Episode 34 - Helter Skelter

On the anniversary of the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders at the hands of the Manson Family in 1969, we revisit the landmark made-for-TV movie "Helter Skelter" (1976) based on the bestselling true crime book by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's the Dearly Departed Podcast, featuringyour host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. All right, itis Dearly Departed Podcast. It is episode
thirty four, and I'm Mike Dorsey, I'm Scott Michaels. And if you're

(00:29):
watching a video version, you knowwhat this is about already because Scott is
wearing his Helter Skelter shirt, TheTrue Tour, the Helter Skelter Tour.
We are going to be talking aboutthe original Helter Skelter, the Helter Skelter
made for TV movie from nineteen seventysix that was based off of Vincent Bugliosi's

(00:51):
book of the same title. TheHelter Skelter Book one of the most famous
true crime novels ever written. Ithink it's still probably the number one ever
sold, probably the most famous.But yeah, yeah, all of those
things. Yeah, So obviously thisis an area we love to talk about.
We talked about it before because wedid our whole episode on Once upon

(01:15):
a Time in Hollywood. Um,and you know Scott and I. If
you don't know, I'm sure youdo. We did the movie, the
documentary The Six Degrees of Helter Skelteron the Mansons, which, by the
way, Buzzfeeds BuzzFeed readers ranked itthe fourth scariest documentary ever made scary interesting.
Yes, you know that. Youknow Brandon Brandon's music really really complimented

(01:38):
that documentary so very much. Anduh yeah, so I can see where
there's some really when we were goingat the Barker Ranch, it's right,
people are really kind of chilled bythat. And uh yeah, yeah,
well that's that's neat that it haslongevity, like and the walk up the
Cello drive at night and the homevideo footage and the crime scene photos.

(01:59):
Yeah, um pretty. I rememberit was like early days of social media
when that came out, and Iremember seeing a post by like a teenager
saying that they were watched that basicallythat they watched our movie is like the
horror movie of the night to scareeach other with. Basically, it was
really like what I used to dowith my friends when I was in high
school. We would watch horror moviesto scare the girls. So and that's

(02:21):
in ourselves them. It's funny howpeople say, oh I watched it.
I can I mean, I can'twatch a documentary more than once and I
get and I get you know,letters or as I say, notes from
people saying I watch it, youknow, probably three times a month.
I turned it on to go tosleep too. Yeah, it's like that's
really cool that it has a cultfollowing. Um, you have such a

(02:42):
soothing voice, Scott that even whenyou're talking about mass murder, it just
puts people in the calm people tosleep and puts people to sleep. Oh
my god, it's so hot,you need you need to do what's that?
Uh? What's the sleeping apps?The sleep app that helps you like

(03:02):
go to sleep and like celebrities readstories. I've never heard that one.
The calm app that has like celebrities. Yeah, it's like calming music,
but then it's like celebrities read stuff. Harry Styles has done it. Matthew
McConaughey, Matthew McConaughey and Jake JillanHall have all done like I've done this

(03:28):
calm app readings. So we coulddo the Scott Michael's one where you like
read calming stories about death and youdon't murder. Reading is really difficult to
do, you know it Really it'shard to do when you're doing it because
you anytime you stumble, you can'trepeat yourself, you can't go and or
um every time you you know youyour mouth makes a whistle, noise or

(03:51):
something, that's it. You gotto redo it. And eight I read.
I listened to audio books never likefourteen hours long. I can't imagine.
And and a lot of times theyare narrated by like the author,
and I'm like, God, thatmust have taken so long. Because when
you work with I've worked with professionalactors in the Vio booth and they're amazing,
Like they one take, they willnail it every time, one to

(04:13):
two times, I mean, andthey could read an entire page and not
mess up one time. And you'relike, how I can't get more than
a two sentences out right. It'sit's hard work, and you're it's exhausting.
It sounds so, you know,but but when you're reading it,
just reading for an hour, thatis really it's exhausting. It is.
I'm not saying it's hard work asin physical labor, but there is a
physical toll and you're just doing theseI mean, I'm ready to pass out

(04:35):
after we do our podcast. Ityeah, I mean, it's it's engaging
it's fun, but it's it's it'stiresome. You know. It takes a
lot of audio. And you werea radio DJ, but you used to
be able to play songs. Youwould only have to talk for a couple
minutes at a time, right,and then here's the music for ten and
news you know, but news wasnothing. Yeah, people screw up on

(04:58):
the radio all the time, soit doesn't ma but because it's throwaway,
but yeah, fourteen hour memorializing afourteen hour story is really is really.
So I'm doing one right now onthe on the Hertford Circus fire and oh
that thing I had where all theone hundred and sixty some people died in
a fire and while they went tosee the circus, I mean is that's

(05:19):
a mental story and they go crazyabout they're crazy in depth about the condition
of the bodies and stuff. It'sbeen very very interesting, very very interesting.
So we did the sixties of sixDegrees of Helter Skelter and Scott.
You were a credited consultant on TarantinosOnce upon a Time in Hollywood, which

(05:39):
was also on this story, andthen you've contributed to at least one book
on the Manson murders, right,several I think you know they quoted me.
Yeah, I was on I workedon those that Aquarius show, that
David Kovany Manson show. That onethat they did was there was a really
good mini series, the The Mythof Helter Skelter that was on reels a

(06:01):
couple of years ago. It's likefour nights. Um. So you know
this, this documentary has really givenyou know, me longevity in that regard
of a mansion. It's just it'sweird to become a person that is considered
you know, some kind of uhI don't even like the term expert,
but you know what I mean,a focal point where people come for information,

(06:25):
and it's it's very odd to uhto everything always goes there, like
our our podcast always go there becauseit's our interests. Um. But yeah,
so I've been I've been lucky sosomewhat at least experts on the case,
uh pay in one of us evenpaid expert on the case with you,
Scott. So Um. That's whywe wanted to dive into this,

(06:46):
and of course it's always interested us. Um. But before we get into
it, well, first of all, an announcement, we have moved our
our location, our podcast home.We were on pod being for the first
like three and a half years.Um, and we just this week moved
over to Spreaker, which is underiHeartRadio. UM and they're a really great
service and so now we will haveum some ads, but not not too

(07:09):
many. We don't want to addflood people with ads, but there will
be a few ads, um,like beginning and end and like in the
middle, like at some point inthe middle there's there's an ad. So
UM. So anyways, we're reallyexcited to be on Spreaker. Yeah.
No, it's moving up and theyseem like really like they'll be uh actively
you know, putting it in arotation, so it's neat that more people

(07:30):
will be able to hear this.Yeah. They um, they reached out
to us, so that's nice andthey were really helpful in helping us move
over. So thank you Spreaker.UM. We had some interesting before we
get to hate mail, we havesome good mail. Yes tell me.
Uh. First of all, onTissa, I think that's how you pronounced
the name on our Patreon page,wanted to know if we'd heard about Gwyn
Shamblin and Joe Laura, who playedTarzan at one point. Um they were

(07:54):
married couple and she had this um. Some people referred to it as a
cult um like it was like aweight loss group or organization that was based
on like the Bible lessons of theBible to help you would lose weight kind
of and they die. Yes,if you're going to be in a weight
loss cult, I may as wellbe that one, right, yeah,
U soum sou So. They diedand her and her husband died tragically in

(08:20):
a plane crash last year, aprivate jet crash into a lake right after
takeoff. And so there's an HBOI think like a mini series or something
documentary series maybe coming out about it, called The Way Down, which I
think is what her book was called. UM, I'm really excited. Maybe
it's out now, I don't know, but I'm really excited because when that
story happened, was one of thoselike kind of oh wow, this is
the more you look at it,the more bizarre it got. Kind of

(08:41):
a story you know, in whatsense? Is it bizarre because of the
people or is there something about thecrash itself that made it get weirder and
weirder. It wasn't the crash itself. That was weird. It was like,
oh, you know, they anactor who played Tarzan died in a
plane crash. That's okay, Well, that's kind of a celebrity. A
celebrity dies in a plane crash.That's weird its own, right, But
they just the fact that then itwas like, oh, and his wife

(09:03):
was this kind of had this kindof cult thing going on with the weight
loss, and there was a bunchof church people that were on your church
leaders in her group that were onthis flight that went down. It just
was all just add an extra layerof intrigue. Which Tarzan was he so
he was actually it was Joe Lauraand he was Tarzan in the series Tarzan

(09:24):
the Epic Adventures, which was inthe nineties for like a couple of years,
okay or a year. It wasone season. He stars in for
one season, So it's apparently itwas about the character of Tarzan in his
early years, after his first exposureto civilization, before his marriage to Jane.

(09:45):
Oh think I'm married. I guessthey did. That's nice. Wow,
that's interesting, Well because when yousaid that, now I went straight
back to what I thought the Tarzandeath was going to be and it was
just ron Eli. We talked aboutit on one of our one of our
other podcasts of you know current oneof the Patreon ones with the current obituaries.

