Sharon Tate Quotes

1. (on Kim Novak who had to drop out of "Eye of the Devil" and be replaced by Deborah Kerr) I liked her very much, you know. I'd always admired her as a little girl, and when I grew up and finally met her I wasn't disappointed. She was everything I'd ever imagined her to be. And she was marvelous to me - so thoughtful, so kind, so helpful.


2. I still have this teddy bear I've had since I was three…and all my boxes, all kinds of boxes. I just won't give them up. It's like if I give them up, I've given in to being a movie star.

3. I don't see any difference between being stark naked or fully dressed - if it's part of the job and it's done with meaning and intention.

4. When I was the most broke I went out and bought a mink coat, but it was for my Mother. I have one mink coat of my own now, and a dilapidated old fox I wear all the time. The mink just hangs in the closet. It's a good feeling to know it's there, but I never wear it. I wore a rented mink to a premiere the other night, and I was so uncomfortable I turned it inside out and threw it over my shoulder. I use only soap and water, no makeup. I can eat anything.

5. By the time you get to the point where you have the power to run your own career - they call you a bitch.


6. I don't have a weight problem. For a while I lived on cotton candy.

7. It's just as difficult to be pretty as it is to be homely. People take you from the surface level, but they'll see an unattractive girl and think she must have something else.

8. I really think that if you live for today, tomorrow takes care of itself.

9. I don't think the movie (Valley of the Dolls) is all that bad. It's a typical, fantastic, money-making Hollywood picture. I knew that when I took the part. But there's nothing wrong with that. I think the movie is a success because it did exactly what it set out to do. I'm glad I made the movie, but now I need a change.



10. I'd like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them.

11. My whole life has been decided by fate. I've never planned anything that's happened to me.



12. I don't fool myself. I can't see myself doing Shakespeare.


13. Beauty is only a look. It has nothing to do with what I'm like inside.

14. (on Roman Polanski) I'd be thrilled to death to do another Polanski film, but he has to ask me. I wouldn't ever dream of asking him for a part.

15. I will never be another Marilyn Monroe, but I had to do what they wanted at first. They see me as a dolly in a bikini, jumping up and down on a trampoline.

16. My definition of love is being full. Complete. It makes everything lighter. Beauty is something you see. Love is something you feel.

17. I'm so afraid of hurting other people's feelings I don't speak out when I should. I get into big messes that way.






18. From now on I want something with character and substance. No more sexy roles. I want to do something good now, something that will really help my career.

19. I am like Jennifer (Sharon's character in "Valley of the Dolls") because she is relatively simple, a victim of circumstances beyond her control. But I have more confidence in myself.

20. I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived - always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way. And my father was rather strict with me and my two younger sisters. He insisted on proper behavior and very often vetoed our choices of boyfriends. There was always a curfew whenever my sisters or I would go out on a date - we had to be home on time or else. But I never resented his authority. In fact, I'm thankful for my strict upbringing; I feel it has helped me learn discipline - and that's very important in this business. 

21. (Roman Polanski) I would never marry just to be respectable…it's just a legal piece of paper and a lovely financial set-up. I've learned great happiness from being with Roman that I didn't have before. Why would I want to ruin a perfect affair by turning it into a mediocre marriage for society's sake.





22. (on Martin Ransohoff's reaction to her upon seeing her at an audition for "Petticoat Junction")  I thought he meant somebody else. I looked so awful. I was wearing an
orange dress with big patch pockets and my hair was every which way.

23. I won't marry for a long time…I'll give up acting the second I'm married…I believe a wife must immerse herself completely in her husband and family, and that's what I intend to do. Few women can handle marriage and a career successfully at the same time.



24. On TV, the children can watch people murdering each other, which is a very unnatural thing, but they can't watch two people in the very natural process of making love. Now, really, that doesn't make any sense, does it?

25. (on Roman Polanski) Sometimes we'll drive out to the desert in 110 degree heat and race his (Roman's) car…and we'll go to a little bar, where there are just guys in jeans and T shirts hanging around. It's hot as an oven-but it's exciting for that moment. We're both "people of the moment", Roman and I.




26. He's (Roman Polanski) wise and wonderful and brilliant and he knows everything.

27. (on Roman Polanski) Martin Ransohoff had to sell Roman on the idea of even considering me for the film. He arranged for the two of us to have dinner. Roman never said a word to me, we just sat there and ate and he just looked at me. Then we had a second dinner meeting and the same thing happened. Later he took me to his apartment. He lit some candles and then excused himself and left me standing there alone. A short while later he came storming into the room like a madman and he was wearing a Frankenstein mask. I let out a blood-curdling scream and while I was still crying from the scare, he was calling Ransohoff to tell him that the part in the film was mine. 

28. (on Roman Polanski) He's very sympathetic, very sensitive, very intelligent and a combination of explosives. You don't notice any one part of Roman - he just comes at you in one dynamic blast!




29. (on Roman Polanski) Roman is strong, and so true, so honest. I don't like glamour boys.

30. When I was in school, I dreamed about becoming a psychiatrist or a ballerina. Like most girls I would dream about being a movie star too. But those dreams are the impossible kind, the kind you don't really set your heart on.

31. They said they had a plan for me. They would train me and prepare me. I was immediately put into training - like a race horse. I had a job to stay the way I was. They told me: "Cream your face, Sharon…Put on more eyeliner, Sharon…Stick out your boobs, Sharon".

