“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”…Five Far-Out Manson Things That Really Happened.
By Neely Tucker
Published July 24, 2019 at 06:58PM
Courtroom sketch of Manson. Sketch: NAME….
Charles Manson scarcely appears in “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” the new Quentin Tarantino film, but the Manson family’s murderous home invasions on the nights of August 8 and 9, 1969, give the film its narrative tension and splatter ending.
The slayings left seven people dead, some of them famous and rich, most of them tied up and stabbed repeatedly. Actress Sharon Tate – wife of director Roman Polanski – was eight months pregnant, bound and stabbed dozens of time. She died screaming for her mother. Her killer was Manson acolyte Sharon Atkins, 21, also a mother, who paused to write “Pig” on the door in Tate’s blood before leaving. Manson’s “family.” mostly a wayward group of young women with a penchant for sex, drugs and knives, killed supermarket owner ?? LaBianaca, in much the same fashion the next night.
The nation, transfixed, looked at the killings and saw the larger society unraveling. Hippies, drugs, guns, celebrity, violence, racism, counter-culture revolution – it all blew up into the bloody vision of a man who wanted to ignite an apocalyptic race war. Joan Didion wrote that the ’60s ended the night of the slayings; “Helter Skelter,” prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s frightening book about the killings and the subsequent trial, is the best-selling true-crime book in U.S. history (more than 7 million and counting).
The Library has several items that document the slayings’ considerable impact on American culture, one of which is the iconic courtroom sketch of Manson by the legendary William Robles at the top of this post. Robles spent every day of the nine-month trial sitting a few feet away from Manson. When Robles once accidentally knocked over his sketching materials, making a clatter, he looked up to see Manson suppressing a giggle, running one index finger playfully down the other quickly: the “shame on you” gesture.
“I could see how people were attracted to him,” Robles said in a recent interview. “He had an appeal, a warmth.”
You probably didn’t know that about Charlie Manson, and you probably didn’t know some other mind-bending facts about the case, either. We went through the Library’s archives and picked out five of the most bizarre for you.
Pollice thought so little of him that they raided Spahn’s Ranch a couple of days after the Tate-LaBianca killings…for car theft. Turned him loose, too. had yet to go full Nazi-esque racist and get freaked out by The Beatle’s White Album, with its messages about “pigs” and “revolution.”
For months, LAPD did not think the the Tate-LaBianca killings were linked despite a staggering amount of evidence. The number of ways LAPD (nearly) blew this one is the subject of many, many books, but let’s start with the basic set of facts. Two vicious group home-invasion murders, ten miles apart, on consecutive nights. The victims were tied and stabbed dozens of times with similar knives, crazy amounts of overkill. The words “Pig” written on the walls in the victims’ blood in both houses…and police said, “Don’t see anything in common here!” It’s actaully worse: weeks earlier, ?? was killed with knife and gun, “Piggies” written in blood on his wall, and the cop in that jurisdiction didn’t see any reason to pass that along to his colleagues in Hollywood. Wait, it’s worse: When Susan Atkins, jailed for ?/ blabbed so many gruesome details that two inmates called the cops, breaking the case open, police never followed up on her detailed explanation of where they’d dumped all their bloody clothes. When her testimony finally went public, a TV film crew drove the route and found it within an hour. Wait, it’s still worse: A kid who up the road from the Tate house found a pistol in his yard a few days after the killing. His dad, noticing the broken handle and damaged barrel, called the police and gave it to them. The cop who took it put his hands all over it, wrecking any prints. The police never thought that the weapon might have been used in the Tate killing. The man who found the gun, seeing newspaper and television coverage mentioning the missing gun, called the precinct so often, demanding to know if they’d turn it in to the investigator, that he got in a shouting match, insisting that the cop turn it in. Ballistics immediately matched it.
JAY SEBRING, STABBING VICTIM, WAS A HOLLYWOOD LEGEND – It’s the gorgeous actress Sharon Tate, wife of the famous film diretor, Roman Polanski, who is the most remembered that night. People remember Peggy Folger, the coffee heiress, was also killed there. But Sebring, now almost completely forgotten, was a rock star. The Alabama native was even smaller than Manson, standing 5’2″ and 125 pounds at his autopsy, but by all the killers’ accounts, stood up for Tate when things began to get rough, and he was first one in the house to be shot. He all but invented the celebrity hairdresser for men idea. He did his time in the Navy, learned to cut and shampoo men’s hair (nobody did the shampoo thing then.) The A-List loved him. He was a playboy when that was the hip thing. You know how cool Jay Sebring was? He took martial arts lessons from Bruce Lee. His euglogy was given by Steve McQueen. Warren Beatty, another friend and client, came to the funeral and later based his role as a Hollywood stud in “Shampoo” on Sebring. So: Lee, McQueen, Beatty. Tried to defend his former girlfriend when killers invaded the house. He was buried back near his family in far less glitzy Detroit suburb of Southfield, Michigan, under his birth name of Thomas Kummer. He was 35.
During the trial, one defense attorney died (possibly killed), another was jailed (twice), Manson’s followers brought knives into court, Manson tried to storm the bench and the judge packed a pistol. Crazy times require crazy people, and L.A. was lit, kids. Knives were legal to carry, so long as they were openly displayed, even in the courthouse. Manson became furious at ??,. one of his defense attorneys, demanding he be fired. The next day, ?? went hiking in a remote area during a weekend break and was was never seen alive again. His drowned body was discovered in a creek on (wait for it) the day of the verdict! Meanwhile, fellow defense attorney ?? Kennerick was such an obstructionist, time-consuming showboat that even the jurors loathed him, defied so many warnings that the judge cited him for contemept and packed him off to jail after court finsiehd for the day. This happened twice.
Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi Called a Defendant “B*tch” in Court. This list could get to be a lot longer than five. But ?? walked by Bugliosi, ripped his papers off the podium sendin them (should we?) helter skelter, all over the floor. “You ?? bitch,” Bugliosi snapped. We know this because he quoted himself in his massive bestselling book.
The Jury Sentenced Three Young Women to Death in One Trial. The only time in U.S. history this has happened or even come close. The first woman executed by the U.S. government was Mary Surratt, who aided and abetted Linoln’s assassins. After that, even though women committ about 10% of all homicides, almost none were executed. In this trial, the jury gave the death penalty to all three. They were AGE, AGe, and AGE, and none had any serious prior records. But there was no doubt that ?/ stabbed Tate to death and said, “I’ve got no mercy for you, bitch.” Peggy Folger fought out of her bindings and ran for her life through the yard, screaming. ?/ ran her down, a knife reared over her head, stabbing her over and over until Folger fell. She called?? over for help. The next night, ?? stuck a knife in ?/ neck, a serving fork in his stomach and carved the word “war” into his flesh. ?? wrote the word “pig” in Tate’s blood. So, yeah. The 1972 halt to executions meant Calkfornia rolled all their sentences into life terms. That meant they were eligible for parole, under state law. None have ever been granted it. Atkins died in prison, cancer-riddern and ??. ?? is the longest-serving woman in ?? history, having served 42 years. And counting.
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