The actor was born in 1943 in Dallas, Texas to a stern US army colonel called Paul James Tate and Doris Gwendolyn Tate; who later became a prominent activist following the death of her daughter.
In 1969, Tate, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, Folger coffee heiress Abigail Folger and Polanski’s close friend Wojciech Frykowski were tragically murdered by members of the Manson Family in an unexplained crime spree which shook Hollywood and the rest of America to its core.
Tate was an actor who rose to prominence in the 1960s, whose notable screen credits include Valley of the Dolls and The Fearless Vampire Killers; a film directed by her husband Roman Polanski.
Polanski also said possessed the “sort of radiance that springs from a kind and gentle nature”, calling her “the love of my life” in a book Debra wrote about her sister called Sharon Tate Recollection.
While on a date at seventeen years old, she was raped by a soldier but kept the incident secret but told her future husband Polanski about it according to a 2016 biography called Sharon Tate: A Life.
