Who Should Have Played Dorothy Stratten?

Poor Dorothy Stratton. She's a classic case of her time. A young beautiful, simple woman who is exploited by every perv who latches on like a barnacle. She had no taste in men, just went with the ones who promised fame and fortune. You should have got yourself liberated, Dorothy, you might still be alive.

Both Jamie and Mariel had a masculine qualities to their faces that didn't mesh with Dorothy's soft and feminine look. Both were very miscast.

Margot Robbie, of course..

Jamie's version was just a tv movie, so of course it's not top quality. I'd say Star 80 covered the subject matter well enough no other Stratton biopic needs to be made. We don't even know for sure she would've achieved that much stardom anyway, or if she would've turned out to be a legitimate talent.

I think Olivia Newton-John could have done it very well.

I think "Totally Hot" and her leather girl in "Grease" are as close as ONJ ever would get to nudity. I don't think she ever did an American accent either.

They should have found someone prettier. That was the quality that drew people to her. Her beauty is why that sleaze ball married her, it's why she was in playboy, it's a big part of why Bogdonovich loved her, it's why she was killed. It wasn't her only quality, she was apparently really sweet. If someone has an physical characteristic that drove their real life narrative, it's important that the actor playing them convey that characteristic. This is true if they're pretty or ugly or fat or short or tall. That actor doesn't need to be a clone but they need that quality.

Jennifer Jason Leigh

I get the feeling people are giving her more brains than she really had. But she was very young. Maybe she would have aged into a Rene Russo but I doubt it. More likely to have married a Joe Montana and retired to motherhood. Still a sad story though. Sad it was Fosse's last film too. He was pissed that people only talked about Mariel's new boobs.

Playmates never transitioned into actors much but Jenny McCarthy changed the rules for sure. So who knows.

Melanie Griffith

Blake.

Fosse almost cast Darryl Hannah in Star 80 but for some reason went for Hemmigway after she got breast implants.

extremely odd ABC tv special from the Playboy mansion featuring Stratten, The Village People and for some reason Patty Hearst watching from the side!

I think that is Bruce Jenner who joins them onstage towards the end. This was promoting Can't Stop the Music. The song is sort of haunting considering what happened in the 80s.

oh and also the video above features one of the original real housewives of Orange County. Jenna I think may be her name?

Charlize

Jeana Tomasina (sp?) was in all those ZZ Top videos too. She was hot (another Playboy mate, right?)

R15, Jeana Tomasina, the chick from ZZ Topp’s LEGS video and sometime actress...

eww r18. I used to watch that movie as a kid on HBO (I'd sneak down late at night) to see the naked guy killer (Brad Davis's brother.) It is a really sick film. Warped my young mind.

Jessica Lange had a similar look and could certainly act, but she was in her mid-30s by the time the film was made, so perhaps that wouldn't have worked.

R20, that was Jessica in the '70s. By 1983 she was already in her midwestern farm wife phase.

Younger Candice Bergen would have been perfect.

only one actress farts as much as Dorothy did:::::fuzzy face Nicole kitchman….

Mariel did fine, Dorothy wasn't important enough that it was crucial to a dead-ringer for her.

Here's DS with Peter Bogdanovich. Maybe Pam Anderson. Maybe Sharon Stone, but SS has a way of talking that makes her seem too educated for the role.

Bea Arthur. Ann Ramsay

Kim Basinger? But she was kind of old.

Also she looks like she was very tall and broad in which case Mariel really was the right build.

But really who cares? She’s remembered only because of the way she died - she never would have became anything.

[quote]and for some reason Patty Hearst watching from the side!

I like to watch.

My Dorothy Stratten story:

I've posted it before but it is one of my few celebrity encounters. Remember how Peter Bogdanovitch married Dorothy's sister years later? (they divorced though)

Well anyway I was sitting at a Broadway show before it started and this beautiful blonde and her mother came and sat next to me. She was Danish or something and very chatty. She was sort of annoying me with all her chatter. She was saying how she has three houses and sort of bragging. Then the daughter got up and left and the mother started in about how her daughter is married to a much older man and she is so upset about it. At that point Bogdanovitch came in and sat in the third seat next to where the Stratten sister had been sitting. So suddenly I realized who she was and I said "Bogdonavitch is your son-in law. Anyway she hushed me and said yes and then proceeded to bad mouth him until the daughter returned.

