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Betty MacDonald, the author of The Egg and I and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Series is beloved all over the world. Don't miss Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald biography and his very witty interviews on CD and DVD!
Monday, November 20, 2017
Charles Manson dead
Charles Manson, 1971, being led away in handcuffs after being found guilty of murder.
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Charles Manson,
the pseudo-satanic sociopath behind a string of killings that shocked
California out of its late 1960s cultural reverie, died on Sunday after
almost a half century in prison. The 83-year-old, who died of natural causes, had been serving multiple life sentences in state prison in Corcoran, California,
for orchestrating the violence in 1969 that claimed the lives of Sharon
Tate, the heavily pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, and
six others. While his death prompted the inevitable and renewed questioning
around why his grim notoriety had been so enduring, Michele Hanisee,
president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los
Angeles County, said: “Today, Manson’s victims are the ones who should
be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death.” She went on to quote the late Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who
put Manson behind bars, who had said: “Manson was an evil, sophisticated
conman with twisted and warped moral values.”
Quick Guide
A quick guide to Charles Manson
As the leader of a cult known as the Manson Family, Manson had
instructed his followers, made up mostly of disaffected young women, to
carry out the killings. The brutality of the murders set Los Angeles on
edge, and ended the sunny optimism of the 60s counterculture and its
aspirations to a new society built on peace and love. Manson presented
himself as a demonic force: at trial, he carved a Nazi swastika into his
forehead.The five received the death penalty but were spared when capital
punishment was temporarily abolished following a ruling by the supreme
court in 1972. Manson and three female followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, were convicted of murder and conspiracy to murder. Another defendant, Charles “Tex” Watson, was convicted later.
Tate, the wife of Polanski, who was out of the country the night of
her murder, was eight and a half months pregnant when Manson’s followers
broke into her home in Los Angeles. They stabbed and shot Tate and her
visitors, Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski, coffee heiress Abigail Folger
and Steven Parent. The word “Pig” was written in blood
on the front door. Tate, who had starred in The Valley of the Dolls, was
stabbed 16 times, and an “X” was carved into her stomach.The next night, his followers murdered couple Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Although the followers committed the murders, Manson had ordered
them. At the LaBianca home, he tied up the couple before leaving others
to carry out the killings. After his death on Sunday night, Tate’s sister Debra told NBC:
“One could say I’ve forgiven them, which is quite different than
forgetting what they are capable of. It is for this reason I fight so
hard to make sure that each of these individuals stays in prison until
the end of their natural days.” In the 2004 book Sharon Tate Recollection, Polanski wrote:
“Even after so many years, I find myself unable to watch a spectacular
sunset or visit a lovely old house or experience visual pleasure of any
kind without instinctively telling myself how much she would have loved
it all.” Prosecutors at the time said Manson and his cult were trying to spark
a race war that he believed was foretold in the Beatles song Helter
Skelter, and hoped the Black Panthers would be blamed for the killings. Before the murders, Manson spent most of his teens and 20s in and out
of prison, and he later became a singer-songwriter. He got a break in
the music industry when he met the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. The
group later recorded Never Learn Not to Love, which Manson had written.
Manson in a 2017 California department of corrections photo. Photograph: Reuters
He became friends with the Byrds producer Terry Melcher (the son of
Doris Day) and even recorded 13 folksy songs for an album that
eventually was titled Lie: The Love and Terror Cult; it was released in
March 1970 to help pay for his defense.Manson had established himself as a would-be cult leader in the
Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. He took a handful of
followers, some of whom would later be convicted in the killings, to the
old Spahn Movie Ranch north of LA and turned it into a hedonistic
commune. Van Houten, the youngest member of the original Manson Family, later
said that Manson had used sex, LSD, Bible readings, repeated playing of
the Beatles’ White Album and rambling lectures about triggering a
revolution to brainwash her. Van Houten, 68, was convicted of the killings of Leno and Rosemary
LaBianca. She was recommended for parole in September but California’s
governor, Jerry Brown, has yet to approve the recommendation. He
rejected an earlier decision, concluding that Van Houten posed “an
unreasonable danger to society if released from prison”. In June, officials denied a parole request by Krenwinkel, the state’s
longest-serving female prisoner, after her attorney said she had been
abused by Manson or another person. She has been denied parole multiple
times in the past. Manson’s lawyer, Irving Kanarek, claimed his client was innocent during a 2014 interview with the Guardian.
“No question he was legally innocent. And, more than that, he was
actually innocent,” Kanarek said, arguing that there was no evidence
connecting him to the case. At a 2012 parole hearing, which was denied, Manson was quoted as
having said to one of his prison psychologists: “I’m special. I’m not
like the average inmate. I have spent my life in prison. I have put five
people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.”
According to the LA Times,
Manson committed hundreds of rules violations while being held at the
Corcoran state prison, including assault, repeated possession of a
weapon and threatening staff. Officials said he has spat in guards’
faces, started fights, tried to cause a flood and set his mattress
ablaze.In 2014, Manson and Afton Elaine Burton, a 26-year-old Manson devotee, were granted a marriage license,
but it expired before the two could marry. She had faithfully visited
him in prison for seven years. Manson had been denied parole 12 times,
with his next hearing set for 2027. His
death is unlikely to end interest in his crimes. Quentin Tarantino is
believed to be preparing a film that uses the murders as a backdrop for
its main plot, and an adaptation of Emma Cline’s bestselling 2016 novel,
The Girls, is on the way. Writer Joan Didion interviewed Linda Kasabian, the Manson family
member who acted as a lookout in the Tate and LaBianca killings and
later gave evidence at the trial, and described the atmosphere in
Hollywood in an essay from her collection The White Album (1979). “Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable…” Didion
wrote. “A demented and seductive vortical tension was building in the
community. The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs
barked every night and the moon was always full. “I remember that no one was surprised.” Reached at home in Manhattan, Didion, 82, told the Guardian:
“Manson’s legacy was never obvious to me. It wasn’t obvious when I went
to talk with Linda Kasabian, and it isn’t obvious to me now. But I do
find it easy to put him from my mind.” In 2008, California officials ordered the search of a deserted ranch
in Death Valley where Manson and his family briefly resided. The search
turned up no evidence of human remains. Manson may be gone but the persistence of his dark vision endures. “I
am crime,” he proclaimed in a telephone call to the New York Post from
prison in the mid-2000s.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.
