Chapter 3

Forquet

It was in 1963, while Sharon was having lunch with Hal Gefsky, that Lee Wallace from Twentieth Century Fox walked up to their table, accompanied by a tall, handsome young man. He introduced him as Philippe Forquet. Forquet, twenty-three, was shooting a picture for Fox called Take Her, She’s Mine, starring James Stewart and Sandra Dee, in which he played the romantic lead.

“We were very attracted to each other,” Forquet recalls of his first meeting with Sharon. The pair spoke at length, and Sharon and Forquet agreed to a dinner date. “She was absolutely stunning, perfectly genuine,” says Forquet.¹ For her part, Sharon was attracted to Forquet’s maturity, charm and self-assurance. In addition, Forquet was blessed with a beauty which nearly rivaled that of Sharon. “My God, they were a beautiful couple together,” says Gefsky. “They got on very well together, and both turned heads wherever they went.”² Soon, Sharon transferred whatever feelings remained for Beymer to Forquet. “With us,” Forquet remembers, “things became very intense, and very quickly.”³ They began to spend all of their time together. Sharon’s days were still consumed with acting classes, photo shoots and the occasional walk-on part, while Forquet was kept at Twentieth Century Fox working on his new film. But in the evenings, the pair dined together at fashionable restaurants and danced in the nightclubs scattered along the Sunset Strip.

On weekends, the young lovers escaped the city, often visiting nearby Palm Springs. “At that time, it was impossible to get a hotel room if you weren’t married,” Forquet remembers. “If we wanted to share, we had to pretend to be man and wife, and we always made up false names to sign the registers.”⁴

Sharon made no secret of her burgeoning relationship with Forquet, and soon, he faced the formidable ordeal of meeting her parents. “I thought her father was a very nice man. He was a sort of typical army man, rather quiet, reserved, but I think a very straightforward kind of person who seemed to like me. I can’t say that I liked her mother very much. She seemed to be more concerned about Sharon’s career than Sharon herself.”⁵

By this time, Sharon’s parents fully supported her career. Doris Tate’s early worries that Sharon would fall victim to the Hollywood system seem to have evaporated under Ransohoff’s careful protection. Doris remained strict, however, and was constantly on guard. “I know I was horrible at times, I really was,” she said. “I really kept a tight rein on, I had to.… I felt fine about Sharon being a star, as long as I was close by.”⁶

Forquet’s introduction into Sharon’s life seems to have greatly worried her parents. “They were very concerned about their daughter’s career,” Forquet recalls. “They wanted her to become a movie star, and I think there was a lot of resentment against me, and feeling that I was somehow going to stand in Sharon’s way.”⁷

But Sharon’s career was scarcely on hold. In the fall of 1963, Ransohoff asked Al Simon to cast Sharon in a small, walk-on role on CBS-TV’s Mister Ed. On the appointed day, Sharon duly reported for work at the General Service Studios in Hollywood, filled with excitement. Star Alan Young later recalled her great beauty, and the tragic aura which her participation lent to the show.⁸

Sharon filmed two episodes of Mister Ed. The first, airing on Sunday, 13 October, 1963, was a Columbus Day special titled “Ed Discovers America.” In the episode, Ed, the talking horse, instructs his owner Wilbur on the true history of Columbus’s voyage. The majority of the episode was a costume fantasy sequence, and Sharon, dressed in a dark wig and medieval costume, was scarcely recognizable.⁹

A few weeks later, Sharon returned to film a second episode, this one titled “Love Thy New Neighbor.” Airing on 15 December, 1963, it dealt with Ed’s increasing loneliness since his owner Wilbur befriended a new neighbor. Sharon played a telephone operator, called by the horse who is desperate for conversation. In the end, she hung up on him. In both episodes, Sharon was unbilled.¹⁰

The parts were negligible, but Ransohoff was satisfied with Sharon’s performance. He agreed to give her a small role in Paul Henning’s The Beverly Hillbillies, again insisting that she appear unbilled, and in a black wig. Her first appearance, as one of the students at a private boarding school invaded by Jed Clampett’s daughter Elly May (Donna Douglas), proved something less than a success. “When we first got her she couldn’t even walk through the door convincingly,” said Associate Producer Joe Depew. “She was very amateurish. It was hard for her to read a line.”¹¹

