by Greg King
Chapter 7
Fearless Vampire Killers
The Fearless Vampire Killers (also referred to briefly as Dance of the Vampires and Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck) was intended as a spoof of the vampire horror genre, then very popular at England’s Hammer Studios with their various Dracula films starring Christopher Lee. Polanski wrote the screenplay with Gerard Brach. Professor Abronsius, a world famous vampire killer (played by Jack MacGowan) and his assistant Alfred journey to a remote mountain village in search of a vampire cult. At the inn, Alfred first encounters Sarah, the beautiful daughter of the owner (Alfie Bass). She is consumed with a desire to continually bathe, a habit, she says, she picked up at boarding school. He spies on her through a keyhole as she takes a bubble bath in the room next to his, and continues to watch as her father bursts into the room through another door and pulls his daughter from the tub, chastising her for her incessant bathing, and spanking her. Alfred is immediately attracted to her and, the following day, while making a snowman, he looks up to see Sarah watching him from a window in the inn.
Later that night, while the Professor sleeps, Alfred is startled by a knock on his bedroom door. It is Sarah, wearing a white nightgown whose low bodice reveals her generous cleavage.
“I’m not disturbing you, am I?” she asks.
“Not at all, not at all,” Alfred mumbles.
“I, I just don’t know what to do with myself,” Sarah proclaims. “I get so bored. You can’t imagine how bored I get. I don’t know, I’m just not used to being locked up the whole time.”
“You mean you’re always locked up?” Alfred asks incredulously.
She nods. “At school—we had fun there. We used to skip over the wall. We did all kinds of things. You know what I mean. Then Papa, I don’t know what happened to Papa. My room … my room is full of garlic. He says it looks pretty.”
After shyly flirting with the young assistant, Sarah asks permission to use his bath. “I got into the habit of it at school,” she explains. “He’s funny, Papa. You just can’t change your habits in a couple of months, can you? Besides, its good for your hair. Once a day is the very least, don’t you agree?”
Alfred fills the tub for Sarah, who then disappears into the suds. Again, Alfred spies on her through the keyhole. Suddenly, Sarah notices snow falling into her bath and looks up to see the leader of the vampire cult, Count von Krolock, slowly descending from a skylight. He attacks her in her bath, while Alfred, stunned into inaction, continues to watch.
Professor Abronsius and Alfred track von Krolock to his castle high in the mountains, where he has taken Sarah as his captive. After some difficulty, they gain entrance, only to be confronted first by the vampires’ hunch-backed servant Kukol (Terry Downes) and then by von Krolock himself and his homosexual son Herbert (Iain Quarrier). The Count bids the pair to stay as his guests, the bumbling professor happily chatting all the while he is plotting their deaths. That evening, Alfred hears Sarah singing in the distance and discovers her in a remote wing of the castle, taking one of her frequent baths. He is forced to leave her for the time being; later, when he again hears her singing and tries to track her down, he returns to the same room, only to find the count’s son Herbert, standing in a nightshirt at the side of a bathtub which he is filling with water.
Herbert is clearly interested in young Alfred, Polanski having made the homoerotic theme often found in vampire literature and films blatantly apparent here. Alfred, distraught at being alone with him, tries to flee, but Herbert, the more powerful of the two, makes him sit down beside him on the bed. Alfred has been carrying a small book taken from the castle library, a guide to ways of declaring one’s love, in the hopes of meeting Sarah. Herbert takes it from him and begins to read from an entry, placing his arm around Alfred’s shoulders as the guide instructs, and brushing his hair with his fingers. Alfred looks up, to see a large pier glass just opposite the bed, but his is the only reflection. He quickly jumps up and thrusts the book into the vampire’s open mouth just as Herbert is preparing to attack, and flees through the long castle corridors to find the professor.