32. (on Roman Polanski) I can't play games. I have friends, older women, who tell me I'm foolish to let Roman know how deeply I care about him. They tell me all sorts of things like "keep a man guessing", "men become bored with too much devotion". They tell me I am being foolish. Well, foolish I am.



33. Richard (Beymer) told me 'you oughta be in pictures' and I believed him. I always had Hollywood on my mind.

34. If miniskirts had come in then (when she was in High School) I 'd have worn the shortest one.

35. I love it on the beach - it gives me a kind of freedom. I don't have to be a sex symbol or a movie star.

36. Sexiness is all in the eye of the beholder. I think it should be. Absolutely. My sex appeal, whatever it might be, isn't obvious…at least to me.

37. When I love, I love hard.

38. (on first impression of Roman Polanski) That's the craziest nut I ever saw. I'll never work for him.

39. If you just take it down to bare facts, the reason for living is the reason you make it. I mean the brain was made to create.

40. I'm very unpredictable. Very, very impulsive. Extremely. Absolutely! Sometimes I don't know what I want to do from one day to the next. I can't enjoy anything premeditated; I just do it as I feel it. But whatever I do is motivated by honesty.



41. I think I'll stick to Pan-Am.

42. (on Roman Polanski) Roman is such a beautiful, mad human being. Sometimes things are difficult, sometimes good. But it makes life twice as interesting.

43. What I want out of life is happiness. I don't want money. I get $350 a week. I drive a Buick Riviera. I have all the clothes I want. I like myself. I'm glad I'm me. I'd like to have a baby.



44. I'm happier when I'm working. I don't have time to think much that way.

45. I read that I'm supposed to be Hollywood's new sex symbol, that Marty has groomed me as Marilyn Monroe's replacement. I think I'm the most unsexy thing that ever was. I'm open for everything of course, but I'm certainly not aware of being sexy.

46. I honestly don't understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It's silly.

47. (on Roman Polanski) I've learned so much from him. You see, I have a tendency not to live in reality, whereas Roman is a true realist. I used to read Yoga and Zen, but Roman has stopped all that. Now I don't read anything except scripts. I haven't touched a book in two and a half years. I spot read. I never read a newspaper through. I really don't know what's going on.

48. Everything that's realistic has some sort of ugliness in it. Even a flower is ugly when it wilts, a bird when it seeks its prey, the ocean when it becomes violent.

49. (on Roman Polanski) Before Roman I guess I was in love with Jay (Sebring). It was a fine relationship. But the truth is I was no good for Jay. I'm not organized. I'm too flighty. Jay needs a wife. And at 23 I'm not ready for wifehood. I still have to live, and Roman is trying to show me how.

50. (on Linda Evans miniskirt at "The Daisy") I've worn a much shorter mini in London. That's nothing.

51. (on Roman Polanski) Roman is a fascinating, creative director. When I first met him, it was a case of instant hate. He was so blunt. But now it's all music.

52. (on Roman Polanski) We have a good arrangement. Roman lies to me and I pretend to believe him.




53. I'm one of those mad, irrational characters who simply loves men. I love them because they're men. Women…I don't like to compete against them or play games. It's a waste of time.

54. I'd like to be a fairy princess - a little golden doll with gossamer wings, in a voile dress, adorned with bright, shiny things. I see that as something totally pure and beautiful. Everything that's realistic has some sort of ugliness in it. Even a flower is ugly when it wilts, a bird when it seeks its prey, the ocean when it becomes violent. I'm very sensitive to ugly situations. I'm quick to read people, and I pick up if someone's reacting to me as just a sexy blonde. At times like that, I freeze. I can be very alone at a party, on the set, or in general, if I'm not in harmony with things around me.

55. Marty's a wheeler dealer. No doubt about that. But he's a man of his word. He sent me to drama school. He let me play bits in various TV shows. He saw that I got the best instruction in speech, singing, dancing, the whole works. He groomed me slowly and carefully without the slightest publicity. I was his secret weapon. 



56. I guess I kind of lived in a fairytale world…looking at everything through rose-colored glasses. I probably always will, to a certain extent.

57. I'm just me. If I am sexy, it's just something I do naturally, like picking up a knife and fork to eat. I think people who try to be sexy are the most unsexy people in the world.

58. My first experience was doing TV Commercials. Then one day, my agent sent me to audition for a bit part in "Petticoat Junction", the TV series. Marty (Ransohoff) came on the set, watched me, then called me over and said: "Sweetie, I'm going to make you a star!"



59. I guess I'm too outspoken.

60. When I married Roman, (Polanski) there were no doubts in either of our minds. We knew it would work-so we did it. If there's any question, though, I think it's immoral not to try it out first. Why would anyone want to enter marriage blindly? Of course, the pill makes this possible, and in that respect, I think it's one of the greatest things to happen.

61. When Daddy was transferred back to the States and San Pedro, California, I convinced him that I'd be safe in Hollywood - you know how Army men are, so terribly protective of their Daughters-I've got two younger sisters, 7 and 13 - and Daddy's now in Vietnam, but he still worries about us all. Anyway I used to hitchhike in Los Angeles to all the studios because I couldn't afford the cab fare. The men were so generous, especially the truck drivers; they all gave me lifts.

62. In Europe, everything is so much more liberal and open. So much more realistic. The whole freedom outlook over there is just fantastic. People aren't worried about what society is going to think - as long as the feelings are there…and the feelings are honest. Men in Europe cry and in airports they kiss their sons right on the lips, emotion makes them real men.


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