The author suspects that Charles Manson was paid $25,000 by a British satanic cult to target Tate

When Tate refused an abortion, Polanksi went back to London and had an affair with Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas

Sharon got caught up in Polanski's sexual decadence and drug taking

He was even pointedly cruel to her in front of others at times, calling her 'a dumb hag'

'[Polanski] told her how to dress; he told her what make-up he liked, what he didn't like,' reveals Tate's friend

Sharon Tate had a fatal attraction to dominant men - none more so than famed film director Roman Polanski.

Polanski had the professional and personal power Sharon craved and thus she was drawn into a world of frequent humiliations, subjected to his sexual proclivities that included drugs, affairs, orgies and home sex videos he shared with friends.

Polanski ruled Sharon's entire life from the time she met him until her violent death at the hands of Charles Manson's gang of evil, writes author Ed Sanders in his provocative, well-researched book, Sharon Tate: A Life, published by Da Capo Press.

Tate's father Paul was an army captain who was frequently absent. To occupy herself, her mother, Doris entered her beautiful little daughter in beauty contests.

Validation from beauty pageants and recognition of her looks, combined with strong direction from men became an imperative for the tragic actress.

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Sexy starlet: Roman Polanski trolled Sunset Boulevard and the boulevard's clubs for girls he brought home for threesomes with Sharon Tate, a new book reveals

Chemistry: The two on the set of Dance of the Vampires by Roman Polanski. They initially connected when they were both living around the corner from each other in London

When she was crowned Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas in the summer of 1943 at six months old it marked the beginning of what became a lifelong pursuit: to be in front of the camera.

She won global beauty contests in Europe and then back in the US with the frequently changing residences of an army child.

But life was not all crowns and pretty clothes. The author reveals that Sharon was raped when she was 17 while on a date with a soldier in Italy. It was a secret she kept, and only later confided to Polanski. He said that 'it hadn't left her emotionally scarred'.

Commercials followed and she caught the bug: she wanted to be an actress, a star, the 'new Marilyn of American cinema'.

Introduced to hot-shot producer Martin Ransohoff in 1963, she signed a seven-year contract and at age 20 she was earning $750 a month. But she desperately needed acting lessons to further her career.

Ransohoff sent her to New York to the famed Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio but Sharon didn't connect with Strasberg's technique.

She did connect with French actor Philippe Forquet.

Their love affair progressed to a marriage proposal and engagement along with rumors of beatings and claims by Forquet that Sharon cut him in the chest with a broken wine bottle.

Ransohoff demanded that his starlet terminate the relationship or he would dissolve her Filmways contract. Tate quit Forquet but not her fatal attraction to dominant men.

She hooked up with actor Steve McQueen, became engaged to Jay Sebring, a kinky, dungeon-loving hairdresser to the stars, and then began her last love affair with uber-dominant director Roman Polanski.

Powerful connection: Tate was engaged to a successful (and kinky) hairdresser to the stars, when she took acid with Polanski and made love with him at dawn. The pair moved in together in Easter 1966

Dominance: 'He told her how to dress; he told her what makeup he liked, what he didn't like. He preferred her with nothing, no makeup. But he ruled her entire life from the time she met him,' reveals new book

The couple initially connected when they were living around the corner from each other in London.

Tate was engaged to Sebring at the time but after sharing a cube of acid with Polanski and making love at dawn, the engagement became past tense and Polanski and Tate moved in together around Easter,1966.

Sharon got the starring role in front of the camera but it was in Polanski's home sex videos he shared with friends.

Polanski filmed orgies at their house and showed the videos at parties, later reported to be sadomasochistic porno movies with many recognizable Hollywood faces.

He trolled Sunset Boulevard and its clubs for girls he brought home for threesomes.

Sharon was totally intimidated by him.

'When she was out in public with Roman, she never felt adequate enough to open her mouth,' writes the author.

'She could only talk to him alone. Her problem was that she had always been beautiful, and people were forever losing themselves in fantasy over her – electing her a beauty queen, imagining her as a wife, dreaming of a caress.

