Fifty Years After the Infamous Murders, The
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By DENISE HAMILTON MANSON INC. We’re all curious about what might crook to Hollywood-adjacent wannabe to L.A.’s hurt us. ur-demon. This couldn’t have happened in Des Moines ―Federico García Lorca or Fairbanks. It could only have taken root in the nutrient sludge of sex, rock and roll, trust funders, he Benedict Canyon house drugs, outlaws, movie stars, crime, mysticism, was demolished years ago. and hippie flower power that defined ’60s L.A. A church looks down on And there it bloomed like a noxious weed—in the old ranch, which is the remote sandy canyons of the Simi Hills, the now a state park. Most rarefied green of Bel-Air, the historic hotels, everyone who fell under recording studios, and boulevards of Hollywood his thrall is dead, or aging and the Sunset Strip. quietly in prison. It fed off a society in turmoil, where the old TNone of that matters. The further events re- and new orders clashed and trust in institutions cede into history, the longer their shadow looms, eroded daily. It required the kind of upheaval that and that of their dark progenitor. we see today, as a new reality-altering drug drips That’s the way it is with myth. With the stories into our veins—the internet. that we tell each other, that we’ve handed down Maybe that’s why now, 50 years on, the tale since before we huddled around the cave fire at only resonates more profoundly. night, seeking safety from predators. Those fables He didn’t kill anyone. were filled with gods, mortals, evil, good, power, and He enslaved the will of others so completely forbidden pleasures; they were meant to teach us that they did it for him, laughing and chanting as and scare us and set us on a path of righteousness. they stabbed with their steely knives, grateful to But what if all this time we were just tricking be chosen. More than anything, that’s what repels ourselves, thinking the danger was out there in us, even as it draws us in. And that’s why he tops the dark and we were safe inside. the demonic pantheon, muscling out L.A.’s more What if the predator has been in the cave with prolific serial killers—the Hillside Strangler, the us from the beginning? Night Stalker, the Grim Sleeper. What if he is inside us? The press had to manufacture lurid nick- This story is real. names to amplify their notoriety. He didn’t need It happened 50 years ago, during the extend- that kind of help. Our L.A. demon had only one ed hangover that followed the Summer of Love. Fifty years after the name—his own. Joan Didion said that it slammed the door on the Manson. 1960s. But the decade was already on life support. infamous murders, the He finally died in 2017, after surviving almost You all know his name. He was born else- mythology of Manson a half century behind bars. But as we’ve learned where, in obscure poverty, but, like so many, from zombie and vampire flicks, it’s hard to kill was drawn mothlike to the lights of Los Angeles, shows no sign of abating— the undead. the possibility of shedding the past, reinventing We are complicit in stoking his myth. Greed- himself, and claiming the fame and fortune this nor does the pop culture ily we seek answers: Why did he? How could city has always dangled before dreamers with the cottage industry that has they? Was it drugs? The mob? The government? Charles Manson in wiles of a femme fatale. The cops? Was it premeditated, or a robbery or his cell at California Here, he began the metamorphosis from petty arisen around him. drug deal gone wrong? Conspiracy theories swirl Medical Facility in Vacaville, 1982. Photo by Neil Leifer/Getty Images. 22 • JOURNAL OF ALTA CALIFORNIA • JUL-AUG-SEP 2019 CHARLES MANSON MERCHANDISE PHOTOS BY CHRIS HARDY JUL-AUG-SEP 2019 • JOURNAL OF ALTA CALIFORNIA • 23 ground to wreak havoc. by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt) as they Manson even tainted my love of the Beatles, navigate a rapidly changing Hollywood that no MANSON though I never heard the black uprising Manson longer embraces westerns. The cast includes Aus- divined in “Blackbird.” Nor did the proto-punk de- tralian actor Damon Herriman as Charlie, as well livery of “Helter Skelter” inspire anything in me but as Dakota Fanning as Manson follower Squeaky INC. spasmodic flailing, which I’d perfect in L.A. clubs. Fromme. Oh, and DiCaprio also happens to live Later, working as an L.A. Times reporter and at the top of Benedict Canyon, on a street called passing the Hall of Justice, I pictured the Manson Cielo Drive, next door to a beautiful blond actress