See Sharon Tate in Rare, Candid Photos Taken Shortly Before Her Murder by the Manson Cult
It’s been nearly 50 years since the tragic murder of Sharon Tate, but British photographer Terry O’Neill remembers the details of their last conversation in vivid detail.
O’Neill, 80, who has collected some of his legendary photos in a new book Terry O’Neill: Rare and Unseen, featured in this week’s PEOPLE, took her picture several times in the late 60s. The last time was shortly before her murder.
“She was expecting her first child,” he says of the 1969 photo shoot in London. “She couldn’t wait to be a mother.”
Tate, who was on her way back to Los Angeles from London, invited O’Neill, who was also flying to L.A., to a party she was having at her home a few days later.
“She was going back to America,” O’Neill recalls. “When I told her I was going too, she said ‘I’m having a party. Please come. And I said ‘I’d love to.'”
“By the time I got into L.A, I was exhausted so I rang her up and I said, ‘Listen, Sharon, I can’t come tonight because I’m exhausted. I’ll see you next week,'” O’Neill tells PEOPLE. “And that’s the night she got killed by the Mansons.”
“I was shocked to the core,” says O’Neill. “It was so horrible.”
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He remembers her fondly, including a 1968 photo shoot, also featured in his new book.
“That was Sharon Tate, naturally,” he says of the portrait, in which she is covering her breasts.
“It was her idea,” O’Neill recalls. “I don’t like shooting people naked. It’s not something I’m really into. I just let people do what they want.”
Tate is one of the many notables, including Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Elvis Presley, Queen Elizabeth, and the Beatles, that O’Neill shot over his nearly six decade career.
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For more on Terry O’Neill, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on stands Friday.
Asked how he made people so comfortable in front of the lens, O’Neill says, “I realized the whole secret to photography was to be there, and keep your mouth shut and just capture what you see. And that’s what I did.”
Terry O’Neill: Rare and Unseen is available for purchase now.