Young beauty: Sharon Tate stepped into her first spotlight on April 27, 1943, when she was chosen as Miss Tiny Tot at six months old in her hometown of Dallas, Texas. This photo shows a younger Sharon all dolled up

Crown jewel: Sharon was crowned Princess at the sophomore dance at Columbia High school, Miss Richland in 1958 and then the big crown for Queen of the Autorama in 1959

Wedding day: Joan Collins (left) was one of hundreds of guests celebrating the wedding of Sharon (right) and Roman. Tate married Polanski when she was 25 years old. He was nine years her senior

'Most people had fantasies. But a few people, like Polanski, took charge.

'He told her how to dress; he told her what makeup he liked, what he didn't like. He preferred her with nothing, no makeup. But he ruled her entire life from the time she met him,' Tate's friend Joanna Pettet told the author.

Ransohoff urged Polanski to test Sharon for a role in The Fearless Vampire Killers, a period comedy he was making in London.

She got the role but Polanski confessed that he sometimes required as many as seventy takes for the inexperienced actress to get her part right.

Sharon's first big film role came in 1965 in Eye of the Devil, a movie about human sacrifice. She got the role after Kim Novak fell from a horse and the film had to be reshot without Novak.

Filmed in London, English magician Alex Saunders, known as 'King of the Witches', was hired as technical adviser.

Wild lifestyle: Roman and Sharon moved into the famed Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard shortly after they married where drugs and sex were always rampant

Tragedy: On the night of August 9, 1969, eight months pregnant, Sharon Tate was stabbed sixteen times and murdered along with Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Steven Parent and Voyteck Frytowski by the Manson Family

Saunders later claimed that he befriended Tate on the set and initiated her into witchcraft. He said he had photos showing her inside a consecrated magic circle.

Sharon realized that she wasn't going to get a film role in a big movie playing at the time like Sound of Music or Tarzan and the Valley of Gold. Her acting wasn't good enough.

'I don't fool myself. I can't see myself doing Shakespeare,' she said.

She wanted to play light comedic roles and confessed in an interview to being influenced by Faye Dunaway and Catherine Deneuve.

'I'd like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them.'

Sharon rented a house in Los Angeles and continued trying for bigger film roles while getting panned by critics for the two films she had made.

Polanski stayed in Europe filming and revealed that his wife acquired her first vibrator at that time, says the author.

Back in each other's arms, Sharon introduced Roman to the America she knew – junk food, drive-ins, popcorn and the California coast at Big Sur and Topanga Canyon, where friends of her lived.

It was 1967, the summer of love and Woodstock, and the rise of the hippie phenomenon. Sex and drugs topped the charts as a quick trip to finding oneself and communicating with others.

Killer capture: Polanksi, who was in London during Tate's murder, offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest

Face of evil: Charles Manson was found guilty of conspiracy to murder. His 'family' killed Sharon Tate and four of her friends in 1969. Manson remains in prison

Crime scene: Tate's death was one of the most brutal murders in the history of Los Angeles. According to an INS criminal investigator's report, the English Satanist group had commissioned Manson to kill Sharon because of 'something that she unfortunately overheard that she was not supposed to overhear either in regards to Sirhan Sirhan or about Sirhan Sirhan,' the man who killed Robert F. Kennedy

Manson family: Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins and Charles 'Tex' Watson were a part of Charles Manson's cult. Kasabian was the key witness in the prosecution of Manson, Krenwinkel, Atkins and Watson for the murders of Tate and her friends

It was that fall when a converted school bus painted black rolled into Topanga Canyon with the words 'Hollywood Productions' written on the side. Its occupants were a roaming group of followers of Charles Manson, himself desperately seeking fame from his music.

The motley crew moved into a secluded house called the Spiral Staircase at the mouth of Topanga Canyon near the Pacific Coast Highway.

Meanwhile, Tate had a starring role in the cult classic, Valley of the Dolls, and attended the premier of the film that took place on a docked cruise liner in November in Venice, Italy.

Tate stayed on board for the 28-day journey that ended in Los Angeles and arrived home to bad reviews calling Tate 'a no-talent show girl'.

She took a mini-vacation with girlfriends to a spa in Big Sur, up the coast, while Polanski returned to Los Angeles and invited a young Balinese model to his rented beachfront mansion in Santa Monica for a night of lovemaking.

After returning to LA, they moved into the famed Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. The couple rented different houses before settling into their last – on Cielo Drive high up in Benedict Canyon.

