Stars Attend Services For Slain Actress Sharon Tate
Rites Held For 3 Others
August 14, 1969
Los Angeles Times
By Dial Torgerson
Times Staff Writer
At Holy Cross Cemetery, Roman Polanski stared a long moment at the silver
casket, then leaned over and kissed it in a farewell to his wife, Sharon Tate.
Across the city, at an El Monte Church, six teen-age carried the body of
their friend, eighteen-year-old Steven Parent, to a waiting hearse.
In the effluent San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Portola Valley, a Requiem
mass was offered for coffee heiress Abigail Folger.
At the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, film stars
gathered for nonsectarian services for wealthy hair stylist Jay Sebring.
Wednesday was a day of farewell to the victims of the killer who, five days
before left a trail of dead scattered about the Benedict Canyon Estate of
Actress Sharon Tate and her film director husband.
No Progress Report
Police reported no developments in the search for the killer of Miss Tate,
Parent, Miss Folger, Sebring and Voyteck Frykowski, 37, for whom funeral
arrangements were still pending.
There were no police bulletins out for arrest of any suspects. No progress
report was given on the results of the work of a 19-man team of detectives.
Rumors spread through Hollywood circles that the victims of the multiple
murders were horribly mutilated by the killer. Police declined comment. But it
was learned that:
The women were stabbed only. There were many stab wounds-more than a
dozen in the body of Miss Tate-but no mutilation.
Sebring and Frykowski were both stabbed and shot. They were not
mutilated. Sebring’s cause of death was stabbing, but he was also shot, a
fact not earlier released. In addition Frykowski was beaten in the face,
possibly with a pistol. Broken pieces of pistol grip were found in the home.
Investigators denied other rumors that evidence of weird sex rites were found
in Miss Tate's home.
Many members of the Hollywood colony attended the funeral for Miss Tate at
the chapel atop the flower-dotted slopes at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
Kirk Douglas, Stuart Whitman, Warren Beatty, James Coburn, Yul Brenner and
Peter Sellers were among those who paid last respects.
In the front at the right of the chapel sat the actress’s parents, Mr. And
Mrs. Paul Tate, Polanski and the Tate's two daughters, Patricia and Deborah.
The family sat in quiet composure as the Reverend Peter O’Reilly of Good
Shepherd Church in Beverly Hills began a brief service. Tate, an Army colonel
who has been stationed in San Francisco, looked straight ahead. Mrs. Tate stared
across the church toward the ceiling.
"She was a fine person," said Father O'Reilly, whose church Miss Tate
sometimes attended, "and we were in no small measure devoted to her..."
Polanski, a small man with long, tangled brown hair, gave a slight shudder.
Mrs. Tate put her arm around him, and patted his head with a black-gloved hand.
She retained her poise until Father O’Reilly, the service completed, step up
to the casket and said:
"Goodbye, Sharon, and may the Angels welcome you to heaven, and the martyrs
guide your way..."
The mother broke into sobs. As the family stood to say a last farewell before
the closed casket, it was Polanski who comforted Mrs. Tate and helped her to her
feet.
He stood facing a casket a long moment, blinking, but seemingly composed.
Then he kissed the casket. Funeral director Richard Cunningham handed Mrs. Tate
five pink roses from a large array of roses and carnations atop the casket, and
the family left the church.
The 150 persons in the church stood, then began to file. Brynner, who had
been seated in the front row, steps toward the casket, pause, looked at it, then
turned and followed the rest of the throng from the church and into the bright
Sun beyond.
There was no mass. "The family wanted only a brief ceremony." Said father
O’Reilly. Flowers sent by friends were piled on the lawn in front of the chapel.
Flower Request
"Mr. James Coburn asked us to put these at either end of the casket," a
deliveryman from a Sunset Strip Florist told Charles L. Mercer, a funeral
attendant, before the service began a delivery man and an aide held two tall,
pedestal mounted bouquets of marguerites.
"The church, not the mourners, make the arrangements," Mercer said. "There
are to be no flowers in the chapel."
"I'll try anyway," the deliveryman said.
"You'll be stopped," said Mercer.
He wasn't. There was no one at the door as the deliveryman entered. The only
flowers for Sharon Tate in the chapel-except those the family placed upon the
casket itself-were Coburn’s two bouquets to the left and right of the casket.
Barely two hours after Miss Tate's funeral, and obviously grief stricken
Polanski appeared at services for the 35-year-old Sebring. Polanski was
supported at either arm by a friend.
Overflow Crowd
Sebring’s funereal drew an overflow crowd of fellow hair stylist and a number
of Sebring’s customers who had become close friends. Among them were Steve
McQueen, who delivered a brief eulogy, Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda, Paul Newman,
Alex Cord, George Hamilton and Keely Smith.
A friend, Alvin Greenwald, also eulogized Sebring as "an individual human
person who earned and deserves the trust and respect of us all."
Many mourners-men and women-wept openly as they were ushered from the
flower-banked Chapel. In a black limousine in a funeral procession, three
beautiful young woman sat sobbing their mini skirted legs stretched before them,
crossed and bare footed, on the lowered jump seat.
In El Monte earlier, there was a similar rite in a smaller chapel.
The funeral for Steven Parent was held at the church of the Nativity, the El
Monte Catholic Church which young Parent had attended.
Met 2 Weeks Ago
He had met William E. Garretson, caretaker at the Tate-Polanski estate, two
weeks ago when he picked Garretson up as a hitchhiker. Garretson had invited him
to visit his guesthouse at the property.
Friday Parent had visited Garretson and, as he was leaving the property, was
shot to death at the wheel of his car.
"Steven was a credit to his family, to his parish and to his school," the
Reverend Paul L. Peterson told the mourners.
Parent's mother, Mrs. Wilfred Parent, wept inconsolably as she followed the
casket from the church toward the waiting hearse.