(10:05):
But ron Eli was eight Tarzan whowas murdered. He was shot to
death by his son and um thirtyyear old son of Tarzan was called justifiable
homicide after he had fatally stabbed hismother and then shot his father and killed
him Holy cash. So that yeah, that was That was just nineteen twenty,

(10:26):
nineteen October. I think we've uncovereda Tarzan curse maybe so maybe so,
uh, although I can't think ofanother. I don't know, but
who else was Tarzan Wismuller, Wisemoeller. Then there was Buster krab I think
it was Krabatar, and then MilesO'Keefe who did it with Bo Derek in
the in the eighties and the seventiesor eighties, and I'm sure there are

(10:48):
many many more. But uh,but yeah, that was that was something.
But yeah, so plane crashed Tarzanand interesting. Well, thanks for
the tip. So thanks for thetip. Tissa. Sorry and I think
that's how I pronounce your name,but I'm sorry if I got it wrong.
Douglass also sent us an email inwhich was pertinent to the subject matter
of today's show. He said,Um, he was about to start reading

(11:11):
The Family by Ed Sanders and wantedto ask if there's any other Manson related
books to recommend. And I askedyou, and then you sent me a
picture of like fifty books on yourbookshelf that are all man There's like two
bookshelves. Yeah, but I wouldsay, um, really I would.
There was there's a lot of there'sa lot of books that focus on the

(11:31):
theories. Yeah, and we know, like the race war thing was just
a small part really of what wasgoing on. It was just what BOC
used to prosecute the case. Andmore power too. But I like the
ones to give you more background onthe people themselves. And my friend Greg
King, he wrote a book calledSharon Tate and the Manson Murders and it's

(11:52):
hard to get but it was reallygood. I mean it just went into
the depth about about the people.I read that Jeff Um Jeff Gen Manson
biography, and that was the onewhere I when I read that, it
was like, oh, I cansee how somebody he had the odds stacked
up against him. From minute one. You know he was When I said
it, I said, he wasjust bad from the beginning. And how

(12:13):
bad is a term I don't Idon't necessarily like using when it comes to,
you know, just wiping people away. But he had the odds stacked
against him. Um and uh.The Tom O'Neil book that everyone goes on
about, the Chaos book, Igot about a third of the way into
and I lost interest. It washe put together some very interesting theories,

(12:35):
but I got really bored with hisuh, with his Buliosi bashing And did
you feel like it was like hewas conspiracy nut stuff or you just didn't
like that it was very all bashingof bulio It's you know, I was
exhausted by how he was really goingfor buglios and that ruined a lot of
it for me. That I wasjust like, here we go again.

(12:56):
Okay, we know, we knowyou don't like him, and this is
what he did. And it concentratedso much on Buliosi's personal life, and
it's like it's supposed to be aboutthis. So I got bored with it.
But I'll tell you I got somereally interesting pieces out of that that
that changed the way I thought aboutthe crimes definitely as its fans like I
see people talking about it. Yeah. Now the other books that are like

(13:16):
the books that are written by thepeople, The Texas Watson book Will You
Die for Me? I like thatone. Susan Atkins did one called Child
of Satan, Child of God,which kind of sucked, but her last
version of it, called The Mythof Helter Skelter, made some things seriously
click in my head. The Mythof Helter Skelter, Susan atkins last book.
You might even be able to downloadthat for free on her website.

(13:37):
Missus La Bianca wrote a book,the first missus La Bianca wrote a book
about Leno la Bianca, which islike this thick and I'm like, sorry,
it isn't that interesting of a guy. Tall Watkins, part of the
family wrote a book with that NewChicks Snake wrote a book. I didn't
bother reading that one, The SqueakyBook I read that was a bit technical.

(13:58):
There's so many books. There's somany books. The Ed Sanders one
was the second one I ever read, and it was like the storybook version
of Helter Skelter. So there's somereally good ones. The family by Ed
Sanders, which was reissued as SharonTate Something a couple of years ago.
But I would say the Susan Atkinsbook The Myth of Helter Skelter, and
Tex Watson's book is a very interestingbook. Will You Die for Me?

(14:22):
And I think you can download thatfor free on his website too, his
prison Ministry. So those what Iwould recommend, and I will always recommend
Helter Skelter. And people, Iget so much crap for that for recommending
that book, but people, peopleare you know, people take Bugliosi to
task for things he did in hislife, and they talk about this myth

(14:43):
of Helter Skelter like the whole thingsof myth, and the book Helter Skelter
is the truth of the trial.You could take that book and analyze everything
that really happened. Now this otherstuff you want to talk about, race,
war, business, Okay, that'sincidental, how not really, because
that's how we got the process action. But if you want to sit in
the book like I did with ahighlighter the second time I read it,

(15:03):
it happened at this address at thistime, and this is what they found,
and this who was there, andthis is the this is the witness,
and this is who heard the screens, and this is who and this
is when the funerals were And it'sa technical book, a dissection of the
of the crimes and the truth ofthe trial. So I will I will
defend him because he did what hehad to do. But I always describe
it as sort of like Mamma Mia, you know, he took they took

(15:26):
all these avas songs and rove itin together to a plot of a story
they could right to make sense outof it. One of my favorite lines
from the movie, and I'm gonnaparaphrase it, but it was from Helter
Skelter film, was um, hebasically bulios. He tells it's something an
effect of he kind of rates thelaw enforcement officers on the case and basically

(15:48):
is like you Essentially, he's like, you keep looking for conventional explanations for
a non conventional crime. Yeah,for the crazy explanation. It's a crazy
crime. Thought that was really great, Like, oh, it's a drug
killing. It asked, it's justa drug murder. He's like, no,
it's weirder than that. Yeah,So it does. He can criticize

(16:08):
a lot, but he did hisjob, and yeah, they would say
Manson was innocent. Well a lotof people say that, but you know,
he had he didn't have technically bloodin his hands with those seven people,
but he did try to kill others, and he did participate in another
son any any an, he tiedup the La Bianca's. Yeah, so
there's you know, he was notHe wasn't some wide eyed person who just

(16:30):
said, you know, did hetell people to kill him? Probably not,
you know, but he made quiteclear what he wanted. You know
what to do. You take thisknife and you know what to do.
I mean, that's a fine linebetween telling someone exactly and then implying,
you know, basically, but uhyeah, it's bizarre. But I guess
said but mister Buliosi, I will. I have a lot of respect for

(16:51):
him, and you know, asa human being. I don't know.
I met him several times. It'svery nice to me. I met his
wife several times. She was verynice to me, and and he got
the job done. So yeah,that's my other favorite part of the movie
is when they're at the they're talkingto the judge, like at the they're
having like a conference with the judge, and he he he corrects Manson's defense
attorney. It's like it's Bugliosi,the g as silent. Yeah. Yeah,

(17:15):
and a lot of people don't.We'll still do that. Yeah,
sometimes say Bugliosi. So yeah,I get it. I was laughing at
myself, I think more than anythingelse. Yeah. The haters call him
the bug the pay well, theyactually did. The killers called them that
too, the bug, so theystill do. The people that hate him
call him bug bug. Yeah,I get it. Yeah, Hey,

(17:37):
it's bool, get it right.Um. So anyways, thank you Douglas
for recommend or for asking us thatquestion. And thanks oh now, just
a nod to uh to another personwho watches or listens to us, Ron
Powers. He's the guy that suggestedwe go through all the Helpter Skelter movies
and talk about them, and that'swhat sort of this one up. So

(18:00):
so Ron Powers, thanks for suggestingthis. Yeah, thank you Ron.
Um. Okay, uh, didyou get any hate mail? Any good
ones? Hate mail? You know, most of them are pretty pretty allowsy,
but there are there was one aboutthem, the Jane may Well,

(18:22):
Gene Mansfield and the James Dean videothat we did. Uh. There's supposedly
some kind of tour guide expert,yet you don't know whose cars those are
in the most famous photo of JamesDean ever taken. How embarrassing you need
to brush on your homework? Brushup? You know, I don't know
Bubba with Domini Beard, I don'tknow. That was stupid. But what

(18:44):
for you, Scott? Yeah,you know, how dare you? How
do you not be an expert?And everything in the background of your your
videos. But there's that one videothat I put up about, you know,
the Jay Mansfield car, and Itook my camera and I went through
every inch of the interior of whichhere for people who don't know, you
own the car that Jane Mansfield diedin right outside New Orleans. Yes,

(19:04):
and I took video of the inside'svideo know and also ever see anywhere else
in the world you know this isthis is the car, and people,
you know, criticize a lot ofit, and that's find whatever. But
somebody wrote, I'm sure Mariska Hargeteis mortified that you have the car.
There are rules. I would bethrilled of Mariska Hargete with watching one of

(19:26):
my videos. There are rules,Mike, didn't you get there are rules?
We break all of them. Allthese unspoken rules were the rule were
the unspoken rule breakers. It's funny, it's funny. There's social norm Scott
and so many people do you knowthey really James Dean killed himself by traveling
too fast. It's like, youknow, no, no he didn't.

(19:48):
But it's just it's just you can'treason with people, and just diving into
the comment is so stupid. Imean, I was listening to it.
Was it Joe Rogan or somebody likethat, who is just saying don't don't?
Why? Why do I want thatat Why do you want to expose
myself to that? Yeah? Itdoes nothing but make you feel terrible and
uh and it's true, it's true. Um, well, we don't feel
terrible about our hate mail and whenit's creative. No no, oh,

(20:12):
well I'll tell you this in asecond anyway. So that's it. The
end, the end, the end, the end. Okay, hold on
a second, I'm gonna pause fora second. All right, So we
get into the main feature. Themain feature, Helter Skelter is coming down.

(20:33):
It's time for the main feature.Here's a piece of trivia for you,
Mike. Before we even start,My birthday is on August eighteenth.
Okay, so I'm gonna I'm turningsixty in August eighteenth. Oh wow,
I know right right. So Ishare my birthday with Roman Polanski and Bent

(20:56):
and Pouliosi. Wow, it's cool. That also means the Roman, Pilanski
Bugliosi share a birthday, which onits own was kind of wild. But
yeah, top of that, ScottMichael's the biggest Manson expert, I know,
expert, expert expert. Yes,it's just a fun bit of trivia,
A fun bit of trivia. That'samazing. It is weird, well,

(21:19):
very weird. M So Helter Skelterwas a TV movie. There was
over three hours long, and itwas broken up into two different nights in
nineteen seventy six. It aired onback to back nights April first in April
second of nineteen seventy six. Aswe already said, it was based on
Bugliosi's The Prosecutor's Book. At thetime that it aired, it was the

(21:42):
highest rated made for TV movie everthat it ever aired. It pulled like
a sixty percent share on its secondnight, which is insane, and I
think it was surpassed by Roots thefollowing year, but up to nineteen seventy
six, it was the biggest TVmovie ever made, and it was nominated
for three Emmys for Music, Directing, and editing, and it focused it

(22:03):
primarily on the investigation into the crimesand then the prosecution, which I thought
was really interesting. M Yeah,I did see yeah, because I watched
it when the first when it aired. I mean, this is this is
the movie that that kind of turnedme onto the whole thing because they because
Steve rows Back, his Manson waspretty pretty terrifying, and you know,

(22:26):
just just those I know, Inoticed at one point, you know,
he does the crazy stare, youknow, just a dead stare. And
I noticed one time it was likea still frame that they didn't they just
showed him, you know, andit did still frame. Yeah, but
those long gazes and those those terrifyingeyes. And I remember that scene when
I was a kid that when thatcame out, and then when I found

(22:47):
out that Manson is going to beeligible for parole, I was a little
kid in Detroit and scared Manson wasgoing to come out crawling up the side
of my house, you know,because they made him into such a terrifying
creature. And I remember vividly beingthere scene that one scene in the courtroom
where he looks at Buliosi and hiswatch stops and uh and that that was
that was terrifying. Yeah, thatwas a really scary, scary bit.