It was sort of fascinating that I was talking to the women who Carol Baker played in the movie. That character was very unhappy about Dorthy's choice in men, and then the sister repeated the pattern but eventually smartened up I guess.

You bitches are too funny. She was a very pretty soft porn model and bad , D list actress who ,had she lived, would have been forgotten by the mid 80s. She would have married Bogdonovich and ended up with a nice divorce settlement. Stop trying to make her Joan of fucking Arc.

Muriel Hemingway was perfectly fine as Dorothy.

Yes, Real Housewives of OC's Jeana Tomasina Keough can be seen at 2:15 of R13's video.

[quote]r30 had she lived, she would have been forgotten by the mid 80s. She would have married Bogdonovich and ended up with a nice divorce settlement. Stop trying to make her Joan of fucking Arc.

No one here's said anything about her being talented, or having a huge career ahead of her. I think that's one thing that's sad about her - she was a Dairy Queen waitress who fell into an acting industry she was rather unsuited to.

She would have ended up a trophy wife, or at the very, very best, might have lucked into a decorative role on a hit sitcom, like Donna Dixon did with [italic]Bosom Buddies.[/italic]

All murders are tragic, in a sense, but certainly the haunting thing about Stratten's death is that she was supposedly such a tender and sunny person, one that no one ever had a bad thing to say about. And it's hard to ignore her image, which is so much like the girl-next-door American ideal (even if she was Canadian.)

Why, the most famous Dorothy of the 80s would have been superb. And Madam could have played her mother.

[quote]The song is sort of haunting considering what happened in the 80s.

It’s heartbreaking. It’s so innocent and optimistic: the 80s are going to be great!

The 80s didn’t work out for Stratten either, as far as that goes.

R32, Please explain why you think she was unsuited for an acting career. At that time period weren't many pretty young women advanced due to their looks, securing TV and movie roles?

r35 For one thing, she had no acting talent. Her few performances were very stilted. And in addition, she didn't seem to HAVE any artistic ambition to act, in the first place. (That can at least add a little vitality to an untalented person's performance.) Plus, Hollywood is a cut throat place, and she just seemed too nice (and niave) for that whole environment.

She comes across best in Peter Bogdanovich's [italic]They All Laughed,[/italic] but only when she's merely an etheral fantasy figure John Ritter follows and becomes obsessed with. (Her whole storyline is kind of disturbing, when you consider her fate.) Sadly, when she opens her mouth and talks, it becomes flat and awkward.

Jump to [bold]1:20:00[/bold] mark:

Mariel Hemmingway must have had moments when she wished somebody else got the role in Star 80. In her bio she described a moment right out of old movies where Bob Fosse is chasing her around the desk in his office saying you have to sleep with me!! I've slept with all my leading ladies!!! (Shirley Maclaine too?) You'll ruin my record"!!!!!!

Plus there was some controversy where she shot nude photos to be used for shots in the film when people are looking at her centerfold but somehow Playboy actually got a hold of them and published them or something like that.

and working with coked up crazy Eric Roberts must not have been too fun.

If there are younger members here who don't really know about Dorothy Stratten, THIS is the Pulitzer Prize winning [italic]Village Voice[/italic] cover story that really documented what happened.

I remember watching the Jamie Lee TV movie and thinking how horribly wrong she was. Attractive shapely woman, but in no way pretty like Dorothy Stratten. Whose idea was that?!

I'm guessing Jamie Lee was cast because she was in her post-Halloween/Scream Queen fame period.

I thought Mariel was fine.

Eric may have been coked out, but he's incredible in this film.

G-damn no talent hermaphrodite

Jamie Lee had a terrific body!

Melanie Griffin

Seka or Lynda Day George, maybe Inger Stevens.......

Peter Bogdanovich really comes across as a creep in regards to Stratten. He wrote a book about her called THE KILLING OF THE UNICORN, in which he blames her husband and Hugh Heffner for exploiting her...but it's not like he did anything that different. Over twice her age, he was enchanted by her physical appearance, built up a role for her in his upcoming movie, then started an affair with her onset while she was still married. I'd say that put her in a very vulnerable position.

