Feb. 26 – Once upon a time when Hollywood was the capital of the film world, a producer might see a likely girl in an ice-cream parlor or a bus queue or behind the counter of a store and exclaim: “Baby, I’m going to make you a star!” And such was the power of Hollywood in that golden era when the major studios controlled not only the making of films but theatres in which they were shown that the producer had at least a chance of fulfilling his promise – if his intentions were honorable.

But Hollywood is no longer all-powerful. The major studios no longer have their own theatre. A producer can no longer force a star into being by putting her into film after film until the public accepts her. The road to stardom for even dedicated actresses with natural talent is hard enough under the present system without taking a chance on amateurs.

And this is precisely why the case of Sharon Tate is so fascinating. She is a shimmering blonde beauty who went to Hollywood as a teenager with the vague idea of getting a modelling job and who was spotted by one of the shrewdest and more successful producers in films and television shortly after she arrived. And what did he say the first day he clapped eyes on her, before he even knew if she could act?

He said: “Baby, I’m going to make you a star!'”

Miss Tate uttered the historic cliché with a twinkle in her wide hazel eyes as she recalled the scene over tea in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel in London in the first interview of her career. As she sat there with every male eye in the place riveted on her lovely face, she represented three years of training and an investment hy her discoverer of at least $100,000 (though a press agent kept calling her “The Million-Dollar Baby”).

Miss Tate had just started work on her first film, starring with David Nisen and Kim Novak in an MGM-Filmways production titled simply, 13. This is audacious casting for a first role. But producer Marty Ransohoff felt Miss Tate was star material when he first saw her, had her coached for stardom and now that he considers her ready, sees no reason why she should not start at the top.

This kind of reasoning would have appealed to Samuel Goldwyn and Cecil B. DeMille. In these more skeptical times the industry is inclined to wait for the verdict of the critics when 13 has its premiere this spring. All one can say at this stage is that she certainly has the looks.

“Where shall I start?” asked Sharon, confessing that for her first interview she had fortified herself with extra doses of Vitamin C and malt tablets.

“At the beginning,” said her captive audience. “And put everything in because case histories like yours are very rare nowadays.”

Sharon said she was five feet, 5 1/2 inches tall, the daughter of Maj. Paul Tate of U.S. Army- Intelligence. She was born in Dallas, Tex., but never lived very long at any one place because of her father’s transfers. While they were living in Verona in Italy, a friend of the family, who was making a television series in Europe, suggested she ought to go to Hollywood. She thought it was a good suggestion since she had outgrown her original ambition to be a beautician after taking a course at Houston.

“I was very shy and bashful,” she said, “because my parents were very strict with me. But they agreed to let me go, after all sorts of warnings. They could afford to give me only enough money to get by and I just about made it to Hollywood. I had to hitchhike a ride in a truck to the office of an agent whose name I had. I didn’t smoke or anything and this agent asked me if I wanted to audition for a cigarette commercial. One of the other girls showed me how to do it: You take a deep puff on the cigarette and you put a look of ecstasy on your face as you exhale.

“I watched her puff a couple of times and then I went off to the audition. They gave me a cigarette. I took a deep puff, swallowed the smoke and passed out cold on the floor. That ended my career in cigarette commercials.

“The agent laughed when he heard about my choking on the cigarette smoke and a few days later he decided I needed experience to overcome my shyness so he took me along for a minor role in the television series, Petticoat Junction, whose producer is Marty Ransohoff.

“Marty saw me there in the office. He looked me over and then he said. ‘Baby’ – you know how Marty talks – ‘Baby, I’m going to make you a star.’ Then he called in one of his people and he said, ‘Sign this, girl!’ I’d only been back in the States for three weeks when all this happened.”

Miss Tate smiled up at the waiter serving tea which almost unnerved that gentleman. I don’t ever recall so many waiters servicing one table at that hotel.

“My whole life changed from then on,” Sharon went on. “I had never even driven a car, but when I signed with Marty the contract provided for one, and that was the first thing I got. That and a dog. These little things count, you know.

“Then they got to work on me,” Sharon said. “Make-up people, acting coaches, vocal coaches, dancing coaches, dialogue coaches, exercise coaches, riding instructors and more. First they wanted to use plastic surgery to get rid of this scar on my left cheek. I got it when I was three years old and fell into some glass. But I wouldn’t let them. I think its interesting. I’m covered in scars from auto wrecks and ski accidents. There’s one on this knee.”

Everybody solemnly examined the scar. So did the waiters.

“It was hard work,” she said. “I would get up early and head for the Jeff Corey school in Hollywood. I took three classes a day there. And so the days and weeks and months and years went by studying all the time. And learning all the time.

“When they finally decided I knew how to walk and talk and react naturally to any given dramatic situation they sent me to Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio in New York to learn some more.”

Actor’s Studio is the home of “The Method” school of acting. Marilyn Monroe and many other stars studied there.

“One of the rules Marty laid down when he signed me was no publicity and no professional acting until I was ready. So in order to give me some experience before the cameras he put a black wig on me so no one would recognize me and I played a stupid secretary in another of his television series, The Beverly Hillbillies! That was a great thing for me because I could see myself changing for the better week by week.”

Three years after that first meeting in Ransohoff’s office Sharon was judged ready for her first role. The novel Day Of The Arrow was being turned into the screenplay 13 and Marty saw her as Odile, the priestess of a sect which takes control of a remote French town.

Sharon said she found the process of actual film-making exciting but exhausting. She wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how she was doing in her scenes with veterans, Niven, Novak and Flora Robson.

“You would think that in three years of studying you would know it all,” she said, “but the first thing you find out is that you don’t. It’s almost like going back to school again except that I have the groundwork so when I’m told something now I know how to apply it. And the rest of the cast have been marvellous and helpful.

“The director, J. Lee Thompson, also takes all kinds of trouble with me. He’s very patient and I hope I am repaying him with the performance he wants.”

Ransohoff appears to have no doubts. He has already signed her for another film, a comedy, Don’t Make Waves.

There is no overwhelming romance in her life but she goes out most with a Hollywood men’s “hair stylist.” She says you can’t really call a man a barber who charges $30 for a haircut. She said she likes being pretty and being told she is.

“But my mother used to say to me: ‘Pretty is as pretty does. And if you do nasty things all the prettiness will go out ofyou.’

“Also, my agent warned me once: ‘Sharon. I can’t tell you how many beautiful girls have come to Hollywood and have never made it because they had nothing but their beauty.’ ”

And off she went in a chauffeured Mercedes. All part of The Star Treatment.

By ROBERT MUSEL