confidence and the role was given to Jeannine Riley. Ransohoff gave Tate small parts in Mister Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies to help her gain experience, but was unwilling to allow her to play a more substantial role. "Mr. Ransohoff didn't want the audience to see me till I was ready," Tate was quoted in a 1967 article in Playboy. During this time, Tate met the French actor Philippe Forquet and began a relationship with him in 1963. They became engaged, but their relationship was volatile and they frequently argued. Career pressures drove them apart and they broke up the next year in 1964. In 1964, she met Jay Sebring, a former sailor who had established himself as a leading hair stylist in Hollywood. Tate later said that Sebring's nature was especially gentle but, when he proposed marriage, she declined. She said that she would retire from acting as soon as she married and, at that time, she intended to focus on her career. 1964–1967: Hollywood recognition and Valley of the Dolls In 1964, Tate made a screen test for Sam Peckinpah opposite Steve McQueen for the film The Cincinnati Kid. Ransohoff and Peckinpah agreed that Tate's timidity and lack of experience would cause her to flounder in such a large part, and she was rejected in favor of Tuesday Weld. She continued to gain experience with minor television appearances and, after she auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Liesl in the film version of The Sound of Music, Ransohoff gave Tate walk-on roles in two motion pictures in which he was the producer: The Americanization of Emily and The Sandpiper. In late 1965, Ransohoff finally gave Tate her first major role in a motion picture in the film Eye of the Devil, costarring David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Donald Pleasence and David Hemmings. Tate and Sebring traveled to London to prepare for filming, where she met the Alexandrian Wiccan High Priest and High Priestess Alex and Maxine Sanders. Meanwhile, as part of Ransohoff's promotion of Tate, he arranged the production of a short documentary called All Eyes on Sharon Tate, to be released at the same time as Eye of the Devil. It included an interview with Eye of the Devil director J. Lee Thompson, who expressed his initial doubts about Tate's potential with the comment, "We even agreed that if after the first two weeks Sharon was not quite