After escaping from the vampire’s clutches, Alfred tells the professor that a ball is to take place that evening in the castle, a gathering of vampires at which Sarah is to be initiated into the cult. Alfred and the professor disguise themselves as guests and join in the festivities, gradually leading Sarah down the length of the ballroom toward the exit, when they suddenly find themselves before a large mirror. The dance ceases when the vampires notice that these three guests are the only ones in the ballroom to cast reflections. The professor grabs two swords, forming a cross on the floor to guard against a chase, and he, Alfred and Sarah attempt to flee from the castle. A group of vampires escape and pursue the trio, who jump into a waiting carriage and speed down the hill away from the castle, chased by Kukol in an empty coffin he is using as a sled. When Kukol flies off an embankment, it seems that they have escaped. But, in the final scene, with Abronsius driving and Sarah and Alfred in the rear seat, she turns to the young assistant and bites him on the neck, turning him into a vampire, and thus carrying on the cult.
There were numerous difficulties with the pre-production and actual filming of The Fearless Vampire Killers. For a British production, it was customary to hire British actors for all parts. Sharon, as an American, had to gain approval of the British Actors’ Union before her contract could be formalized. After some lengthy discussions, Equity finally agreed that, as the movie was being financed by an American production company, Sharon could star in the film.1
A far bigger problem was the location shooting. Polanski had originally wished to shoot on location at a castle in Austria; a sudden change in the weather melted the required snow, and meant that a new location had to be found. Finally, Polanski settled on Valgardena, a location in the Dolomites, near the Italian ski resort of Ortisei. There was no castle, however, so one had to be constructed on the back lot at the MGM Studios at Borehamwood for later scenes.2
Sharon arrived in Italy in the midst of a snow storm. Filming took place at the height of Ortisei’s ski season, so the cast and crew took rooms where they could, dispersed between a number of hotels and chalets. There was much outdoor filming, when the weather allowed, and when not, actors huddled in their hotels. During location filming, Sharon’s fluency in Italian made her invaluable as a translator.
The invasion of cast and crew thoroughly disrupted the relaxed pace of life at Ortisei. Polanski had ordered dozens of coffins made by local craftsmen. Tourists, unaware that a vampire movie was being filmed, were shocked to discover that, instead of hand-carved clocks and other souvenirs, the wood shops were filled with caskets. No one knew if an epidemic had erupted, or a landslide swept away a neighboring village, but the resulting flight of dozens of tourists inspired local hotels to post messages explaining the filming and assuring customers that no danger threatened.3
Sharon found Polanski a demanding director. In Eye of the Devil, she had easily managed to accomplish what she had been given to do. But her role as Sarah in The Fearless Vampire Killers, apparently just as uncomplicated, was made more difficult by Roman’s quest for perfection. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many takes she underwent, she quickly found that it was never enough. Polanski constantly picked her scenes apart, forcing her to do shoot after shoot: he later recalled that in one scene he had done over seventy takes before being satisfied with Sharon’s performance.4
Although she would later come to accept this sort of behavior as typical of the demanding Polanski, Sharon was deeply hurt and humiliated. Mike Mindlin, Filmways’ Vice President of Advertising, happened to be in Ortisei during the filming, and recalls: “Sharon used to come to my hotel room at night, and cry on my shoulder because of the way Roman had treated her. She was so sweet, and it was very hard for her to take.”5
After several weeks, Sharon learned how to accept Polanski’s criticism, and how to best respond to his direction. As her self
-confidence returned, Roman found himself increasingly drawn to her. At the end of each day’s shoot, they began to spend more and more time together. This led to problems on the set. Although there was never any expressed anger, certain elements among the cast and crew were jealous of the time and attention, not to mention the favor, which Sharon received. She, in turn, was acutely aware that eyes were focused on her, and strove to prove herself worthy.
