Tarantino hopes Once Upon a Time in Hollywood redefined Sharon Tate’s legacy

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Director Quentin Tarantino is hopeful that his film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, has helped the late actress, Sharon Tate, not be 'defined' by her grisly murder.

In Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Tarantino composes a sem-revisionist tale with Tate, played by Margot Robbie in the film, and her brutal murder at the hands of the Manson Family essentially being wiped from history. In real life, back in 1969, Tate was 8 months pregnant when the actress and several of her friends were murdered by members of the Manson Family cult at the home she shared with director Roman Polanski in Hollywood. Tate was on the rise at the time of her murder and in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, you can tell that Tarantino feels that Tate's death was a shift towards the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The director chose to address this by rewriting history and as he promotes his novelization of the film, he's discussing his reasoning behind featuring Tate in the film. 

During a chat on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show, Tarantino expressed that he wanted to help re-cast Sharon Tate's Legacy by saying, "I think it's horrible that she's been defined by her murder and one of the things that I can say about the film that I am absolutely proud of, because of the movie, I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore. I don't think she is defined by her victim status."

Tarantino does have a bit of a point. Sharon Tate, although existing on the peripheral of the main story that features Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, is the heart and soul of the film. Much was made about her slim presence in the film for most of its near three-hour running time but Margot Robbie successfully makes you fall in love with Sharon Tate and since you know the real story going into the film, there is this sense of dread that builds as we get to that fateful night and you're a bit thankful that Tarantino flips it and gives Tate the happier outcome she deserved in real life. The director went on to say that Margot Robbie's performance has gone a long way to help introduce Tate to a new generation:

"I think people were intrigued by [Robbie as Tate]. I think they looked [the actual Tate] up. Getting a sense of her from the movie, if you watch those [Manson history] specials, they're really heartbreaking because she means something to you now, as opposed to just a statistic."

Do YOU think Once Upon A Time In Hollywood helped redefine Sharon Tate's legacy?