MovieChat Forums > Shampoo (1975) Discussion > Goldie plays Sharon Tate???

Goldie plays Sharon Tate???

posted 18 years ago by TheMemphian
12 replies | jump to latest

Since Beatty's George is based on Jay Sebring, Goldie's Jill must be Sharon Tate. In the first scene alone their are at least 4 suggestions that indeed she is. She hears gun Shots in the canyon, she tells of a reacurring dream that she has of being held captive, talks about having a baby but has fears about the world which ironically fall in line with Manson politics and the TV is showing some drama of a women being roughly treated. Goldie even looks like Tate.
If you know about the Tate-Sebring relationship circa 64'? to 69' you will find many parallels, which have been cloaked and watered down. See if you can guess who is playing Polanski.
I only mention this because I've never heard it suggested before. It's almost tastlessly blatant, but it isn't.
Great film!

[–] chrs458 17 years ago

I agree. Johnny Pope is obviously Polanski. I wonder who Julie as Jackie was based on.

[–] TheMemphian 17 years ago

I think that would be Joan Marshall (the director's wife). She apparently wasn't happy about "her story being portayed on film" (whatever that means), but she appears briefly in the film as a customer in the salon (purple shirt at the end).

"What rotten sins I've got working for me. I suppose it's the wages." -Bedazzled (1967)

[–] jondoe888 17 years ago

Great parallels! Never occured to me.

[–] jondoe888 17 years ago

Thinking of the Sharon Tate angle, and who played who, we can assume that 10 months later George and Jill were found among the dead in the Canyon, Pope would be living in exile in Europe, and Jackie would be bitter about the life she made.

This would negate the discusions of whether George cared for Jackie, Jill - or any woman.

I remember the Manson killings, but in those hippy years I didn't pay much attention to celebs. Not that many did, and it was NOTHING like it is today. The reports were awful and everyone felt bad, but their lives were so remote from most others. Certainly no one sympathized with the Manson gang, but any guy who had a soft spot for bad girls noticed the Manson girls more than the Hollywood types. It was the 60's - Loudon Wainwright even wrote a love song about Squeeky Fromme. (...that little mousey red head, she really does it for me... or something like that)

But personalizing the players changes the emotion about the killings, as it turns them into people we cared for - not select, wealthy people we knew little about. The killings were so long ago and seem very remote, while for most readers on this site the Shampoo cast will live forever, and never change.

Also, I wouldn't make too much about the arguements about the movie taking place 10 months before the killings. I think the Tate connections are valid. It was a major story in that time, and I think they fudged the timeline to include the Nixon election. Besides, Jill's fear of the gunshots was like an ominous premonition.

[–] knele 17 years ago

I haven't seen the movie in a long time, but it's funny, I always thought about the Manson killings in connection with it -- particularly because of Jill's comments about gunshots in the canyon and that movie on TV show she's watching. However, I never (until now) thought Jill might have been loosely based on Tate; rather, I saw these details as a way of suggesting the underlying paranoia that existed in L.A. at that time -- something Joan Didion later wrote about in "The White Album." However, knowing how well Beatty knew Sebring and the Polanskis, your interepretion makes a lot of sense. Thank you for posting!

[–] kylimayrow 16 years ago

Wow..I can see it and agree

[–] dhmason6155 13 years ago

Three years later...? Thank you for this awesome post. Jill's "I heard gunshots in the canyon" line completely clinched it for me. That had to be a comment on the Manson killings.

You may walk on the beach, you may swim in the ocean... under SWAT team surveillance, of course.

[–] thereminator101-169-777586 12 years ago

Another eerie connection is the playing of the Beach Boys at the ending credits.Manson stayed with one of them(Brian Wilson?)and the song did a good job of tying together Beattys character,the end of the 60's,and the impending local changes.I think the screenplay was written before the Manson murders,but the movie was made several years later.

[–] dhmason6155 12 years ago

Actually, Manson lived with (and sponged off of) Dennis Wilson.

Unc John: We makin' trouble?
Stacy: Yeah
Unc John: What kind?
Stacy:...The forever kind

[–] hopey4 11 years ago

This thread is disturbing as I was friends with Mark Lindsay and Terry Melcher when they lived in the Cielo house not very long before the massacre. A friend and I did some artwork for The Raiders, and I took my 6 year old brother with me to the house many times. Talk about making ones blood run cold!
However, a happy memory is I was there the night Denny Wilson brought the reel-to-reel tape of the just-completed "Good Vibrations" for us to hear. (And he sat on my little brother who was napping on the couch!)

[–] SnoozeAlarm 11 years ago

who is steve parent?

It should be against the law to use "LOL" unless you really did LOL!

[–] jones7418 10 years ago

If Goldie Hawn was modeled after Sharon Tate, who was Julie Christie's character Jackie supposed to be in real life?