(23:12):
Um. It's funny how you knowat the end they did, they did
like that whole thing at the endwhere they let the audience know that that
that after they were sentenced, youknow, California overturned the death penalty and
then they did the whole oh scarythey could be out in two years thing,
you know els role of course,you know most of them have died
or will die in prison. Mansoncertainly did in the end. Um,

(23:34):
Texas never getting out unlikely, andand the other girls will get out.
Clem's the only one connected to anythingthat's ever that's gotten out, and I
think that's clim is it. Andhe's changed his name and yeah, because
another one Bruce Davis just yeah,Clem changed his name and moved up to
like the Pacific Northwest or northern California, and he plays music life. You

(23:57):
can go see him, yeah,if you know, if you know,
you can you can find the barhe plays in yeah. Um, for
a time I thought was Wild.He was in prison with Bouli or with
um Bosle. They were in thesame prison together and they did there's a
recording recording of them playing music together. It's really actually interesting with Bosi's prison
band Wild. Look it up.It's really it's on like YouTube or streaming

(24:21):
on somewhere, but I've heard ita few times. It's really interesting.
Um, I got a good prisonstory about Manson. Okay, this is
my friend Michael. Michael Channels isthe quote pen pal. You know,
he's the one that's not battling.But they're in court arguing over Manson's estate,
you know, the intellectual property,et cetera, Manson's grandson quote unquote.

(24:44):
Jason Freeman and Michael my friend,are are you know going through this
in court? And I think,well, anyway, so Michael's visited Manson
several times in prison. He's nota Manson fan, but he was really
attracted to the story and uh,and became friends with them. It's it's
a little complicated, but anyway,he went to visit him one time in
prison and uh, and he's uh, he was he was sitting in the

(25:08):
room wherever it is that you yousit and talk on the other side of
the table with Manson and I started, something came up and he mentioned something
about I think it was Bobby Kennedyor something like that, and I think
I think it was because Michael says, uh, that guy looks really familiar,
and the Manson says, oh,you might know him. He says,
hey, sir, hand, comeon over here. No, Michael's

(25:32):
like, yeah, so sir handsor hand comes over and and you know
it gets introduced to Michael by CharlesManson. Is just like the most insane
story. So yeah, I'm actuallygoing up to la on Monday to interview
him to talk for the Channel becausehe's got some insane story. Not Sir
Hanser Hand No no, no,no, no, this is Michael.

(25:56):
Is a trip Michael to meet him. I was shocked that I would ever
be friends with him, but becausedon't judge a book by its cover,
I should know that. But afterManton died, I was sort of now
that, now that all that stressand all that weird oh business is gone,
I could actually meet him and haveit. We became friends. So

(26:17):
I'm I'm interested to see this howthis goes so anyway, and there's one
other thing I wanted to touch onabout the book. The book was written
by it's Buliosi, basically his story, but it was written by Kurt Gentry.
And that's a name that's always associatedwith the book. But I was
always like, who's Kurt Gentry?You know, even I just this,

(26:37):
I didn't even bother looking him up, you know, but he I guess
he's just like a ghostwriter. Andfor this book. And he wrote the
true story of the U two spyincident, the Madams of San Francisco,
and the Killer Mountains, the searchfor the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine. Yeah,
he had. He had obviously agenre that he liked and uh and

(27:02):
he I think Helter Skelter made hima very wealthy man because he co produced
the movie too. And he diedin uh in July of twenty fourteen in
San Francisco. You have seventy sixk Kurt Gentry and and Booliosi was became
a prolific crime writer in his ownright, not just Helter Skelter. He
wrote about the oj trial, Hewrote about um, you know Bush and

(27:23):
the invasion of Iraq. He wroteabout the Kennedy Assassination, which is one
of his Kennedy Assassination books, wasalso adapted into a film, The Parkland
Movie in twenty thirteen about you know, Parkland Memorial Hospital where Kennedy was taken
when he was shot. U wasalso at least two books of his turned
into movies TV shows. That Kennedybook was it was add to me like

(27:47):
that thing and no pictures, that'swhat I heard. I heard it was
like sixteen hundred pages. It was. It was a long Did you read
it? No? I go.I flicked through, but he just basically
addressed every single conspiracy theory and stayedwith the Lee Harvey Oswald theory that's or
you know, however the prosecution orit was never prosecuted, but you know,

(28:08):
stayed with the official Warren commission astory. And he took every single
you know, conspiracy and just dissectedit. And so I did read some
of it, but I couldn't getI couldn't. I'm at that hurt.
Well, And then I think whathe did, because it was so dang
long, was that he released likea shorter version of the book later and
that's what got adapted into the Parklandfilm nine years ago. So, um,

(28:33):
let's get into the film, let'stalk about it. Let's just let's
just have a chat. Let's chat. So I noticed, obviously they couldn't
film at the actual Spawn ranch becausethe Spawn Ranch had burned down years before
they filmed this. Even though thisfilm, you know, was released in
seventy six, which is just sevenyears after the murders, which means it
was filmed probably six years after themurders. Uh, the Spawn movie ranch

(28:59):
where the Manson you know, hungout and lived for a lot of this
had burned down in a wildfire innineteen seventy. So um, I don't
know where they filmed, what movieranchs they filmed that, but there's other
movie ranches all around southern California thatare like Spawn. So yeah, they
said it was. It was.It may have been even the Paramount ranch
that they built it up, thatwould make sense. I um. And

(29:19):
it was in the same neighborhood.I mean, they did a really good
job of choosing locations, you know, they were really well to the Tate
House. I would I did adive and I couldn't find where that was.
The house of the use of theTate House when they said that the
newspaper reporters were retracing the steps ofthe killers, you know, And they
said, well, turn left onAlesion And I was looking at Alesion and

(29:41):
Beverly Hills. I can't find It'snot their Legion Park, isn't another part
of LA So I couldn't locate thathouse. And I'm sure someone will probably
mention it in the comments at somepoint, I hope so because I'd love
to see it. I'd love tosee the house. The one location it
was real that stood out to mewas the Lobianca House. Yeah, And
I thought that was impressive because theyactually not only did they film on the

(30:03):
street, but it looked like theyactually filmed on the property like all the
film house, like in drive thehouse. They did go in the house.
They went through the kitchen into theliving room. I throwze it and
I went to the crime scene photosand I look, I matched cabinets,
I matted doorways and they went inthe house. That was shocking to me.
So they so they got in that'sthere. Well, you know,

(30:23):
when the video version of this,i'll i'll, I'll put those photographs in
there, or you can add themto wherever you can add them. But
I couldn't believe it inside. Sowhen they I know where line al at
Bianca's body was and where it waspositioned in the house, and they went
straight to it, there's a newpicture hanging where the old picture was and
as that was really sometime. Soa great uh. One of the things

(30:48):
I love about movies like this,especially when it's a made for TV movie
and it's you know, the budgetsare lower. Um it there is more
of a documentary aspect of it.Um you get more live views of real
La Street with regular people living theirlives. It's kind of a becomes a
snapshot of nineteen seventy five Los Angelesin addition to it being you know,
a period piece about nineteen sixty nineLos Angeles. So, um, I

(31:11):
don't know. I love watching itjust for those to see those little you
know, locations and streets pop uplike yeah, yeah they you know,
even when when the show the labYanka is driving around with the with the
boat, you know they they stoppedat that corner where the library is and
Los feels and according to the bookHelter Skelter, the book, the news
stand was on the corner where theChevrons station is where they you know,

(31:33):
they bought the newspapers to mister missusLabyanka on their way home to be murdered,
bought a newspaper and the headline wasSharon Tate was killed. And they
always said it was in front ofthat Chevron station, but as it was
illustrated in the document to this movie, it was on the other side of
the street where the library is now. So I'm at you know, they
did a pretty good job with youknow, going to straight locations, so

(31:56):
I'm sort of surprised by that.But if it is in a different place,
why they said it was across fromthe gas station. But then Bolosi
did get some facts really wrong inthe book. He got you know,
he fudged around with some of theuh, some of the just you know,
their their nuances not necessarily important,but there were there were some things
that were not not necessarily correct.Do you remember any specific things that jump

(32:21):
out? Yeah, Well, StephenWeiss, who found the gun on the
hillside, who they changed his name, and they changed the name of that
character in the movie, which Ithought was to Quint. Yeah, Stephen
Quinn, and I interviewed him andhe, you know, he's like,
I never watched Dragnet because they saidthe little boy who watched Dragnet, you
know, had made sure not towatch put his fingerprints in. He goes,

(32:42):
I didn't know anything about fingerprints.Where the Dragnet thing came from.
I don't know. Somebody taught me. My uncle taught me how to shoot
like a month before, and Iknew how to handle a gun, and
it wasn't you know, how tohandle a gun properly, and so it
wasn't anything about fingerprints or I didn'teven he said, I don't even know
where that came from. The kidwatched Dragnet. So there were certain things.
I'm not saying BULIOSI did it.Probably Kurt Gentry did it to make

(33:04):
it sound more interesting, but thatis that is one thing that that was
wrong. Not not important, butit's one of those pop culture references that
out that stuck with me. Andwhen I was able to ask the kid
himself, you know, he's like, no, that never happened, you
know. So when he found TexasWatson's gun in his backyard that they've thrown
off the hill, yeah, havingno idea they'd thrown into someone's backyard.

