Photo: Terry Oneill/Iconic Images/Getty
It’s been nearly 50 years since thetragic murderofSharon 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 anew bookTerry 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.”
Terry Oneill/Iconic Images/Getty
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.'”
“I was shocked to the core,” says O’Neill. “It was so horrible.”
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.
Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images
“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, includingAudrey Hepburn,Elizabeth Taylor,Diana Ross,Elvis Presley,Queen Elizabeth, andthe Beatles,that O’Neill shot over his nearly six decade career.
RELATED VIDEO: Hilary Duff Transforms into Sharon Tate for New Psychological Horror Film About Her Death
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 Unseenis available for purchase now.
source: people.com