The weirdest thing is after her death, he gave her younger sister Louise a bunch of plastic surgery to more closely resemble Dorothy, and married her (!) At least that marriage lasted for 12 years or something. But still, what a FREAK!

I like the idea of a young Jessica Lange. Bogdanovich was a creep.

Bogdanovich was a creep from the start. On The Last Picture Show he began an affair with Cybil Sheppard while his wife Polly Platt was working as the film's production designer. She had to just sit there and watch it happen. Then he and Cybil were so lovey dovey about their affair. Orson Wells (his idol) told him he was ruining his career by throwing his happiness in everybody's face but he and Cybil couldn't stop it I guess.

There is this infamous Oscar moment that got Sheppard banned from the Oscars for like 20 years were she jokingly "accidentilly" inserts Bogdonovitch's film names into all the nominees.

Was Cybil drunk?

No...just an airhead.

She has boundary issues.

Bogdonavich and Cybil were just vile during their "affair". Accordingly, they were rewarded with some flops. At least Cybil recovered and went on to make Moonlighting and her own self-titled series. As others in this thread have stated, Bogdonavich became even MORE of a creep.

A young Jessica Lange would have been perfect.

Daryl Hannah would have been dull, and Melanie Griffith too cheap.

Maybe Elizabeth McGovern (if she had breasts?) It's hard, because while Stratten didn't seem to have had a super strong personality, it's boring if she comes across as a dingbat.

I met Bogdanavich in the late 90s. He was still a creep, one cold motherf*cker and a stereotype of the pervert turned director who claims to be an artist, but is in the profession solely to prey on young women.

R36, Thank you for your honest response. Agree about Hollywood being very difficult for those without the right connections and who are unable to distinguish between the wolves in sheep's clothing and those that actually, eventually follow through to assist trusting talent.

R53 - Of course, I could be wrong about where her career might have gone. It took off very quickly, as noted in the excerpts from the article at R38 , below, and everyone seemed to love her. So while I don't see any talent in her performances, who knows? She might have continued to work, just on the strength of her looks and personal charm.

What she had going for her, and which shouldn't be underestimated, was a look that every single straight man in America would respond to. She was simply at the top of the heap, as far as that certain look went. And Hollywood does like to appeal to the masses...so, maybe.

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[quote]Even to the most cynical sensibilities there is something miraculous to the way Hollywood took to Dorothy Hoogstraten. In a city overpopulated with beautiful women—most of them soured and disillusioned by 25—Dorothy caught some current fortune and floated steadily upward through the spheres of that indifferent paradise. Her test shots were superb, placing her among the 16 top contenders for the 25th Anniversary Playmate.

[quote]While other playmates required cosmetic surgery on breasts or scars, Stratten was nearly perfect. There was a patch of adolescent acne on her forehead and a round birthmark on her hip, but nothing serious. Her most troublesome flaw was a tendency to get plump, but that was controlled through passionate exercise. The only initial change Playboy deemed necessary was trimming her shoulder-length blond hair. And the cumbersome “Hoogstraten” became “Stratten.”

[quote]More to the point she had at least one trait to meet any need. When Lorimar Productions wanted a “playmate type” for a bit role in Americathon, agent David Wilder sent Dorothy. When Columbia wanted a beauty who could skate for Skatetown, Wilder sent Dorothy, who could skate like an ace. When the producers of Buck Rogers and later Galaxina asked simply for a woman who was so beautiful that no one could deny it, Wilder sent Dorothy. And once Dorothy got in the door, it seemed that no one could resist her.

Know what DL thinks of CDAN. However a couple of months ago there was a bizarre story of a very different twist. Not a murder - suicide but a double murder, due to extremely shady business dealings. The truth was supposedly, accidentally uncovered by a cop due to his down-low associations. Of course TPTB wanted everything kept quiet, just as Stratten's marriage to the pimp/creep were hushed up.

Let’s do a reboot!!! Who would be the leads?

My picks: Rupaul as Dorothy Chaz Bono as the boyfriend Mariah Carey as Dorothy’s mom Sally Struthers as Dorothy’s body double Sir Anthony Perkins as Hef Lady Gaga as Peter (meaning she’d have to untuck her real one)

Stratten aside, They All Laughed always looked to me like a decent to good movie - good cast. Anyone Ever see it? Did she really show any “potential” (I’m skeptical)?

