, Julian Wasser, about Polanski’s visit to the murder house. He said he had asked Polanski why there was a portable Sony video camera with a battery pack in the house. Polanski replied that it was used in Rosemary’s Baby. There were also video tapes lying around, said Wasser, and a video viewer by the TV, but not hooked up.)

  In Sharon’s bedroom, Polanski opened an armoire that was fairly stuffed with a bassinet, some diapers, formula bottles, and books such as Naming Your Baby, Let’s Have Healthy Children, and How to Teach Your Baby to Read. There was also a group of photos of Sharon, taken in the front yard. Polanski then paused to cry at length.

  The Life magazine article was titled “Roman Polanski Comes Home to the Scene of the Sharon Tate Murders—a Tragic Trip to the House on the Hill.” One whole page was taken up with a full color shot of Roman wearing a white pullover and sockless white loafers sitting on a porch chair, with the stone walkway spattered with blood, the word PIG clearly visible on the white front door, with dark swatches of fingerprint dusting still in evidence on the wood above the door knob.

  According to Barbara Leaming in her Polanski, The Filmmaker as Voyeur: A Biography, “After his first visit to Cielo Drive, with the Life crew, he returned several times as if there might be some explanation hidden there for what had happened. He had moved from the apartment at the Paramount Studios to Robert Evans’ house, which had been surrounded with round-the-clock armed protection. Polanski was making every effort to keep his suspicions and his investigations to himself, as he told the police, largely because he continued to believe it was someone he and Sharon knew.”

  The day that Roman visit
ed Cielo with the Life writer and Hurkos, he took his personal possessions away from there, and gave everything of Sharon’s, including her Ferrari and estate, to her father.

  Monday, August 18, was Roman Polanski’s thirty-sixth birthday.

  Polanski’s Press Conference, Plus Sleuthing into Voodoo and Dope

  August 19, Roman Polanski conducted a press conference at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles wherein he stoutly deprecated the lurid news accounts of the murder house: “A lot of newsmen who for a selfish reason write unbearable for me horrible things about my wife. All of you know how beautiful she was and very often I read and heard statements that she was one of the most, if not the most beautiful woman of the world but only a few of you know how good she was. She was vulnerable.” He decried public speculation about orgies and dope, acknowledging the occasional smoking, as in almost every house in Hollywood, of cannabis. He denied that his wife used drugs and that there had been any marital rift, saying: “I can tell you that in the last few months as much as the last few years I spent with her were the only time of true happiness in my life.”

  In spite of Polanski’s defense of his wife, nothing could prevent speculation that the alleged lifestyles of the victims brought on the carnage, with the result that the catch-phrase, “live freaky, die freaky” entered the language.

  Shortly after his press conference, Mr. Polanski and John Phillips flew to Jamaica to continue an investigation into drugs and voodoo, according to a reporter named Min Yee. At the end of the month, an LAPD polygraph expert also went to Jamaica, where he spent about a week investigating. According to Barbara Leaming’s biography of Polanski: “He flew to Jamaica, the West Indies, with John Phillips to scout locations for The Day of the Dolphin, but also to find out about Frykowski’s drug connections there. The trip, however, was abortive on both counts. Polanski dropped his film project, unable to concentrate sufficiently to work. He had found no clues.”