around our nightmare-encrusted brains—as they girls walking the corridors with their carved-X named Sharon Tate (portrayed by Margot Rob- did around his. foreheads, shaved heads, and tatterdemalion out- bie). So yeah, plenty of Manson, though perhaps Many of us faced dark times, dreamed of fits. They were modern Furies from Greek myth, the biggest fantasy for us in 2019 is a fading cow- remaking the world, sought answers. Would we flickering behind spacey smiles. Manson was boy who can afford Benedict Canyon. have fallen prey to him? To the promise of insta- Loki, the trickster god who could slip his chains The film captures a world, like Manson’s, in family, free love, a communal utopia? Would our and disappear into the ether. Lo and behold, he which fame was always tantalizingly close, or children have? did, returning as the ghost in the machine called fleeting even when you reached it. Spahn Ranch Will the day ever come when his legend crests, the internet. In his old age, he even found a new was a 1920s-era western set that was being used then slowly dwindles until he’s reduced to a bug- Manson girl to adore him and shave off her hair, mainly as a horse ranch when Manson lived eyed avatar of pop evil, screaming his helter-skel- a 20-ish daughter of Missouri Baptists called Star there. Several filmmakers wanted to make doc- ter gibberish into the void? who moved to Corcoran to be near him. umentaries about his family’s hippie lifestyle. Probably not. Manson’s associates knew experimental film- Not when each year brings new books, movies, This is the closest to Pulp Fiction that maker Kenneth Anger and had been active on the TV shows, songs, websites, podcasts, YouTube I’ve done. fringes of the film and music worlds. videos, bus tours. Not when there’s still such But the big break never came. And so, eaten a robust Manson merch market online—from —Quentin Tarantino, away by hate and jealousy, lusting for revenge T-shirts and coffee cups to his jailhouse flip-flops on Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood and power, Manson took a different path. (asking price: $5,000) to white infant onesies emblazoned with his scrawny, hairy image and us tours are but a sliver of There’s a time for living that evil stare. the pop culture juggernaut Time keeps on flying Manson. that is Manson Inc. The Think you’re loving baby movies, books, reportage, But all you’re doing is crying The truth behind the Manson Family’s podcasts, websites, musi- crimes is even weirder, darker, and cals, and even an opera —Charles Manson, more complicated than you know. continue to arrive. In the “Look at Your Game, Girl” 2015 filmManson Family Vacation, two dysfunc- —Description of Esotouric’s Btional brothers tour Manson crime sites while anson was a crap Mansonland Bus Tour trying to bond. In a recent TV series, Aquarius, musician and song- David Duchovny plays an LAPD detective in 1967 writer. But the course n an overcast day in late win- tracking down a missing teen girl who has joined of history might have ter, I clamber aboard the bus. the Manson family. Karina Longworth’s excellent been different if he’d The Manson bus. podcast You Must Remember This devoted an en- made it in rock and Not the beat-up one the tire season to Manson. Numerous novels use the roll. family lived in. That’s long ANDREW COOPER/SONY PICTURES crimes as backdrop (Steve Erickson’s Zeroville) or He got several shots in 1968, when Beach Boy gone. whose brother used to pick up the Manson girls comedy suddenly feels less innocuous: “Turn Up Actress Margot Robbie, who plays Sharon Tate in explore growing up in a Manson-like cult (Emma MDennis Wilson picked up two Manson girls hitch- This black luxury liner hitchhiking. She has friends who were “creepy- Charlie,” it warns us. “Tables Will Be Turned.” director Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon a Time Cline’s The Girls). The angles and approaches to hiking on Sunset and brought them to his Pacific tour was dreamed up by married cultural histo- crawled” by the Manson family—those practice It’s just a coincidence, man. in…Hollywood, filming a scene. The movie, set in the the 50-year-old story are as inexhaustible as Palisades mansion for a romp. Within weeks, Orians Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, founders runs they’d make, breaking into homes, prowling We pass what was once a hair salon owned by summer of 1969, explores Hollywood and celebrity. our imaginations. Manson and his family were living there of the sightseeing company Esotouric. During our around, and leaving traces that they’d been there.