Well, if [italic]Sally Kirkland[/italic] can play the mom, I say okay.

She's still alive, right?

[quote]r57 They All Laughed always looked to me like a decent to good movie - good cast. Anyone ever see it? Did she really show any “potential” (I’m skeptical)?

The whole movie is at R36. But the sound occasionally cuts out ... maybe for copyright issues.

I think you should give us a full appraisal.

Sally Kirkland is VERY interested in taking your call for this project, she’s currently even researching what Dorothy would now look like by resting in pieces.

Well, frankly, I'm not sold that Mariah Carey has the necessary gravitas to play Dorothy's mom. Tho some songs added to the soundtrack would help sales.

If CZJ were not playing Dorothy's little sister, I'd suggest her for that.

Reply 61. My apologies, I meant to write Mary Carey!!! While young, her career in gang bang porn, escorting, and scat videos give her a certain allure that the mother role would need. I think she could lend her golden pipe hole to the soundtrack too! I see a remake of (Tunnel) Vision of Love or even Fanasxxxty!!!

CZJ is not available at the moment. She is talks to play the LEAD embryo in a remake of the Rock Hudson film, Embryo. She isn’t sure if they can age her properly to place the part effectively.

Well, I do think it's disgraceful how they keep sexualizing CZJ in most roles. It's Brooke Shields all over again!

Let KIDS be KIDS!

The model Kim Alexis looked like her

Thank god for Coogan’s Law or CZJ could become the victim of greedy parents and “staff”. Her career is so hot right now! She’s starting as the Baby Jane doll in the Baby Jane remake, as a sperm cell who has to choose between being on a rag or bedsheet in an unamed prison drama, and of course as an aging 3 year old who must face loosing her looks as she enter pre-school. Back to the Dorothy reboot. How about Joey Lawerence in a new role of GBF who teaches Dorothy how to pose nude? After his scenes of full frontal tutoring, Dorothy shoots her first layout while a shot of Joey off set saying “Whoa” in a low voice and single tear

Excuse me! Excuse me! I was born to be murdered!

Jamie Lee finished shooting Halloween II on a Friday candidates started work on The Dorothy Stratten Story that Monday

Jamie Lee had already become a "name", she had hosted Saturday Night Live, presented at the Oscars and had appeared on.major magazine covers by the time she agreed to do HII, she later said that she did it for the money, she was paid $400,000 for Halloween II, more than the ENTIRE BUDGET of the first film, where she was unknown and paid 8,000.

Most of the SUPER pretty women I've known/met were extremely sweet, with sunny, open dispositions. I've read that Stratton and Sharon Tate were both like that. Maybe it's what happens when everybody you meet falls in love with you. You start to believe the world is a loving place.

I came so close to getting this role, you guys. Betty, in the the one kindness she ever did for me, set up a meeting for me with Bogdanavitch, but when I arrived at the address it was just a deserted warehouse with a banner that said, “Not in a million years! Xoxo Betty”

But i think I know what she meant. I’d just had a baby and my snizz looked like a dropped lasagna and wouldn’t be camera ready by shooting time. I slag Betty a lot and it’s true she’s just a terrible cunt, but she’s never not a truth-teller.

I was devastated for a while but then I got that guest shot on Blanskey’s Beauties. The show was terrible but I did meet my little pepper pot, Nancy Walker with whom I ended up living with, loving and sharing my life with for the better part of that production week, though honestly the last two days were tense; it had run its course and we knew it.

I think her real downfall was in agreeing to marry Paul Snider after she'd settled in L.A. Everyone warned her not to, but he was responsible for bringing her to Playboy's attention and she felt she owed him. And there was a time she'd had deep feelings for him.

If she'd walked away at that point, maybe she'd still be alive.

brad pitt does a mean drag

he was a fab Dorothy, in his bedroom with Jennifer.

Exactly, R70. Sweet, sunny, open. A woman like that isn't going to kick an ex to the curb.

[quote]with whom I ended up living with,

With?

Who should have played Dorothy Stratten? Nobody. She had a short miserable life and a fast miserable death. The entire film was entirely unnecessary. It was certainly not what anyone would have wanted for Fosse's last film.

Feh!

Vivian Vance

What's ironic is that Paul Snider was one of the creators of Chippendales. If he'd let Dorothy go and kept his mind on business, he would have been the rich, successful player he always wanted to be, with any number of pretty, willing blondes on his arm. Idiot.