(33:25):
Probably. He's not saying I knewhow to handle it like evidence. He's
just saying I knew how to safelyhandle a gun by not without it,
you know, to make sure itdidn't go off right. You know.
I didn't walk around with my fingeron the trigger. That's that kind of
thing held, just handle it alittle bit like this. And it was
a gun in his hands. Soso yeah, and hen said the way
he laid it out, He's like, well, you know, there we

(33:45):
were on these hills all the time. You know, there was a hill
behind the house. They went upto Beverly Glen, probably about fifty feet
up. And he says, we'realways scrambling those hills. There were toys
all over those hills, you know. And he says, but I found
the gun, is like, nowI knew. I knew it was the
real thing. I knew right awayit wasn't a fake gun. But then
he told me that when, youknow, because it was his dad that

(34:06):
made the calls of the police departmentsaying I think you have the gun,
and they hung up on him,and he said that we threw in the
ocean. I think he said hisfather told him and so it was his
father that really turned the gun inin time September, first, three weeks
after the murders. They had itup until December, I think before they
realized they actually had it in theircustody already. And when they were going

(34:29):
to make the movie, I guessthey asked Stephen Weiss's family, mother and
father to be in the movie,and they didn't want to be in it,
so that their neighbors actually like twodoors down that played there the parents
in the movie, which made sensebecause they filmed on location. They filmed
the real hillside, but the houseI was tring to match it up,

(34:50):
and I could tell that they werein front of a house that was a
couple of doors down. So theymust have used the neighbor's house who were
actors and that played mister and missusWhite. Amazing. Yeah, and so
that's out their backyard that's in themovie, but it is the same hillside,
just two houses down. I thinkthey may have shot the like they
might have shot some of it,like the him handing over the gun to

(35:12):
the police officer, maybe in frontof their house. Yeah, but for
sure the neighbors were that were inthe movie. It was their house a
couple of doors down. That makessense now because I was trying to place
it by the Google Earthly the othernight, having been there with you.
It did jump out of him.I was like, that looks very much
like the spot. Yeah. Yeah, because I could see a house in
the hill that was the real deal. So but it was an important piece

(35:32):
of evidence that they didn't even knowthey had for months and uh and they
were publishing pictures of this gun sayingbe on the lookout for this gun.
I mean like everyone in the countrywas looking for this gun and they had
the police had it in their possession. I mean, it's it's in there
down the street from the murder scene. I don't understand, but you know,
that was one thing to surprised him, with Boogliosi being, you know,

(35:54):
a being a prosecutor, obviously beinginvolved in law enforcement, highly critical
of the police. For sure.There was no covering up of their which
is really interesting. Did initially becauseof this, because of that stupid dragnet
thing. They made it sound likethe police were in Eppton that regard because
they say the police officer picked upthe gun put their hands all over it,

(36:16):
and not realizing how important it couldbe. But it was really you
know, it's not that wasn't thecase. It wasn't because the kid was
so careful of of the finger fingerprints, you know, it wasn't that way,
although the police officer maybe should havebeen more careful. But but yeah,
you're right they did. I mean, the bloody button on the intercom.
Hey there's blood on this and hepushes the button anyway, you know,

(36:37):
that was hilarious. That was sofunny. Blood on this boop smear
my fingerprint in the middle of it. Sad, I wish it man.
Yeah, there were some really kindof comical moments in this movie. And
we were talking about that house.That house looked like it was a park
or something, didn't it. Imean, when you really concentrate on the

(36:59):
tape house and that, you know, they showed the exterior when they're walking
around, it looks like this massivepark with a road in it and stuff
like that. So yeah, Ididn't really didn't. Really. I had
a hard time trying to place thatplace. But but yeah, they did
a good job though, finding ahouse of similar style, even if it
was a big, two story place, much bigger than the actual house,
it was still at least the rightlook. And they're hard to find.

(37:22):
I mean, as you know fromTarantino, having to find something like that,
very hard to find something that hasall the long driveway at the electric
gate, a house that looks thatway, you know. Tough, Yeah,
in the hills. Um speaking ofgoofs, before we get into like
the actors and everybody in it,they're at twenty about twenty three and a

(37:42):
half minutes into the movie. Isent you this, Scott. There is
this the shot when the Mansons arebeing arrested at Spawn Ranch. There's this
big long I think it starts offas like a zoom and they're kind of
in tight and they pull way backand they show every with the crowd of
people and police officers and Manson's inthe middle of it. And as they
finished, and as they're pulling back, I'm a big I can spot things

(38:02):
really easily in films, like whena boom mic is in the shot,
or when there's lights or a crewmember or something, And as it's pulling
back, I just got a feeling, I'm like, we're gonna see something
we're not supposed to ensure enough.When it was done pulling back on the
right side of the frame, there'sin full view. There was a crew
member with a big hole holding upa big stand that has I think a
big light gel on it, andhe's kind of steadying it with his hands

(38:24):
while they do this shot. Andthey clearly I don't know because they were
shooting in TV format, they justthought, oh, well, this isn't
wide screen. He'll be out ofthe shot, he'll be off the signs
not. It's very clear, veryclear. I'll put I'll put a screenshot
of it up. Yeah. It'sfunny because I showed that to Troy.
I mean I saw it right inTroy. It's like, I don't see
it. I said, no,you see the guy. You can see
his arms and you can see hishat. He's wearing a hat. And

(38:45):
he's like, yeah, I don'tsee it. So it's your eye.
They caught it. And I'm lookingat it's like, no, you're absolutely
I can see it, but it'seasy to miss. You're probably the only
ones ever spotted it. I mightbe. Yeah, yeah, I hope.
So, man. I love spottingstuff like that. I see boom
mikes all the time now, boommikes and shots constantly the shadows. Yeah.
Yeah, one time I think itwas an episode of Suits. Maybe

(39:07):
there was like one of these walkingtalk scenes what they called walking talk.
The actors were walking and talking,and so the cameras moving through this lobby
and they pan camera coasts right pastin the background. I think it's like
the audio guys, like they're liketheir little video village. It's like clear
learning. Right, there were twoguys sitting at it and the camera goes
right by them. It's like,wow, not notice. Oh yeah.

(39:29):
The best blooper of all we talkedabout this before was seeing seeing a Billy
Wilder in the reflection of Glorious Swanson'sglasses in Sunset Boulevard, you know,
seeing the crews sitting there filming,which was a magical, a magical you
know, boo boo or what areyou calling blue? Right? It's cool?
So yeah, I love that.But you're and with that movie,

(39:49):
it's so great. It's almost intentional. Yes, you know exactly. Yeah,
that was that was something else.Um, all right, well,
do you want to get into thepeople that ear in the movie being made?
The movie? So before we getinto the actors, I just wanted
to talk about the music really quick. So they their cover versions of Helder
Skelter of Pagys and Revolution. Theywere covered by a band called Silverspoon.

(40:14):
And I was and I was tryingto find information on the band Silverspoon,
and there's so little and somebody,somebody wrote, oh, they're like one
of the best, you know,unknown bands of the sixties. And I
could I was like or the seventies. I couldn't. I couldn't figure it
out. But anyway, they wasRick Green on drums, Michael Kennedy on
lead guitar and vocals on page Stephenon bass, Joey Hamilton on vocals.

(40:35):
Uh. So, yeah, therewas this band called Silverspoon. Now the
incidental music. The score was doneby Billy Goldenberg, who worked on Alias
Smith and Jones. Colombo Duel playedagainst sam Ko jack in around the World
in eighty days, so he's gothe has quite a you know, they're
both a very you know, significantcareer as a scoring movies. But it's

(40:59):
it's just kind of cool because thatthere's another one with the crazy strings that
we you know, when when certainthings happen in the movie that are kind
of spooky, uh, you know, obviously scores very important, and Billy
Goldberg did a good job with thatwell. And uh and Duel has another
great famous movie, Goof with reflectioncrew reflection in it, that's very famous.

(41:22):
I think you mentioned that. Yeah, it's the I believe it's the
when the phone booth gets run overwhen he's in the phone booth and then
he has to get out of itbecause the truck smashes the phone booth.
I think there's a moment there whereyou can see Spielberg. I think in
the reflection of the glass of thephone booth. You know, thinking about
that, do you think that couldhave been his sort of Hitchcock thing.
It could be. You know,I definitely noticed it. He's a stickler

(41:44):
for details, so and he maybehe just didn't notice it and they didn't
have another shot, and he's justlike, oh, nobody will care because
he was Maybe he knew Hitchcock,didn't he Or he observed Hitchcock when he
snuck on an Universal lot something likethat, and I don't know. Yeah,
it's something that I think he hadto. I think he tried to
meet Hitchcock or he's watching him filmsomething on Universal, and I know that

(42:04):
he was also he was a bigfan of Trufaux. Oh yeah, and
that's part of why Trufeau was inClose Encounters of the third kind, which
we will be mentioning again in afew minutes. Yes, yes, he
sayes. Um, so you wantto talk about the cast and crew,
Sure, I just really have castand director. Okay, But Tom Greise,

(42:25):
which is how you pronounce that.Some people think it's Grease or grease,
it's Greys. Tom Gryse was thedirector UM. And he had a
long, long, long career,and unfortunately this was kind of the end
of his career, in the endof his life. US. He started
out in television in the fifties andUH and two won two Emmys, and
he did theatrical films and TV movies. He kind of bounced back and forth

(42:46):
between them and UH. He's probablybest known for the Charlton Heston western Will
Penny from nineteen sixty eight, whichwhich Tom Grys wrote and directed and h
and when Heston wanted to do it, they wanted to bring on a big
time director because Greys had basically onlydone B movies up to this point.
And Grys pulled one of those greatmoves that you hear about in you know,

(43:09):
Hollywood history a lot when a directorfinally kind of breaks out. He
put his foot down and said,no, I'm only doing this if I
directed. I'm not just going tosell the screenplay. And Heston backed him,
and that got the movie made asa result of that, and Heston
apparently called that movie will Penny hisfavorite film that he was ever in.
He never regretted for a moment,and he worked with Greys I think on

(43:30):
a couple more projects after that.Okay, that was kind of interesting,
but yeah, Helter Skelter was thesecond to last thing he ever directed.
How long did he live after that? He died the following year. He
died nine months almost exactly after HelterSkelter aired on television. His last film,