“They got to work on me,” Sharon recalled. “Make-up people, acting coaches, vocal coaches, dancing coaches, dialogue coaches, exercise coaches, riding instructors and more.”¹² This was scarcely the glamorous life she had envisioned. Each morning, she attended a speech class in Hollywood, before heading to Pasadena for singing lessons. This was followed by exercise and body-building at a Beverly Hills gym, and dance instruction at a private studio in Los Angeles. Afternoons were given over to acting classes. Five days a week, for ten hours a day, she submitted to this regime. At night, she read plays, learned her lines for the following day’s drama class, or studied scripts.¹³ Over the course of three years, Ransohoff was believed to have invested over $100,000 in lessons, photo shoots and publicity to promote Sharon as the next big Hollywood star.¹⁴

One of her acting teachers, Charles Conrad, later said, “Such a beautiful girl, you would have thought she would have all the confidence in the world. But she had none.”¹⁵ It was a belief Sharon had long struggled against. “People,” she said, “expect so much of an attractive person. I mean people are very critical of me. It makes me tense.”¹⁶

Another drama coach, Jeff Corey, called her “an incredibly beautiful girl, but a fragmented personality.” He remembered spending long hours trying to break through Sharon’s seemingly impenetrable reserve. Once, he handed her a stick and bellowed, “Hit me! Do something! Show emotion! … If you can’t tap into who you are, you can never act!”¹⁷

Sharon, however, was not lacking in confidence so much as experience. She clearly recognized the need for the latter, and made determined efforts to improve her abilities. A drive to act had not brought her to Hollywood; it had been her stunning looks, and desire to create a new reality, which drove her pursuit. Her astute realization that beauty was not enough to propel her career only made Sharon throw herself deeper into training and lessons.

“It was hard work,” Sharon later declared, “and I can’t say that I didn’t get discouraged at times. Often I’d work for long periods thinking I wasn’t getting anywhere, then all of a sudden I’d feel that I had made a tremendous advance. So, it was more of a series of big jumps than a collection of small steps.”¹⁸

It was an intense time for Sharon, but she seemed to relish the experience, and remain good-natured throughout. Mike Mindlin remembers that she was “very, very friendly, very outgoing, and very playful. A lot of actresses aren’t, but she was, and she seemed bubbly and full of life. We used to joke a lot round the studio. Sharon was smart, reasonably sophisticated, and had a great sense of humor, which made her very fun to be around.”¹⁹ And Herb Browar says: “Sharon was a very sincere, nice person, genuine and very pleasant to be around. She always had a smile for everyone, but I think she was basically a rather serious person, and she treated her career that way. She always did what we asked of her, and was always on time to shoots. She seemed to have complete control of herself, but she was flexible enough to take things as they came. She had a good sense of humor, but she wasn’t a giddy young woman. Her maturity and self-control definitely distinguished her from the starlets we always saw in Hollywood.”²⁰

The lessons began to pay off. Sharon grew in confidence, and, when she returned to the set of The Beverly Hillbillies, Joe Depew noted that “She learned a lot. She was a very pleasant girl and extremely beautiful.”²¹ Her hard work was rewarded when she was cast as Janet Trego, a member of the secretarial pool working at the series’ fictional Beverly Hills Bank of Commerce. Although she was still forced to wear a dark wig, for the first time, she was listed in the credits as “Sharon Tate.” Altogether, she appeared as Janet Trego in thirteen episodes, spread over the telelvision show’s 1963–1965 seasons. She also had two smaller roles, including one as a guest at a party given by the Clampetts in their mansion.

The Beverly Hillbillies gave Sharon valuable experience. Shooting took place at the General Service Studios in Hollywood, where she had filmed her episodes of Mister Ed. Although she shared a few scenes with stars Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Max Baer and Donna Douglas, most of Sharon’s work called for her to act with either Raymond Bailey, who played banker Milton Drysdale, or Nancy Kulp, who had the role of Drysdale’s secretary Jane Hathaway. On set and off, Bailey was apparently very much like his difficult character, and Sharon had to learn how to avoid his angry outbursts. “He wasn’t happy anywhere he was,” recalled Paul Henning. “He complained a lot, but he played the part perfectly.”²² “Sharon was a lovely young woman,” recalled Nancy Kulp. “She always seemed a bit cautious when she was on set, as if she was still getting her footing. She was very sweet, and seemed eager to learn, though I think she was perhaps a bit intimidated as well. I can’t say that she mixed with the rest of the cast. I do remember her laughter, though, which rang across the studio.”²³