In time, the relationship between Sharon and Roman intensified. They had seen each other off and on during the pre-production work in London, but, in Italy, things eventually became serious.6 Her feelings for Jay, whom she had not seen for almost six months, had faded, replaced at first with curiosity of, and then attraction to, Roman himself. Unlike Jay, Roman had no thoughts of marrying or settling down: his style of life was exciting, filled with opportunities for exploration and peopled with a charismatic, cosmopolitan mixture of actors, artists and celebrities who eagerly sought his favor. Her decision, when it came, was quick. One night, Roman knocked on Sharon’s hotel room door and asked shyly, “Would you like to make love with me?” and she replied “Yes,” leading him inside to her bed.7 From that moment, the pair were inseparable, director and actors on screen, lovers at night.
Chapter 8
The Beautiful People
After filming in Italy, the cast and crew of The Fearless Vampire Killers returned to the MGM Studios at Borehamwood to finish post-production work. But prolonged shooting in Italy meant that the production was over-schedule, and they had to move first to Elstree Studios, then to Pinewood Studios, in order to complete most of the interior work.1
In London, the relationship between Sharon and Roman grew more serious, much to the surprise of their mutual friends. Judy Gutowski, wife of Roman Polanski’s business partner Gene, was on friendly terms with both Roman and Sharon, eventually becoming one of the latter’s confidantes. When she first met Sharon, Judy Gutowski recalls that she expected her to “be nothing more than just another beautiful and not-too-bright American girl. But she surprised me—she turned out to be rather remarkable. In a way, she was naive. But she also had this tremendous unaffectedness and sense of decency and loyalty that really impressed people. She never bad-mouthed anyone and was completely free of the neurotic ambitions one usually associates with actresses.”2
As impressed as she was with Sharon’s character, however, Judy Gutowski sensed an inner turmoil, a need to be both accepted and dominated by men, a frailty she ascribed to Sharon’s insecurity.
Polanski was not a very likely candidate as Sharon’s ideal mate: scarcely conventionally handsome, only five-feet-five inches tall, Polanski seemed even shorter at the side of Sharon. His frequent bursts of temper did little to endear him to those unaccustomed to dealing with his difficult and demanding manner. But part of the allure Polanski held for Sharon, at least in the beginning of their relationship, was his powerful aura. Not only in business but in his personal life as well, Polanski had demonstrated a determined persistence to accomplish whatever he set out to do. In this, he mirrored Sharon’s own determination to succeed despite overwhelming obstacles, and this shared strength drew the pair together.
“It’s very difficult to describe Roman,” Sharon once declared. “He’s … well, the first thing you notice about him, is HIM. No bits or pieces; he just comes at you in one dynamic blast. If I had to break it down, he’s very sympathetic, very sensitive, very intelligent, very understanding, and a combination of explosives. He’s a very strong man. I mean, mentally. Because physical looks and that stuff don’t mean that much to me. I would say that Roman is interesting-looking … and you don’t dwell any further on that because of the kind of person he is.”3
Polanski, of course, was also surrounded by a sense of worldliness which many women found intensely attractive. He possessed a certain boyish charm, which often helped him out of uncomfortable situations. But he was also abrasive, always on guard against any drop in his carefully contrived image. Worse still, he had the reputation of being a relentless womanizer, of using and then casting aside countless conquests. Polanski seemed to regard most women as little more than inferior objects, provided for his sexual pleasure. “I have a very firm theory about male and female intelligence,” Roman declared in 1971. “It causes an absolute outrage if you say that women on the average are less intelligent than men, but it happens to be true.… I must admit that I rarely find an intelligent female companion with whom I can get along.… I do dominate them. And they like it!”4
Not surprisingly, Sharon found this intimidating. According to John Bowers, who interviewed her in 1967 for The Saturday Evening Post, she “wondered if tonight she would be thrown with people who would overwhelm her with their wit, their awesome knowledge, their self-confidence. When she was out in public with Roman, she never felt adequate enough to open her mouth.”5