What a crappy apartment building he lived in:

it was a duplex.

They rented.

Despite her getting growing attention, they didn't have much $ coming in. And of course, he brought in nothing.

Diane Kay (Eight is Enough)

Cybill Shepherd was prettier and not nearly as cheap looking.

They were both built similarly though - tall and broad.

Virginia Madsen? A very young Michelle Pfeiffer?

R76, Please see my earlier post of why the perp's bad business deals and unsavory associates including those connected with Chippendale's led to the double murder. LAPD reveals have alleged it wasn't actually a murder - suicide.

Dianne Kaye would have been a great choice.

Diane Kay

R55, the CDAN blind was as ridiculous as most of his blinds. His conspiracy theory doesn't add up for a number of reasons.

R3 Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie has manjaw

[quote]You should have got yourself liberated, Dorothy, you might still be alive.

More than just liberated....EDUCATED. Attractive women (and men too) without brain power always fall victim to unscrupulous skeevy manipulative people.

This, of course, starts during childhood, when the cutest kids get the most attention. There has always been way too much emphasis being placed on peoples looks. Not everyone can be a super model or in showbiz.

Sure I know lots of people who are amazing looking, yet didn't depend solely on their looks to get through life. They are also well educated, kind and charismatic. Beauty fades, stupid is forever.

R88 and the crazy thing is you don’t even have to be that smart - you would be amazed how much praise very pretty women get just for being passably intelligent, you would think they had just won the Nobel prize or something.

R89 Haha yes I have seen this. One example was during the 2016 election, the constant description we heard in the media about Ivanka being a very intelligent businesswoman. While she's not a drooling idiot, she never struck me as particularly bright. I wonder how complimentary the media would have been towards Ivanka's supposed intelligence if she still had her original face ....

[quote] ] For one thing, she had no acting talent

Didn’t stop Suzanne Somers, Jenilee Harrison, Priscilla Barnes, Farrah Fawcett, and a million other 1970s pretty girls from having their days in the sun.

Or Bo Derek, Brigitte Nielsen....

Bogdonovitch canonized her. She was a hot piece of ass and very acquiescent. to men, who she saw as the key to fame & fortune. She was limited. She would have had the career of Carol Linley, Sue Lyon or Tuesday Weld. A few movies, episodic TV. Maybe in the 80s she’d have been a short term regular on Dallas or Dynasty, but she was no big star on the precipice of glory. She was a very pretty, sweet but not-smart girl who was drawn to men who were stronger than she was.

R88, It isn't lack of intelligence but being raised with an absent or very emotionally, mentally, and/or physically abusive father. Plus a mother that still believes in male superiority and female obedience and submissiveness. Most raised today in Conservative religions and in many small towns still adhere to the total lack of female empowerment.

Please see "Surviving R Kelly" for multiple examples.

She really does remind me of everything I've ever read/heard about Sharon Tate: Young, beautiful, acquiescent, seeking fame and fortune as a way of dealing with an inner lack, and meeting a tragic early end due to a very poor choice of husband. (In Sharon's case, marrying the unfaithful and perpetually absent Roman Polanski, who left her pregnant and vulnerable in Los Angeles with his druggie friends while he partied in London. If she'd married Jay Sebring, she never would have heard of Cielo Drive.)

R95 Yes, there are a great deal of similarities, very apt comparison. It's strange to wonder what might have been.

Dorothy Stratton was gorgeous. Her passing at a young age will ensure she always remains that way. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if she had lived to old age.

Dorothy Stratton was nothing like Sharon Tate. Sharon was from a well to do family. Her father was a colonel. She was well traveled, spoke fluent Italian and dated different men, including successful actors. She had prominent roles in several Hollywood films. Her husband Polanski was successful and he wasn’t jealous of her success. And she wasn’t murdered by her husband.

R98 I personally find ST the more interesting of the two. She was not a technically great actress but I found it hard to look away from her in VOTD. I think it's possible she might have found a few great roles in the 70s, like Ann Margaret did.She had an interesting European Deneuve like vibe while still being the all American girl. I wonder how her and RPs child would have turned out.

R99 agree and at least she didn’t look like trailer trash.

