Sharon Tate was murdered on August 9, 1969. We’re all too familiar with the details so I’m passing on discussing them here. Instead, I’d like to share this rarely seen clip of Tate at work as an actor.

In this screen test for Valley Of The Dolls, Tate is playing beautiful pill popper Jennifer North, a role she eventually landed much to the delight of guilty pleasure seekers like myself.

The actor is Tony Scotti who played the adulterous scumbag Tony Polar, whose cheating ways propelled the emotionally frail Jennifer into the arms of Morpheus.
 

Best-selling author Jacqueline Susann and Judy Garland at a 1967 press conference.
 
Judy Garland’s screen test for Valley of the Dolls. Re-blogging this from Billy Beyond, who writes:

After they fired her she took the costumes and performed in them at the Palladium in London. Go Judy.

The idea of casting Judy Garland as aging actress “Helen Lawson” in Valley of the Dools was pure genius, when you consider that Patty Duke’s “Neely O’ Hara” character was so obviously based on Garland herself. Not that Susan Hayward wasn’t great in the role, she was, but it would have been even better with Judy Garland.
 

 
After the jump, Patty Duke tells the story of Judy Garland getting fired from Valley of the Dolls... and her revenge!