(43:52):
which he didn't finish, was calledThe Greatest. It was about Muhammad
Ali, with Ali starring as himself, and he he died. They had
finished filming the movie about a monthbefore he died and they were in post
production audit and Grys had a heartattack while playing tennis at a club in
the Pacific Palisades. Isn't that crazy? And I think it's interesting because one

(44:13):
of the early scenes in Helter Skelteris of course Polanski's manager showing up at
the scene to identify the bodies,and he's dressing the tennis outfit because that's
what he's doing. Yeah, andgrabbed him and that's how Grys died,
was playing tennis. He was onlyfifty four years old when he died.
The woman who played Winnifred Chapman whowas builed only as the housekeeper, her

(44:35):
name was Dorothy Meyer, and shewas in Ali Are the Greatest as well,
no kidding, yeah, yeah,which so so. And she's like
the first actress to really be inthe movie. I mean that was her
her. She was the opening andwhen she's screaming murder, that was chilling
too. I remember that vividly whenthat scene that for the first time was
you know, here her screaming aftershe found the bodies, and and that's

(45:00):
you know, she she made hercareer basically paying housekeepers and nurses. She
was a model for a while doinguh like Maxwell House and Hallmark and and
things like that, and she dida ton like a lot of these people.
I mean I looked up a lotof these people and I was like,
Okay, Jefferson's one day at atime, you know what I mean.
It was like they're all in Mannix, Colombo, Colleja, every almost

(45:22):
everyone was in level of these shows, and she was one who was in
a ton of them, the Jefferson, Sandford and signed different strokes Luke,
Grant, Starsky and Hutch. Soshe did although so she was she did
a she you know, she wasa significant featured extra mostly. I think
she died in September twenty fourth,nineteen eighty seven. She was sixty two

(45:42):
years old. So creative. Wasthere some creative license taken with her?
When she gets dropped off by thecar? Didn't she walk up to the
house from the bus stop or didshe given a ride? No, you
know that's something that I It wasa she got dropped off at the bus
stop and then somebody saw her andoffered her a ride. Now I know
how far up she went, butyeah, that's when we hit in six

(46:04):
degrees. That's another thing I'd liketo modify, because you learned more stuff
all the time. So I don'tknow how far they made it up.
They just dropped her off at thebottom of Cello, I don't know,
but she did. She was givena lift you know, because that's that's
several that's a couple of miles fromthe bus stop to the task. Yeah.
So yeah, um, so yeahshe was and Missus Chapman. Yeah,

(46:25):
there's somebody I want to know moreabout. That's Missus Chapman. Yeah.
So, um, getting back toThe Greatest the All, the movie
that he made that he didn't finish, um while he was alive. The
song the Greatest Love of All waswritten for that movie and was originally sung
by George Benson in the movie,but then of course Whitney Houston covered it

(46:45):
and turned it into you know,a classic that was in the in the
in the Greatest movie. Yes,the Greatest Love of All song was written
for the Greatest YEP, but itwas songs by George Benson. So so
the Greatest Love is referring to Imean, it must have been written for
the songs for the movie. Somaybe was he married or something or was

(47:08):
it maybe I don't know, what'sI don't know, what's part of history
it covers. Maybe it's the loveof boxing, I don't know. Yeah.
Um. Another interesting thing that Ithought about about this, it's going
to blows in people's minds about TomGryse is His son is actor John Gryse,

(47:28):
and John Gryse is most famous forplaying Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite.
Okay, and John Grys's first filmrole as a child was as a child
actor in the Charlton Heston movie willwill Penny of his dad's movie and John
Grys plays William Garretson in Helter Skelter. Uncle Rico was William Garretson. He's

(47:52):
a skinny little guy too. That'sa great great I had no idea.
I was watching Uncle Rico when Isaw that William Garretson scenes in the beginning,
and he would have been, well, you know, I think he's
he would have been about eighteen nineteenat that point and probably yeah, and
uh yeah, that was that.I'll admit I found that too, and

(48:13):
I was like, oh my god, I didn't know that. I didn't
know the director association that one.I didn't know, but that was but
that, yeah, that was athat was a piece of trivia. That
was like holy shit. So yeah, Uncle Rico plays William Garretson in Helter
Skelter, and Clem Grogan is playedby an It was played by someone named
Steve Gryse, and I do knowthat. When I found Tom Gruise's obituary,

(48:38):
they mentioned, you know, nextto Kenya who survived by and their
inner is a son named Stephen Grysein his obituary. So I think Clem
Grogan was another one of Tom Gryse'ssons, and that was his only IMDb
credit was playing Clem Grogan and HelterSkelter. But yeah, I put his
kids in the movie. I thoughtthat was cool. It is cool I
do it. Yeah, I thinkthat's awesome. So yeah, So Tom

(49:02):
Gryse, the director died on Januarythird, nineteen seventy seven, almost exactly
nine months to the day after HelterSkelter aired on television. He was only
fifty four years old. Dropped deadfrom a heart attack and paramedics were unable
to save him and he was declareddead at the hospital in Santa Monica.
M R. Great movie, Yeah, great movie. Yeah. I mean,

(49:24):
not a lot of really high profilemovies that he made, but he
made a lot of them, andhe did a lot of television work too,
So he's one of those kind ofjourneyman type directors. I think.
Hm Um George Desnzo, who playedVincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor, probably most
famous for playing Marty McFly's grandfather andBack to the Future who hits him with

(49:45):
the car? And there's that funnydinner scene when they're watching it was the
Honeymooners, I think, or whatare they watching on TV? And Marty
McFly says something makes a reference toJohn F. Kennedy Boulevard or Parkway,
and this actor Georgezi Senzo goes,who the hell is John F. Kennedy?
Oh, funny, it's it's it'syou know, nineteen fifty four or

(50:06):
five or whatever. Yeah, hilarious. He's another guy that you like.
We talked about Paul Sorvino in ourin our you know, Patreon sponsored sponsor
you know podcast that we just released. And he's another one that I expected
to see a list of credits athousand, you know, a thousand credits
because I recognize his face now itmust be sure in this movie because his

(50:29):
credits were you know, he wasin Close Encounters. That was probably gonna
come out. Um and uh,the actress just three and eighteen again,
But that's not that significant, youknow, those are like amazing. I
mean, Close Encounters is a classic. Back to the Future, of course,
is a classic, but the restof them are kind of like throwaway
movies. Yeah, and Close Encountersare the third kind. He it's a

(50:49):
bit part. He only has afew lines. He I think his real
big scene, or maybe his onlyscene is about a quarter of the way
in. There's a press conference thatthey have, like the military and government
has to kind of debunk these allthese rumors that flying saucers are flying around
and um, he's the lieutenant,like the military lieutenant there and he holds
up a picture of a flying saucerand all the people that, oh,

(51:12):
that's what I saw. That's whatI saw, and he go and then
he pulls up this pewter metal plateand says, it's you know, my
kids threw this up in the airand I took a picture of it,
you know, like it's not youknow, it's nothing. That was kind
of his big moment in Close EncountersAre kind, which was um, which
was a year after Helter Skelter.Oh wasn't and then yeah and then he

(51:35):
um. So he looks a lotthe same in Close Encounters as he does
in Helter Skelter. He also wasthe star of the nineties crime series Equal
Justice that ran for two seasons ninetyand ninety one, which also had a
young Sarah Jessica Parker in it beforeshe right before she blew up. Okay
Sarah. Um, But George Descinzodied on August ninth, twenty ten.

(51:58):
He was seventy and it was PpsisSepsis died on the anniversary of the crimes.
So the real Boulios outlived the fakeBoulios by five years. Mhm.
Um. Steve rails Back who playsCharles Manson, and I think it was
the focus of a lot of theum, you know, the the the
accolades that the show got was hisportrayal of of Manson was really creepy and

(52:22):
convincing. Um. He is stillalive and still working. Mostly he's done
B movies. Um, a lotof you know, bit parts in some
TV shows like The Mentalist and Decker. Um. But that's kind of got
kind of got stuck in the Bmovie world. Yeah. Yeah, but
Rob Zombie found him for the Devil'sReach acts. Oh really yeah, Oh

(52:43):
I didn't know that. And hewas in The Hitcher too, But but
Helter Skelter was his is only histhird movie. You know, he was
he and he'll always be known forthat. I mean, I've met him
a couple of times with those autographs. Has it really you know, soft
spoken, nice guy? Yeah?It just but and doesn't he It's funny

(53:04):
when this movie came out, whenwe when I first started studying this movie
in depth or the case in depth, Um, I was not that his
character was kind of a hokey Manson, you know, and then the twenty
fourteen version of Helter Skelter came out, and I thought that guy had Manson's
mannerisms down. But then I'm watchingthis again, It's like, now he
was He was really good. Helooked at and he acted it and uh,
maybe Manson was a little bit more. He played him solely seriously,

(53:28):
you know, solely seriously. AndManson had had a wild sense of humor.
You know, he stick his tongueout at people and Mike Mike Wise
cracks to the press. So youknow, he wasn't always that intense.
But but that's they were trying to, you know, the portrayal. That's
what they wanted from him. Soit was good, very good. Um.

(53:49):
Nancy Wolf, who played Susan Atkins, is also still alive and also
has done a kind of a lotof you know, be movies, any
movies and stuff like that. Ireally couldn't find much else about her,
right, I think, you knowwhat, I think. I looked her
up, and I think she hasher own website. Nancy Wolf was good,
you know, she was a reallyshe was. There was there were
some questionable performances in this movie.You know that don't stand yes, But

(54:15):
Nancy Wolf, who played uh SusanAtkins, I thought she was really good
at at being Susan Atkins and uh, and I looked her up. She's
got her own website, Nancy Wolfactor dot com. But she was in
uh, The Ordeal of Patti Hurst, and she was in of course Barney,
Barney B. Jones, Baretta andum and lots of lots of theater.