[quote]r91 Didn’t stop Suzanne Somers, Jenilee Harrison, Priscilla Barnes, Farrah Fawcett, and a million other 1970s pretty girls from having their days in the sun.

But those girls -- even if they were primarily cast for their looks -- at least could deliver a line with a little snap (or something like a normal, conversational tone) to keep a scene going.

Stratten could not. As you can see in THEY ALL LAUGHED @ r36 , she was [italic]extremely[/italic] wooden.

Caitlyn

R101 true. And I actually think Priscilla Barnes has some talent as an actress. And Farrah sometimes did. And Suzanne while never much of an actress at least had a way of holding one’s attention and some charisma, yeah.

Was that really Patty Hearst in that clip?

Tate's father was distant and controlling, and when they were living overseas (I believe he was stationed in Germany), young Sharon was date-raped. She never told her parents, but she suffered from shame and self-esteem issues for years afterwards. Everyone who knew her described her as very sweet and rather passive. She did pretty much what any of her boyfriends told her, as she'd always done what her father told her, even going nude in Roman's Fearless Vampire Killers and posing for photos taken by Roman which were later published in Playboy (another Dorothy connection).

Roman DID tell her up front that he didn't believe in monogamy, and she seemed to think that marriage and babies would change him. They didn't. In fact, he was totally turned off by her pregnant body, which is why he shipped her back to LA--alone--so he could continue to fuck other women in London. Making things even worse was the fact that Roman had his old buddy Voytek Frykowski living in the Cielo Drive house, and Voytek was determined to become the biggest MDMA dealer in Los Angeles. He and girlfriend Abigail Folger always had various shady characters coming and going at Cielo Drive, which is one reason the security at the house was so shitty. Sharon and Jay weren't on their guard that night because when the Manson killers showed up, they assumed they were friends of Voytek's.

If Roman had kept Sharon in London with him, or at least found her a less isolated house in LA which DIDN'T also shelter his drug-dealing bestie, Sharon wouldn't have died. He didn't kill her, but his neglect set off a chain of events which lead to her death.

So no, she's not EXACTLY like Dorothy, but to say there are no similarities is incorrect.

R30 I wonder if any of these old queens ever even watched Star 80. The movie is less about Stratten and more about how men try to possess beautiful women. Something Fosse had an issue with too.

R105 I wonder why she left Jay. Perhaps he was gay or bi leaning. Or maybe she was simply drawn to a more dominant personality type man. One thing I found interesting is all 3 of them were supposedly on good terms, unusual in a romantic triangle.

Gabby Sidibe.

Sharon was the kind of girl who couldn't be left alone too long: She met Roman while filming overseas, when she'd been separated for months from her then-boyfriend Jay, who was busy growing his salon business in California. Also, Roman was higher up the Hollywood food chain, at a time when Sharon was still obsessed with her career. Finally, Roman was charismatic and domineering, just like Sharon's father.

Even back then, people thought Jay was hanging around, waiting for Sharon to get tired of Roman's shenanigans. Who knows? It might have worked, if the two of them could have survived the 60s. Sharon complained bitterly to her friends about Roman's infidelities and his desertion of her during her pregnancy, and she also lost interest in her career after marriage/baby. If she'd lived, she might have divorced Roman, married Jay, and been a fantastic trophy wife for her hair-mogul second husband.

R107 and R109 She supposedly left Jay because he was into BDSM, which she found distasteful, but stayed friends with him and he was always in love with her.

The You Must Remember This podcast on the Manson murders provides a good overview of their relationship.

R110 now that is interesting, I had never heard about Jay being into that. I would not have suspected that Sebring would be more into kink than Roman. I might check out that podcast.

Definitely Virginia Madsen. Erika Eleniak was just a kid when the movie was made, but she has the same kind of beauty Stratten did. Ditto for Jonna Lee, who played the doomed adult film actress Shauna Grant in the TV movie "Shattered Innocence."

I think Virginia Madsen would have been a good choice. Her first movie wasn't released until a year later, though.

"Muriel Hemingway was perfectly fine as Dorothy."

No. She got Dorothy's dim bulb personality right but resembled her not at all. Hemingway really wanted the role; she got breast implants to look more like the well-endowed Dorothy, but even with implants her tits weren't very impressive.