Ransohoff was careful to control her exposure, waiting for what he felt was just the right moment to launch her upon the public. “One of the rules Marty laid down when he signed me was no publicity and no professional acting until I was ready,” she later said. “So in order to give me some experience before the cameras, he put a black wig on me so no one would recognize me and I played a stupid secretary in another of his television series, The Beverly Hillbillies. That was a great thing for me because I could see myself changing for the better week by week.”²⁴

At the same time, however, the relationship with Forquet was growing increasingly troubled. “It started as a beautiful affair,” says Forquet, “with tenderness and romance. After a while, though, I began to understand lots of things people were doing. Sharon had a lot of people round her, exploiting her, trying to achieve their own ends through her. We had lots of big rows about it, and things became tense. I wanted to pull away, but she kept after me, and she always managed to get me back.”²⁵

In the fall of 1963, Ransohoff arranged for Sharon to take lessons under Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio in New York. Forquet accompanied her, and the pair took an apartment together on Lexington and 78th Street. Sharon was so intimidated at the school, however, and so overwhelmed by the expected level of intensity, that she stayed for only a few weeks before bolting under the pressure. Even so, she made a lasting impression on the famous Mr. Strasberg. “She was only with me a few weeks,” he later said, “but I remember her. She was a beautiful girl.”²⁶

Sharon joined Forquet on his walks to Carnegie Hall each day, where he continued to take classes. She spent her afternoons visiting museums or shopping. Inevitably, the boredom of her situation began to overwhelm her, and she was desperate for a change.

It came one night, while she and Forquet were having dinner.

“I asked Sharon to marry me,” he remembers, “and she said yes. She seemed very happy, and very in love.” Indeed, for a time, all was well. But after a few weeks, Sharon and Forquet returned to Los Angeles, where they broke the news to both Sharon’s parents and to Ransohoff. Neither the Tates nor the head of Filmways, Inc., however, seemed to be very happy about this latest development. “Ransohoff,” remembers Forquet, “came in and told Sharon that he was opposed to her marriage and wanted her to stop seeing me. He threatened to drop her contract if she didn’t break things off. And her parents got involved, too. They were worried that I was standing in the way of Sharon becoming a big star. I remember her mother talked about money, money, money—all the money Sharon would lose if she quit acting.”²⁷

Sharon was caught in the middle. While she pondered what to do, word of the engagement leaked to the press. On 27 May, 1964, Harrison Carroll reported in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. “Just before he took off for New York, young French actor Philippe Forquet became engaged to Sharon Tate, who at the time was expected to marry Dick Beymer. Philippe has made a number of French pictures and played the romantic lead opposite Sandra Dee in Take Her, She’s Mine. He promised Sharon that he will be back with the ring in a couple of weeks. They expect to set the marriage date at that time. Sharon, a spectacular beauty under contract to Marty Ransohoff at MGM, is the daughter of Captain Paul James Tate.”²⁸

The pressures on the relationship began to take their toll. Sharon grew nervous, uncertain, while Forquet was increasingly frustrated. “I became very unhappy,” he says, “and I flew off the handle at times.” The volatile nature of their relationship erupted into shouting matches which frequently turned into violent confrontations. Both Sharon and Forquet struck out at each other, not just with words, but with fists, shoes, plates and glasses as well. “It was very traumatic,” Forquet admits. “The whole time is a very bad memory for me. Once, Sharon cut me on the chest with a broken wine bottle. Another time, she stabbed me in the leg with a pair of toenail clippers.”²⁹

Inevitably, Forquet, larger and stronger, came out of these confrontations less battered than did Sharon. Forquet had a temper, and in the heat of their arguments, his frustrations got the better of him. Once, he allegedly struck and kicked her so severely that Sharon had to be rushed to the UCLA Medical Center, where she was admitted for emergency treatment.³⁰

It says volumes about her lack of self-esteem and need to be accepted that, even after being released from the hospital, Sharon returned to her fiancé. As determined and strong-willed as she might have been when it came to her career, Sharon was often ruled by her good-natured outlook and positive approach to life. Her response to trouble, whether in her career or with Forquet, was never to walk away, but to try to work through the situation and repair whatever damage had been done.