(54:37):
But uh, but yeah, soshe's still around and she's still acting.
But she was. She was veryvery good I thought in this movie.
And uh, you know it wasquestionable in this movie. I don't
know if we're going to get ontothat, well, we will eventually,
may as well do it now whenthey showed her being arrested and having to

(54:57):
um, well going into prison intothe Simbil Brand when a woman's prison and
palling up to who they they waswas Ronnie Howard, who in reality was
Virginia Graham, who was the onethat she first spoke to and told the
whole thing about the story. Yeah. Yeah, Virginia was a friend who
just passed away. But she wasso Ronnie Howard. It's kind of complicated,

(55:20):
but Virginia did the story. Butshe's not going to be a snitch.
So she tells her friend, Ronnie, you hook up with the Susan
Atkins woman and you get the story, and you can tell the story,
you get the rewards. And yeah, so she was, so would they
show her palling up to this womanwho's clearly a lesbian in prison who wants
to you know, He's like,come on over here, honey, kind
of stuff like that. Yeah,right, and then she goes and then

(55:43):
and then she says, and thenwe killed those people and I and then
she like like I have to goto sleep now. It was that abrupt
of me. It's like, you'rea sexy You're sexy, and then you
know, and then we kill thosepeople. I'm so tired and go to
sleep. But here's the fun bits. Her name with the actress who played
Annie Howard. Her name is SandraBlake, who was who was married and
had a son and daughter with RobertBlake. What isn't that wild? So

(56:08):
yeah, she's another one Mannix.You know, a show called Grown Ups
of Mice and Men. Not ahuge list of credits, but she was
married and had two kids with RobertBlake. And wait, who was that?
It was married Sandra Blake who playedwho played Ronnie Howard who was in
prison with Susan Anna jailhouse snitch.Yes who They show her like, you

(56:30):
know, trying to be all discreet, I know who did it, but
she's you know, she didn't turnto the wall and say I know.
She's like well. Also when she'slike walking, she's walking in the line
of girls and she hangs back andstarts talking to the correctional woman officer woman
right like right behind all these womenthat are prisoners, Like, nobody can
see me talking to you. Butyeah, it's like if anybody looks over
their shoulder, they're gonna see youtalking to her right in the middle of

(56:52):
the hall, right ten feet behindthem. Yeah, they don't know how
prisons work, but they But wasso wild about this movie is they went
in prison, They went into thehalls of justice, they went into the
court Yeah, I think the actualDo you know if that was actual sybil
Brand where they filmed that, Idon't know, but it looked like a
women's prison and it was not aset that I'm positive of m And they

(57:14):
did go into city Hall, Idon't know, or into a yeah,
the federal building. I think it'sa vaable, but of justice, yeah,
And I don't know if they gotinto the actual courtroom. It wouldn't
surprise me if they did. Butthey got into a courtroom, they got
into the halls. I recognized thehalls and all that. You know,
that was that's legit. It wasin there, so you know they were
able to to do that, whichis interesting. So sibyl Brand, which

(57:38):
was the women's prison, um itis no longer operates as a prison.
I think it was damaged during Ithink the north Ridge earthquake. It was
severely damaged. I think it wasnorth Ridge, one of the earthquakes.
Severely damage. I think it wasnorth Ridge, and they just decided they
it was already so old to beginwith, and then with the damage they
decided just not to repair it.But it still exists and is used almost

(58:00):
entirely now as um a filming location, and they also use it for training
like police training and stuff. Butyeah, it's no longer operates as a
prison anymore, even though it stillexists. Yeah, and that's where all
the girls were taken. Leslie,pat Crome, Winkol and Susan Ekins were
all taking the civil brand and uhso that's I think that's why everyone knows

(58:22):
what it is. The same withthe California Men's Colony where they took text.
That's I think that's gone now that'sbeen Uh uh yeah, doesn't doesn't
exist anymore, probably for the samereason. But uh yeah, okay.
Um Marilyn Burns who played Linda Kasabian, that was obviously a huge role,
and she is one of the fewactors in this film where this wasn't the

(58:44):
biggest thing they ever did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she was
the lead role of Sally in theChest Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original one.
She was the final girl who survives, you know at the end of
the movie. Um so she was, and that was a couple of years
before this was was came out,so she was kind of you know,
they shied away mainly from kind ofrecognizable actors. But then I thought was

(59:06):
interesting for that they got, youknow, by at the time, probably
one of the most famous horror movieactors alive. Yeah, to play Lynda
Kasabian, who Lynda Kasabian was theManson girl who turned State State's witness and
testified against him. So it wasa meaty part and she had to really
be able to act um to doit. And in Texas Chainsaw Massacre,

(59:27):
Yes, it was a meaty part. Yeah. No, well no literally,
yeah, but but I mean,and this, this is this is
one of the and this this isthe one I considered. And I'm no
expert, I am not an actor. I couldn't do it, but this
is one that that I was kindof like, that's borderline. I didn't
really an artic fan of it.I didn't think I didn't think it was

(59:51):
very you know, convincing. Shehas, uh, she appeared in two
more Chainsaw Mascar sequels. She's aShe's appeared at horror conventions. She she
gave a great interview with a horrorwebsite called The Terror Trap in two thousand
and four, and they talked aboutmaking Helter Skelter. It was great.
It was a great interview. Andfirst of all, she said that none
of no actresses didn't want to auditionto be in this show because none of

(01:00:14):
them wanted to shave their heads.So if the talk around Hollywood was no
actresses wanted to audition to be Mansongirls, because they're like, hell no,
I'm not shaving my hair off.Um. And she says in the
end, they let the actresses wearskull caps, which I find hard to
believe because it looked real. Idid. I did a real look at
that too, and I did.They looked real to me. They did
a hell of a good job ifthese are skull caps, because usually you

(01:00:37):
can tell, especially something with alimited budget. But she says that in
order to get the part, theyhad to say they would shave their heads,
like almost like it was a test, you know, Yeah, okay,
because that's why I was sort ofsurprised, And she was like she
was stoked because Linda Kasabian was theone who didn't yeah state witness um.
And then also she said, uh, and nobody really wanted to touch it

(01:00:58):
because of the subject matter. Itwas kind of like, who wants to
be in that picture? Who's goingto do that picture? Kind of a
thing. It was because it wasso soon after this all happened. It
was just a few years after.I think it was still kind of fresh.
I think some people were afraid todo it. She said. They
asked her if she ever got tomeet the real Linda Kasabi, and she
said she wouldn't have wanted to evenif she could. Definitely has no love

(01:01:20):
for these girls, although she didsay that, you know, any actor,
you have to find some point ofentry for sympathy for the role you're
playing, to understand what they werethinking. But yeah, you could tell
she didn't exactly have a high opinionof the Manson girls. And she was
attacked by an extra on the setreally when she oh, here you go
Paramount Ranch, So there you go, she goes when I was at Paramount

(01:01:43):
Ranch and extra came up to meand put her nails in my arm and
said, Linda wasn't there that day. So apparently a Manson, she assumed,
a Manson sympathizer or maybe even amember of the family. Who knows.
You know, there's so many peoplethat coasted in and out of it.
Who knows, but yeah, someonegot on the set as an extra
and came up to her and dugtheir nails into her arm and said,

(01:02:04):
Linda wasn't there that day. SoI thought that was kind of interesting,
very um. I mean, thepeople had so much hate for Linda Kasabian
that they would go after the actressplaying her, you know, for you
know, for being she wasn't therethat day. What does that even mean?
I mean, that seemed that's maybethey're trying to say she wasn't at
the murder scene. Yeah, andthat her testimony is non was you know,
made up? Maybe that's maybe that'sthe implication. Yeah, I don't

(01:02:28):
know. Um. And then lastlythey asked about Bugliosi and he said,
yeah, yeah, he would comedown to the set, and she claims
that Bouliosi wanted them to reshoot theending, which I assume is maybe the
closing argument, because he didn't likethe actor's performance of him, and at
the end, Bouliosi supposedly said hewas much more that he was much more
dramatic than the portrayal. Bugliosi wasa much more dramatic person than how he

(01:02:52):
portrayaled. And he said, I'mmuch more flamboyant than that than what the
guy did. So I don't knowif they actually did go and reshoot the
ending or if he also just wantedthem to. I mean, I wonder
if the ending by the ending,wouldn't I wonder if they're talking about that
scene in the courtroom when Manson isbeing you know, that ridiculous scene at
the end when lay Manson's being ledout the back of the court room and
a conversation. Yeah, yeah,yeah, So so that might be it

(01:03:15):
because I I that some of thatsome of that text is questionable too,
you know, where he's telling Vincenthow you respects him and or something to
that effect. I don't you know. And it was like, I'm not
I'm not on board with that one. It felt a little bit like like
Bouliosi's hoggiography of the moment, youknow kind of thing. Yeah, it's
about a little bity like how youlike it liked to have unfolded. Maybe

(01:03:38):
I don't know, took a littlecreative license at the end. Um so
Nia Marilyn Burns, who played LindaKasabien, passed away on August fifth,
twenty fourteen. In her sleep.No cause was given, and she was
sixty five. You mentioned that shewell, she said that who would want
to be? You know, peoplesaid who want to be in that picture?

(01:03:59):
When I was reading the book,this is a stupid, stupid story.
But when I was reading the bookabout Helter Skelter, they said that
Rudolph Altabelli had who owned the houseon Yeah, represented Sally Kirkland was one
of his clients. Now he wasan agent, he was a right agent.