Sharon, Polanski would later declare, “was an extremely bright person. But she would never be pushy about her intelligence in order to show people how clever she was. She knew it’s feminine to not try to compete with men and seem dominating.”6
Eager to please, Sharon quickly learned the rules of a relationship with Polanski. “She was so sweet and so beautiful,” he later said, “that I didn’t believe it.… I’d had bad experiences and I didn’t believe that people like that existed, and I was waiting a long time for her to show her color.… But she was beautiful, without this phoniness. She was fantastic. She loved me. She was a fucking angel.… I was living in a different house. I didn’t want her to come to my house. And she would say, ‘I don’t want to smother you. I only want to be with you.’ … And I said, ‘You know how I am; I screw around.’ And she said, ‘I don’t want to change you.’ She was ready to do everything, just to be with me.”7
Gradually, Sharon’s clothes, books, and personal belongings ended up in Roman’s flat around the corner from her own apartment. Roman was uneasy about the growing depth of the relationship. It all spoke loudly of commitment, something he had strenuously tried to avoid since the break-up of his marriage to Basia in 1962. Yet Sharon managed to convince him that she could accept his style of life. When she suggested that they make the move toward a stronger bond, he eventually agreed.8 In April, 1967, Sharon moved the last of her belongings to his house at No. 95 Eaton Place Mews. Ironically, the house was located just doors away from No. 46 Lower Belgrave Street, where, in 1974, John Bingham, Lord Lucan, is thought to have murdered his children’s nanny, mistaking her for his wife Veronica.
Roman had originally asked Krzystof Komeda’s wife Zofia to help him decorate the house. “But it turned out our tastes were not the same,” she remembered. “I wanted to make it macho: leather and fur covers, mirrors everywhere. So he did it himself, with crystal handles, and the bath was black, sunk into the floor—it was the first time I had seen anything like it in my life.”9 In the drawing room, a couch and chairs competed for floor space with unpacked boxes of books and clothing. A large, expensive stereo sat in one corner, surrounded by stacks of records—everything from Bach to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Two busts stood side by side, one of Polanski, the other of Napoleon. There were no pictures or paintings, only a framed citation for Polanski’s film Knife in the Water. Upstairs, in the large bedroom reached by a spiral staircase, stood an enormous bed Polanski had purchased with the help of Judy Gutowski.10 The whole place, according to one visitor, had a “transient look, as if the tenants would only be there for a short time.”11
Polanski was a demanding paramour, but Sharon seemed more than eager to please. An interviewer from The Saturday Evening Post later described how, after a day out, Roman came home, walked into the kitchen and went for a drink, only to find the refrigerator filled with beer and vodka. “Sharon! Sharon!” he called out in his somewhat stilted English. “There’s no liquor here! Always see to it that we have enough whiskey! Can’t you do that?” A few minutes later, he went upstairs to take a bath. Soon, he began to cry again, “Sharon! Sharon!” This
time he wanted her to bring him some tea. Surprisingly, Sharon didn’t seem to mind his demanding treatment, relishing the role of housewife.12
“Of course Roman and I live together!” she once said. “Well, how else is a person going to get to know a person? Now, you answer that? How else? Modern has nothing to do with it. I think it’s only realistic.… I’m not ashamed for anyone to know what I do—my parents or anybody else.”13
Sharon was genuinely happy in London, living with Roman and enjoying the life which went with his stardom. She cooked for him, hosted parties for his friends, and managed to keep him satisfied.14 “We used to wander round the city,” recalls one of Sharon’s friends, “shopping for clothes at Granny Takes a Trip or Indica, and lunching at Alvaro’s. She seemed content, really at peace, and very much in love. All day long, she would talk about what Roman had done, who he was seeing, what they were planning for that evening. I’ve never seen someone so completely absorbed with another person.”15
“There are so many talented young people with fantastic original ideas here,” Sharon declared of London. “The Mod Look, the long, straight hair for girls and long hair for boys, mini-skirts … it all started here and eventually got to America. Americans are too inhibited but they are slowly coming around to realizing what a swinging world we live in.”16