Tragedy Strikes Those Who Beat Odds Against Success
The World Of Hollywood
August 10, 1969
The Los Angeles Times
By Charles Champlin
Times Entertainment Editor
Saturday's swift tragedy swept up three people who in their own ways had
defeated the odds against success in the ruthless and unyielding world of
Hollywood.
Roman Polanski, who survives to contemplate horrors undreamt of even in his
own often-bizarre films, is a short and impish young man, born in Paris in 1933
but raised in Poland.
An actor as well as a director he first came to wide attention with short
films he made while still attending the Polish State Film School.
Meticulous and imaginative craftsmen, he has made his reputation with studios
of neurotic modernist sometimes trapped in bizarre circumstances and with tales
of Gothic horror.
Regarded As Classic
His first work, "Knife in the water", is generally regarded as a classic of
current cinema. "Repulsion" and "Cul-de-sac " were less successful but still
notable in their creation of moods of eeriness and suppressed emotions. By all
odds his most successful work is "Rosemary's Baby", one of the top moneymakers
last year. His "The Vampire Killers", spoof of the whole vampire genre in which
he also took a starring role, was released here in a truncated version he has
renounced as unfaithful to his intentions.
Polanski has recently been in Europe putting the final touches on a script
and doing pre-production planning on his next movie, "The Day Of The Dolphin",
for United Artist.
His murdered wife, Sharon Tate, was an astonishingly beautiful woman with a
statuesque figure and a face of great delicacy. She had been cast as a beauty,
and it's hard to say what she might ultimately have done with a role, which made
demands of her as an actress. The best-known movie that Miss Tate made, "Valley
of the Doll's," ended with the death of a lovely young woman-played by Miss
Tate.
Her career began with "13" a movie with David Niven and Deborah Kerr in which
she played a French country girl with the powers of a witch.
She mostly wore bikinis in the Martin Ransohoff, "Don't Make Waves" and was
mostly a visual adornment with Polanski himself in "The Vampire Killers."
Jay Sebring's story was almost a Hollywood novel in itself. From modest
beginnings in Detroit, he had settled in Hollywood after serving in the Navy.
He began cutting hair for friends, broke as he was. He found he had a genuine
flair for it and opened a small shop on Fairfax Ave. as a hair stylist for men.
He soon numbered most of Hollywood's top male stars among his clientele-Frank
Sinatra, Henry Fonda, Sammy Davis Jr., Steve McQueen, George Peppard and many
others.
Many of them flew him to distant locations to keep their hair in trim. Vic
Damone was best man at his marriage, later dissolved, to actress Cami Sebring.
Subsequently, and in her pre-Polanski days, Miss Tate had dated Sebring. Sebring
remained friends with both his former wife and Miss Tate. (Note from
CharlieManson.com: according to a friend of Cami, she never met Sharon).
Sebring, a slight, good looking, dark-haired, soft voiced man, had also done
brief roles in movies and television, generally playing a barber. He had
recently opened a second shop in San Francisco and was planning to open a third
in New York later this fall.
He had been featured in Time, Newsweek and other magazines and he had
revolutionized the price structure, and the techniques of male hair cutting
rituals. But all of that, for all three and their three friends, was before the
tormented hours of Saturday morning.
| 