Decadent parties followed.

When she learned she was pregnant, Sharon telephoned her former fiance Sebring to ask his advice on whether or not to tell Roman. He said to wait a month when it would be too late to have an abortion.

Sharon was pregnant when she found a movie of Roman making love to someone else in their bed and thought of ending the marriage.

Roman, for his part, did not want to father a child, Shahrokh Hatami, a confidante of Tate's told the author.

Polanski wanted her to get an abortion in Brazil and when she refused, he went back to London and had an affair with Mamas and Papas singer Michelle Phillips.

'I told him that I'm expecting his child, he said that he doesn't want to father a child, and protested,' Sharon told Hatami.

'You can't do anything, it's my child. I'm going to keep it,' she told Polanski.

Polanski was bored by her pregnancy and stopped having sex with her - but not multiple other partners.

That summer 'he treated her like she was a piece of excess baggage. He was even pointedly cruel to her in front of others at times, calling her 'a dumb hag' and criticizing her whenever she expressed an opinion,' writes Sanders.

She was under his spell and he was in love with her despite treating her badly.

Riding high: Sharon had a successful modeling career before she got her first acting break. She rode on a missile for the cover of Stars and Stripes in 1960

'We have a good arrangement,; Tate said. 'Roman lies to me and I pretend to believe him.'

The house at 10050 Cielo Drive was a revolving door with celebrities dropping by, unknown people flitting in and out, and orgies fueled by cocaine and hallucinogens like mescaline.

It had been rented by Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son, a musician and record producer.

Michelle Phillips, of the Mamas and the Papas told of visiting that house and 'everyone in the house was busy filming an orgy and Sharon Tate was part of it'.

Melcher and his girlfriend, Candice Bergen moved into Doris Day's house in Malibu.

Melcher knew 'Charlie' Manson and along with his pal, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, they had been trying to get showbiz manager Rudy Altobelli, who owned the Cielo Drive home, to make Manson a star.

It was to the Cielo Drive house that Manson came to speak with Altobelli.

Polanski was in Europe finishing the script for the Day of the Dolphin and Sharon returned to America by ship, the Queen Elizabeth II, too pregnant to fly.

She did not want to come back to LA to have her baby and was very lonely. Roman filled the house with friends of his so she wouldn't be lonely. He wanted her in LA.

Sharon suspected he was having an affair in London. She thought about splitting up after having the baby.

Roman promised Sharon he would leave London the next day, Saturday – only to find out the embassy was closed and he couldn't get a US visa. He would have to fly the following Monday or Tuesday.

That was too late.

On the night of August 9, 1969, eight months pregnant, Sharon was stabbed sixteen times and murdered along with Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Steven Parent and Voyteck Frytowski – by the Manson Family.

The book's author concludes, after years of interviews with principals in the case as well as dogged research, that the one loose thread in the story is the role of a mysterious English satanic cult that was active in LA in those years.

The author learned new details after working with LA private investigator Larry Larsen, a former LA County deputy who assisted the investigation into the death of Robert F. Kennedy.

Larsen had been informed through associates that the English satanic group had recruited Charles Manson to murder Tate because of information she had learned about RFK's assassination.

The contention is that members of the English cult had invited Sirhan Sirhan to LA parties and one such party took place at Sharon Tate's residence, where sexual and ritualistic rites occurred – along with heavy drug use.

According to an Immigration and Naturalization Service report, the English Satanist group had commissioned Manson to kill Sharon because of 'something that she unfortunately overheard that she was not supposed to overhear either in regards to Sirhan Sirhan or about Sirhan Sirhan'.

Whether or not Sharon knew something about the Robert Kennedy assassination remains unanswered.

Sanders conducted a correspondence with Manson back in the 1980s. Manson sent him a six-page reply to a question list but also said 'I'm not schooled enough to play words on paper with you…'

Manson refused to answer a follow up question asking whether he was offered $25,000 to kill Tate as alleged by a woman and her husband who stated they witnessed the contact with Manson.

'Indeed, it may all be smoke and mirrors and ultimately impossible to prove beyond doubt's shadow,' writes Sanders.

'No loose ends can prevent our sense of outrage and anger for the horrible injustice perpetrated upon Sharon Tate and her friends.'