Sharon Tate Biography

Sharon Tate was a rising young movie star when she was killed by followers of Charles Manson in 1969. A former homecoming queen, Tate had a small part in Eye of the Devil (1967, with David Niven) and a larger part in Valley of the Dolls (1967, with Patty Duke), among other films. She and Polish director Roman Polanski became a popular jet-set couple, and they married on 20 January 1968. Tate was pregnant with their first child when she and four friends were murdered in her Los Angeles home during a Manson killing spree. The grisly murders were the subject of Vincent Bugliosi's best-selling 1974 book Helter Skelter.