Sharon Tate: A Life

Sharon Tate’s life has been marked by two aspects: Her stunning beauty and her horrific end. The intangibles of her 26 year life are not particularly well known. Ed Sanders’ book is an attempt to pierce that wall of opaqueness. Tate was raised in a military family, her father an Intelligence officer whose position involved relocating the family to and fro. Tate would find an interest in movies in Italy which would lead to a desire to move to California and find fame. She would be successful to a degree, but had only just begun her rise.Sanders relies on interviews conducted with friends and family to chronicle the late actress’ beginnings, her rise in show business including marriage to wunderkind film maker Roman Polanski, her pregnancy and her untimely death at the hands of Charles Manson’s criminal brood.

Ed Sanders’ biography is a mystery in as many ways as a life story. The author admits that he was hampered by Tate’s lack of a diary, any records of her thoughts, so he utilized the written record in newspaper, magazine interviews. Tate’s last days are told along with the movements of the Manson Family’s deeds in the desert. It makes for pulse pounding reading, even though the conclusion is still grimly known. There are still unanswered questions about the murder at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, why did Sharon Tate die that August night in 1969? That question is just one of many mysteries that span this excellent biography.