(01:04:23):
Yeah, Yeah. And I didmeet Sally Kirkland eventually and had this
conversation with her, and I thinkshe was annoyed with me because she kept
talking earlier alone and I couldn't hearit fucking things she said. But but
anyway, as I see, thisis a dumb story. But for some
reason in my mind, I alwaysget Sally Kirkland or Sally Kellerman, that's
who it was that he represented.I always get him screwed up Sally Kirkland,

(01:04:45):
Sally Kellerman. Sally Kirkland was theactress who won or was nominated for
an Academy work for a movie calledAnna, and she using a whole bunch
of things the sting the way wewere but not not an a lister.
I used to see her at theSilver Spoon like all the time. So
I finally got up the nervous Sodid Rudolph Altabelli, you know, represent
you? And she said no.I said, okay, well that's I
screwed up the names. And theysaid, well, oh, because something

(01:05:06):
about Helter Skelter, And you know, I thought that he might have because
he owned the Tate House. Shegoes, no, No, I wanted
to be in the movie. Iauditioned to be in one of the girls.
But I didn't make the audition.I didn't get the job. And
I'm thinking, well, there's athousand girls in this movie. How could
you not have gotten that job?You know, you were nominated for an
Academy Award. It's like, ifyou're an actor in Hollywood, you haven't

(01:05:28):
been in a Marble movie yet,what are you doing? Yes, So,
Shelly Kirkland Keller dumb story. ButI was able to and I did
interview. We're off Alta Belli atone point. We talked about that before,
but but it's just a funny asideum. Well, and it's interesting
now when I think we talked aboutthis when we did the once upon a
time in Hollywood episode, But thatwas years ago. You and I have

(01:05:48):
both spoken with Alta Belli before,Oh did we? I don't remember us.
You spoke to him, um,because we wanted him to be in
in our movie when one of themto be in the sixties of Helter Skelter,
and you tracked him down first andyou called him. Yeah, and
I've sent him a letter and hecalled me back. Yeah, yeah,
Okay. Do you remember how thecall went? Oh yeah, I remember

(01:06:10):
exactly. Let me let's hear it. Well, he said, you know,
he said, I said, Well, he says, I got your
letter. I got your letter.Yeah, you know, what do I
want to be in your What doI have being a documentary for? And
I said, well, you know, well, you know you give some
money for your time. All wenot to half hour. Just want to
know your knowledge about the game.I don't need your money. What do
you I don't need your money.This is what And they said, well,

(01:06:30):
we wanted to talk about the houseand Terry Melcher. I said,
how did you meet Terry Melcher?He was driving on Bennett Canny with his
cock out. I mean that iswhat he said to me. And I'm
like, okay, so you know, it's already worth a phone call just
for that little like anecdote. AndI did ask him because they said there
was a rumor about him and WilliamGarretson, you know, Garretson possibly being

(01:06:54):
a you know a thing, youknow, yeah, like a waller,
hustler, a hustler, you know, like Garretson was the people to don't
know. Garretson was the young manwho was staying in the guest house,
which is where Rudy Altabelli sometimes alsostayed right when he right, Yeah,
Rudy Altabelli picked him up hitchhiking andoffered and the job of staying in his

(01:07:16):
house. So there's the story.You know, there's a lot of guys
did that back then. You know, it was the sixties, So I
think that that was their their littlebit on the side possibly, But he
got pissed off, I mean whenI brought that up. But I know
that was gay, and I knowthat stephen parent was probably gay, and
uh and uh so yeah, that'sbeen one of the root that's been one
of the stories. I know.So um, stephen parents family has always

(01:07:40):
denied it, and it's kind ofa I don't know if it's fringe or
what, but that that that well, I mean, there is the thing.
So Stephen Parent was the first personkilled. As the Manson's enters text,
Watson and the girls entered the property. He was driving out and they
walked up they shot him or thelast that's the story, or possibly some
people think the last. Yeah,yeah, he tried to drive away and
said I won't anybody or something likethat. Yeah. I mean, I

(01:08:01):
don't know if we talked about that, but I mean, I want to
go into this really quick. It'sa fascinating story. If he didn't,
if it was in the O'Neill book, the Chaos book. And you know,
the killers are the ones that saythat that Stephen Parent was the first
victim. So you know, okay, there's the there's your witnesses, your
reputable, your witnesses, they say, all the guy witnesses say he was
the first. Well here's the scenariothat O'Neill put out, and it was

(01:08:24):
a fascinating one. They're saying thatthe murders were already taking place, voychecking
Abigail Fould, You're already dead inthe front lawn. Stephen Parent was leaving
the guest house, which was atthe far end of the property. All
the way through all that stuff toget up, he leaves the guesthouse.
He gets to this part in frontof the house and he looks in and
sees Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring beingmurdered on the inside. So they say

(01:08:46):
that he may have locked eyes withTexa Watson, which is terrifying. And
then he took off running towards hiscar. So he starts his car,
and this is the theory. Andhe would have had the run by two
other bodies on the way out becauseby then Abigail Folder and right, they
were probably already dead. Yeah,they're probably already dead, unless Texas already

(01:09:08):
out in the front and you knowit was stabbing boycheck. I don't know.
But so Parent runs to his car, gets in his car. Here's
the theory now, and I believethis to be true because the back of
his car had had a dent init and from hitting the wooden fence,
the fence had damage and so tothe back of his car. So and
that's that's true. That's just afact. So my theory or his theory,

(01:09:30):
which I agree with, is thatParent got into his car, Tex
is chasing him, accidentally puts hiscar into reverse, then hits this thing.
As he's going forward, Text comesup to him and slashes him with
the knife. Now, then hegets his car into forward, gets all
the way to the gate, andthat's when they stop him and he says,
I won't say anything. Don't worry, I won't say anything, and

(01:09:51):
they shoot him. So the theoryas it plays out with you know there's
like the killers are saying, isthat Stephen parent pulls up to the gate
and says, I won't say anything. Text Watson slices him with the knife,
then shoots him with the other hand. Nobody's ambidextrous like that. They
condition something like that in a moment, so you canna stab him and then

(01:10:11):
take his gun and put him inhis other hand. So it makes sense
that it happened when the damage tothe back of his car, which exists,
it did happen, that it wasall done in the heat of the
moment. And what he was sayingwas I won't say anything because I saw
something. So um and Text Watson. In this scenario, Tex Watson has
the knife in his hand, notthe gun, because he just helped stab
a bunch of people to death.Yeah, and comes out Stephen parent backs

(01:10:33):
into the thing and wrecks the car. Text already has a knife in his
hands. He walks up and slasheshis hand. But then he gets in
the park and drives away and textslike, shit, now I gotta shoot
him. Yeah. So that's whenTex switches over to the gun and runs
up and shoots him with Yeah,because otherwise, and the heat of the
moment, he would have had tohit him with a knife and shoot him,
you know. And that doesn't andand there's still really no explanation as

(01:10:55):
to why the fence was damage andthe damage is reflected on the back of
his car. Yeah, it's notsomething unless he just just by biggest coincidence
ever. He just happened to ashe's quietly leaving the house before the murders
happened, had a little fender benderright before they came over the gate.
Yeah. Yeah, which it seemsunlikely. Yeah, it was just the

(01:11:15):
first time, it was like somethingclicked. It was like, Wow,
the evidence actually points to that.The only one to disagree were the killers
or the killers. Yeah, Butit also it doesn't make it logically,
it makes more sense, because howdo you shoot somebody multiple times in the
yard of a house and then sneakinto the house after that? Yeah,
nobody heard the gunshots and was likewhat the hell is that? Yeah,

(01:11:38):
whenn't you at that point Be're like, grab, we just blew it.
We're not We've lost the element ofsurprise. We just may Yeah, I
mean, I don't know, Idon't know how much drugs you're on.
You're gonna know that, Like,wait a minute, we're no longer sneaking.
Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. I mean they couldn't possibly know,
which is why I don't believe Mansonwent back to the crime scene later
on that night, because he didn'tknow who heard the gun shots. He
didn't know who was going to beup there, like he's going to come

(01:11:59):
sneaking around a rear range bodies.Mason was a Manton was a was a
you know, he was he wasa coward. He didn't need everybody to
do his dirty work. He didn'twant to do it. So Yeah,
but anyway, that that just wasreal revelation. So we went off way
off track on that one. Butall right, So so after you talked
to alta Belly, Yeah, Ibelieve I wrote it down verbatim. It

(01:12:21):
was very brief, but yeah,yeah, I remember you called me afterwards
and you were like, I don'tever want to talk to him again because
you're like because you're like because he'sgay, and he got he picked it
up on me and he just startedbeing really you know, creepy. I
guess yeah with you in some way, and you're like, I just don't
ever want to talk to him again. He's like, you can talk to
him, I don't want to.So I called him, Oh did you?

(01:12:44):
Oh I did know that. ActuallyI have no recollection of that.
Yeah, So I called him.And it's funny because my voice, my
impression of him as the same asyours. He goes, he's what do
you want? You know? AndI'm like, well, we want to.
We want to put you in youknow movie, We want to We'll
be a quick interview, just likewhat you said. It's like thirty minutes.
We just have a few questions.And it's funny that he said he
doesn't need money because the first thinghe says, well, what are you
paying? Oh? Yeah, thatwas like geez, we have no money

(01:13:06):
at all, Like we're making thiswith zero money. And I was just
like on the wheel. I wasjust like a five hundred dollars Yeah,
he goes, what am I goingto do with that? Yes, like
I don't know, buy drugs.I don't know what you're gonna do with
it. Oh And that was theThat was the end of the Yeah.
I remember I was going to payit out of my own pocket. It

(01:13:27):
was gonna be worth it, youknow. Yeah, yeah, I've hundred
bucks to get that. Sure.I mean there's the whole a lot of
money for me, especially back then. But yeah, I was like,
I'll do it. Why am Igonna do with that? I don't have
five hundred dollars? Wow? Funnythe story of Rudy Altabelli. So that's
why Rudy Altabelli isn't in the sixseries of Helter Skelter because we couldn't figure
out what he wanted for it.He wanted money, he didn't want money.

(01:13:49):
He wanted too much money. Idon't know. You wanted a bit
of a bit of fun maybe.I mean, this is the guy that
sent a cleaning bill to Sharon Tate'sdad for the murder scenes. So it's
true. He denied it, butit's true I did ask him that that's
right. I did ask him thatI remember that, and he didn't.
He just said it's not true,that's not true. But later on I

(01:14:11):
got the actual bill, you know, or the article or something. It
was the article in the paper thatwas about the lawsuit that was filed,
printed the bill or confirmed the billexists or yeah. Because he also sued
over like a breach of the leastagreement, right because he said that Voytech
and Abigail Folder were living in thehouse and he wasn't notified as the landlord
that there were extra tenants living thereor something like that. That's true.

