Sharon Tate's wedding dress expected to go for as much as $50K at auction
Jan. 20, 1968, was a day to remember for Sharon Tate. Fresh off her breakthrough movie, the hit Valley of the Dolls, the actress married director Roman Polanski at a London fete attended by celebrities including Candice Bergen and Joan Collins.
Now, the dress that Tate wore that day — a year and a half before she was murdered by a group of Charles Manson’s followers — is going up for sale. Julien’s Auctions will offer the custom ivory silk dress for sale at a two-day event online and in its L.A. offices Nov. 16-17.
The dress is projected to sell for between $25,000 and $50,000.
The personalized luggage, marked “ST,” that Tate carried as she returned from her honeymoon is expected to fetch another $1,000 to $2,000.
Gowns the actress wore to premieres of Polanski’s movies, books on the craft of acting, and a Maybelline eyebrow pencil will also be on the block.
Tate was just 26 and expecting her first child when she was brutally killed on Aug. 9, 1969. The death of Tate and four others at the Beverly Hills home that she and Polanski were renting — he was working out of the country when she died — rattled Los Angeles.
Joan Didion famously wrote in her book about the end of the ’60s, The White Album, “Many people I know in Los Angeles believed the ’60s ended abruptly on Aug. 9, 1969.”
Polanski left the United States in 1973 after pleading guilty to charges that he raped a 13-year-old girl. But he spoke about his feelings for Tate in a photo book, Sharon Tate Recollection, compiled by Tate’s sister, Debra, in 2014.
“Even after so many years, I find myself unable to watch a spectacular sunset or visit a lovely old house or experience visual pleasure of any kind without instinctively telling myself how much she would have loved it all,” Polanski wrote in the book’s foreword. “In these ways I shall remain faithful to her till the day I die.”
When Manson died in prison last November at the age of 83, Debra Tate told TMZ that she let Polanski know and that he was keeping up with the case. “It was quite a simple email, but [Manson] did murder Roman’s family, his wife, his son, and I believe he had the right, just as much as any of the rest of us, to know,” she said.
Although Sharon Tate has been gone for decades, her tragic story continues to fascinate. According to Deadline, it will be told in no fewer than three upcoming projects, including one in which Hilary Duff will play Tate.
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