Sharon’s parents attempted to intervene in the situation, counseling their daughter to abandon the relationship. But Sharon could not, or would not, break free of Forquet. “Our relationship agonized for almost a year,” Forquet recalls. “It was like I was hypnotized. I couldn’t move or react.” After several uncomfortable confrontations with Sharon’s parents, Forquet fled to New York and, finally, back to France.³¹

Sharon was traumatized by the situation. In later years, she would mention the romance in interviews, but never disclosed the abuse which had characterized it.³² For his part, Forquet was equally shattered. “It took me ten years to recover from being with Sharon,” he says. “I wouldn’t allow myself to fall in love again.”³³

Alone in Hollywood, Sharon soon met and befriended another of Harold Gefsky’s clients, actress Sheilah Wells, who was under contract to Universal Studios. “Both Sharon and Sheilah were living on their own at the time,” Gefsky recalls, “and both were paying separate rents when neither one had much money. I introduced them to each other and, after they became friendly, suggested that, for financial reasons, they move in together.”³⁴ Sharon, accompanied by her white poodle, Love, duly moved in with her new friend at the latter’s small apartment.³⁵

For Sharon, life settled into a quiet routine. In the weeks she worked on The Beverly Hillbillies, she was up early, off to the studio by seven in the morning, and rarely returned home before six at night. Hers was not the life of a typical Hollywood starlet: Sharon far preferred quiet evenings at home, curled up on the couch in a pair of sweatpants and comfortable shirt, watching television, reading or playing with her dog, to the fashionable nightclubs and parties sought out by many. On weekends, she visited her parents and sisters, or joined friends to ski at Lake Arrowhead.

Sharon was good-natured about her lack of success; her optimism astonished many of her friends, but she never seemed bitter. “I’m sure the three years I spent in training to be an actress will pay off,” she confidently declared.³⁶ She seemed to take immense joy in the simple aspects of her life: cooking, shopping, visiting friends or walking on the beach at nearby Santa Monica. While she had never been an intellectual, Sharon took great pains to fill in the gaps in her education through reading. Her continued quest for self-improvement, development and reaching her goals became increasingly obvious to those around her.

In 1964, Sharon had her first motion picture screen test. Director Sam Peckinpah had signed on with Ransohoff to do a new film about a group of professional gamblers meeting for a big game in New Orleans. One of the roles called for a young, beautiful female to serve as the love interest in a series of romantic interludes. Titled The Cincinnati Kid, the film had already cast Steve McQueen, Ann-Margret and Edward G. Robinson. Ransohoff discussed the possibility of casting Sharon with Peckinpah, and the director agreed to test her. Sharon tested for Peckinpah with McQueen; but, after viewing the test, Peckinpah argued with Ransohoff against casting Sharon Tate—still an unknown quality in Hollywood—in the film, especially in such a high profile role. He felt that her timidity and lack of experience would show on film. In the end, Peckinpah won, and Ransohoff agreed to cast Tuesday Weld.

In August, 1964, while Ransohoff was producing The Sandpiper with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton at Big Sur, he arranged a photo shoot for Sharon along a secluded stretch of sandy beach. The shoot went over-schedule, night fell and, with it, a heavy fog rolled in from the Pacific. Driving back to Los Angeles, Sharon had an automobile accident. Her new Triumph sports car flew off the winding road, rolling four times before coming to a stop at the bottom of a hillside. Miraculously, she escaped unharmed, with only two small scars near her left eye to remind her of the wreck.³⁷ The Triumph, though, was totaled. Sharon’s first thought, or so she later told an interviewer, was that Ransohoff would be angry with her over the incident, and she was beside herself with worry over how best to break the news to him.³⁸

The accident again triggered Sharon’s doubts. While she tried to accept the slow course her career seemed to be taking, she found Ransohoff’s caution frustrating. The lack of success, and relationship with Forquet had severely battered her self-confidence. Although she joked to friends about “sexy little me,” Sharon remained unfulfilled and impatient.³⁹ It was at this point, when she was at her most vulnerable, that, on Thanksgiving Day, 1964, Sharon first met Jay Sebring.