Daryl Hannah was said to have been considered for the role of Dorothy Stratten. I think she would have been a good choice. Her face certainly resembled Stratten's but I don't think she had the big tits Stratten had. Even so, I think she world have been good.

Playboy and Hefner thought they had finally found a Playmate who would be a big star with Dorothy Stratten. But at the time of her death she showed no acting ability at all. No wonder; she was no actress. John Ritter was in that awful movie "They All Laughed"; he played Dorothy's love interest and as one critic said he was "absurdly made up to look like Bogdanovich." He commented that maybe if she had learned how to act she might have had some kind of career in that field. But I think if she'd lived she would have been content to be married to a rich, if incredibly douchey and unattractive man like Peter Bogdanovich. I think he might have tried to make her star but I don't think it would have panned out. She had stunning good looks but nothing in the way of talent, judging from the few roles she was in before she was killed.

R105 I remember reading that he and his friends advised her to have the baby in some fancy clinic in Europe where Sophia Loren had her child

As an American, if I were to have a baby, I'd leap at the chance to have it in London. Then my precious little angel would have duo citizenship, which always comes in handy.

R110 I get the impression that Sharon Tate wasn't all that into sex in general. This may be why she was willing to marry Polanski, even though he told her he would cheat on her.

R111 I believe it. More than one woman has told me that guys who are players are either great in bed or really dull. Nothing in between.

I second the "You Must Remember This" series on the Manson murders. It's on YouTube now.

[quote]r22 A younger Candice Bergen would have been perfect.

Hmmmm.

Yeah, the YMRT podcast on Manson is fantastic. It's 12 parts of about 45 minutes each, but they're all fantastic.

It's interesting if Sharon left Jay because of the BDSM, but put up with Roman's penchant not just for infidelity, but for filming himself having sex (with Sharon and with other women, too).

Considering Sharon's history with sexual violence (the date rape), I can see why she would find BDSM distasteful.

That said, her marriage to Roman seemed like one long dominance game, with her as the bewildered sub.

"I get the impression that Sharon Tate wasn't all that into sex in general. "

I think she must have liked sex. Either that or she was a total submissive, willing to do whatever the guy wanted her to do. She let Jay Sebring tie her up. Polanski said that "we'd made love almost every night since we started to live together." That stopped when her pregnancy began to show. Although she was "lovelier to look at than ever" once she had a baby bump Polanski said "the love and tenderness I felt for her went hand in hand with a total inability to make love to her." I guess her pregnant body turned him off. Poor Sharon; she tried to make the best of things by telling him "it's a subconscious fear of harming the baby. Lots of men feel the same way." Of course he didn't have to do without sex; he found plenty of other sex partners while Sharon was pregnant with his child. Before the pregnancy he'd also convinced her to make a sex tape. Playing with videotape was a new thing back then and people were just getting into it. Polanski suggested they make a sex tape and Sharon, again trying to make his behavior seem normal and harmless said "Fine! What characters should we play?" They made a tape of them having sex' Polanski said it was more frivolous than lewd or exhibitionistic and that he intended for them to watch it as a source of amusement when they they "old." What a creepy notion. Anyway, the tape was found in the rafters of the murder house; it was returned to Polanski. I wonder if he sometimes watches it. I think he probably does.

R120 way too classy.

R123 odd to think their son would have been 50. He Might have even become a great actor or director himself.

Or, a rapist like papa ...

R123 I thought Tate didn't know about the sex tape until she watched it.

Lindsey Lohan.

Why aren't you slicing and dicing Eric Roberts? He really stunk inthr movie.

[quote] wonder why she left Jay. Perhaps he was gay or bi leaning.

Or perhaps Polanski was the most famous director in Europe, where she was living, and was about to release the movie version of the most popular book of 1967, starring superstar (at the time) Mia Farrow who had a huge following among the right demographic.

Whereas Jay was dealing drugs, trying to get enough money together to be the next Vidal Sassoon, which 50,000 other male hairstylists were also trying to do at the time.

International fame + financial success > locally well known hair salon guy trying to break into the big time and who had no ability to further her career

" I thought Tate didn't know about the sex tape until she watched it."

According to Polanski he put forth the idea of taping them having sex to her and she didn't object at all. I tend to think that's true. He was the dominant one in the relationship and she pretty much went along with whatever he wanted to do.