(01:14:33):
They had no business living there.He rented the house to two people and
those other two shouldn't have And hedid say something to the effect that one
of those people may have encouraged thattype of element some it was worded as
such. Interest said, you know, it was probably you know, referring
to Voytech encouraging you know, theundesirables being up at the house because it

(01:14:55):
wasn't going to be Sharon, youknow an Abigail Foulter was for her own
you know. Voytech was the gunbagyou know that. Yeah, Well,
votech was involved in drugs, andthat's where the whole drug theory came out,
that it was a it was aover a drug dad or something or
just yeah, he was not agood man, not a good many.
Christina Hart, who played Patricia Crenwinkle, one of the other manson Girls.
UM. She's also still alive andworking and has guest starred in over forty

(01:15:20):
TV shows. She was in tthree episodes of Happy Days and probably what
you might but know her best fromfrom television is she played the Roper's hot
niece on Threes Company, and that'swhere the one where they the Ropers tell
Jack that their nieces coming to visitand they want her and they want mister
Roper wants Jack to take her outon a date or take her out and

(01:15:40):
show her a good time or whatever, and Jack is just says no because
he's kind of like, how howhot could the Roper's niece be? Like,
look at the look at the Ropers. And then she shows up and
she's gorgeous, and of course thenhe's like he totally wants to take her
out. So that was the wholesetup for that show. But yeah,
she was the hot niece UM andshe UM teaches acting classes at the Hollywood
Court Theater, or at least shedid until very recently. I assume she

(01:16:02):
still does. But her daughters areactually also very successful actresses their own right.
Caitlyn and Porsche double Day, whichdouble Day was the name of her
of the man that Christine Hart married. Um. Caitlin double Day has had
big roles on Nashville and Empire,like, you know, dozens of episodes
roles Um and Porsche double Day,the sister has played. Um. She

(01:16:26):
played Angela Moss on Mister Robot,which is another pretty big role. Um.
Yeah, I mean she's another one. You know, Threes Company,
Happy Days, Charlie's Angels, youknow, Yeah, it's all these guys.
Yeah, all these people did that. The one thing that she did
that that I had to look itup to because I've never heard of this
before. She was in ten episodesof the show of which only were ten

(01:16:47):
episodes made of show called David CassidyMan Undercover. And it was it was
a David Cassidy show that he waslike this detective or I mean that that
it was. It was a show. I know, I never heard of
such a thing. It was thepremise that David Cassidy's playing himself but also
playing an undercover agent. Well,I know, I'd love to know.

(01:17:12):
Yeah, it's like the most famousteen idol on the planet, but also
he's undercover. Oh it's out onDVD, dude, can you believe that?
In fact, when I was inFort Lauderdale recently, I had I
had went to David Cassidy's house andto film it for our to shoot video
of it for my cool for myYouTube channel. He plays Officer Dan shay

(01:17:33):
Uh in this in this twenty somethingofficer under operates undercover in the Los Angeles
youth scene. Oh, I betyou there's some great like whiskey a Goo
goo shots and stuff like that.Seventy eight, seventy nine. I should
get that. That sounds interesting.I love though that in the title they
had to get his name in thetitle, even though yeah, yeah,
that's not his character's name, andJack Cassidy was probably still alive at that

(01:17:56):
No, Jack Assid was dead bythen, I think yea. By the
way, I was watching that,um the Colombo episode that Spielberg directed that
Jack Cassidy is in. Have youever seen that? I don't know what
it's one of the it's one ofthe it's like the third episode of Columbo
ever made. I think Spielberg directed. It was one of his earliest directing

(01:18:17):
gigs. YEA. And what's wildis it's this um. I think it's
an author that gets murdered. Soat the beginning, we're in this author's
like high rise office and he's typingaway on the typewriter and we're filming out
the window of this I think it'sa convertible Rolls Royce coming down Sunset Boulevard
and coming past like you can say, I think the whiskey in the distance,

(01:18:40):
and it's coming down Sunset and itpulls in, so it's act the
actual building. I mean they filmedthe real spot. And he pulls in
a parks on the roof of theparking garage next to this building that's on
Sunset Boulevard, and Jack Cassidy getsout of the car and he's got a
gun. You know, he's thekiller. He's going to go into the
building. What's wild is you cansee from this viewpoint into Hollywood where Jack

(01:19:00):
Cassie's apartment that he died in is. It's out there somewhere. I mean,
like i've you really studied it,you could probably see it, but
it's definitely out there in the shot. Oh, because his is just off
of sunset on a near fountain inKing's Road. Yeah, you know,
a block off and you I meanit's the camera's looking in that direction.
So it's definitely there. In thatsea of trees and apartment buildings in the
distance is Jack Cassidy's death site.That's interesting. That's interesting. Wow.

(01:19:27):
You know that's reminiscent of that AntonYelchin movie, you know, or he
just filmed it at Hollywood Forever andthey show him walking down the street in
his own grave is in the backgroundwhere he's going to be buried. It's
like crazy, How bizarre is that? But yeah, so um so so
Christina Hart, she said she's stillalive. Yeah. Yeah. It teaches
acting nice. She taught out.I was teaching acting with her husband,

(01:19:51):
who was also an actor, buthe passed away a few years ago,
and I think she's still doing itand still I think still doing some acting.
Also in addition to an acting teacher, um Kathy Payne, who played
uh Leslie van Holton. I thoughtshe was terrifying. Yes, I agree,
he was good. She was reallygood. And I don't know if

(01:20:12):
Leslie was that terrifying, you know, really seriously, she freaking had the
psychotic stare down like down and thedelivery and she's still alive by Kathy Payne
is um. She hasn't had anyIMDb crowds at least since ninety one.
She I think she she retired fromacting and went into the financial world.
Uh now, because it's too badbecause she was freaking she was the scariest,

(01:20:34):
but she was scarier than Manson,I thought, Yeah, and what
was It was fascinating to watch thatwhole courtroom because just the way it was
demonstrated in this short movie is howexhausting they were, you know, always
screaming, getting up and screaming andhaving to be shoved out and you know,
just like every you know, andthe counteract that that attorney, you

(01:20:56):
know, he really was that obnoxious, objecting everything to interrupt every sentence.
Yeah, and those but those girlsand you know, that screaming and it
was you just know that that jurymust have been so tired at the end.
Towards the end they taught they werethey referenced the part Bouliosium, one
of his other like co prosecutors orwhatever on it. They mentioned, I'm,

(01:21:18):
you know, finding the body ofManson's lawyer. Yes, was that
That's not the same guy that wasthat played his that was his lawyer in
the throughout the whole trial that keptobjecting, right, No, Ronald Hughes
was the guy who actually got alongwith But he was kind of a slob
and he lived in his mother's garageor whatever, and OK. Yeah,

(01:21:41):
and he's the one if they founddead. So they changed some of the
names in the movie. So Imissed the part in the movie where they
talked about him being missing in thefirst place. So I didn't know where
that. I didn't understand who theywere. I know who they're talking about
in real life. I didn't understandif it was a character we had seen
in the film at some point itwas that guy. Well, he was
the big guy who was talking ofBouliosi and was kicked out for swearing and

(01:22:02):
he said he and he apologized toBuliosi for for swearing in the courtroom when
when the judge you know, gothim for contempt. So he was a
friendly guy when you know, Iwas working on the on the defense.
Yeah, for mansion, And uh, what are your thoughts on he was?
I mean, his whole disappearance,in him being found wedges between a
boulder or something like that, whatwas the whole story with him? He

(01:22:24):
was a yeah, I think itwas a flash flood that happened or something,
but he was he was he likean avid hiker or something. And
yeah, maybe I didn't know muchenough of it to be to think of
it very mysteriously, you know,I didn't think. I mean, of
course it looks good. And ofcourse when it happened, the girls are
going CEC Charlie did it from inprison, you know, so so everything

(01:22:44):
got sort of was so blurry withfact and fiction back then, but it
did. I mean, And alsoI think BULIOSI played it up too,
But I don't think it was everruled, you know, a murder or
a questionable. Yeah. And Idon't think he was found with a rock
on top of his head either,I don't. I don't think that's true.
I thought he was just like wedgedbetween a rock, which is what

(01:23:04):
happens when you get caught up ina current. You usually get wedged into
some trees or debris or rocks andstop. That's where they find you in
the way. So it was acoincidence. And I don't know if they
were trying to use that to makeit a mistrial or I don't remember they
were trying to throw that case outforever. But contract was the obnoxious one.
He died not that long ago.Who they based that that attorney on.

(01:23:26):
I forget who they call what theycalled him in in the movie,
but they changed his name. Wellthere you go. Why why would they
Why would they do I wonder whythey did it? They protect his family
or you know, probably to yeah, for any kind of litigation. Maybe
they just didn't want to didn't wannaThe names were changed to protect the innocent.
I guess they can't because they portrayedhim to be an obnoxious jerk,

(01:23:48):
which he was. Um So CathyPayne, who played Leslie van Houghton um
she was also before she retired,she was in a disaster movie, Avalanche,
which was just two years later,which was Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow
and Robert Forrester. And I rememberthat movie being on TV once and I
walked into the room and when Iwas a kid, my mom was watching

(01:24:10):
it and it was like I wasthe part where the avalanche is about to
happen. So it was a scarything to watch. And my mom was
said something. She turned out,Sima, she goes, don't watch this.
I said, Okay, she goesa bad movie. It's a terrible
movie, but I'm watching it.Put it bad thought. That was really
funny. I don't know what herrole she had in Avalanche, but I

(01:24:30):
hope she made it. Oh doyou know what I just realized. Um,
So we had this event in DearlyDeparted Tours. Um. I forget
when it was. It wasn't Itwas well while we were still open,
so it was about three years agoprobably, And three of the women who
were in the Health of Skelter moviedidn't appearance at the shop. I just

(01:24:50):
I forgot all about this to youthere that's a day. And one of
them was Christina hard who played whoplayed Pictards your Cranlinkle, Barbara Mallory who
played Squeaky, and Eileen Dietz whowas an unnamed girl. She had I
think a line in the movie.But Aileen Dietz was fascinating. Eileen Dietz
is the Exorcist. Is the demonin the Exorcist with the with the crazy

(01:25:14):
face that shows up in all thosebizarre scenes. And Eileen Deets was one
of the voices of the demon,you know, the Mercedes McCambridge gets the
credit, but I Ailean Dietz waspart of that too. She was in
Halloween too, She was in theFreeway Killer. She was on General Hospital,
which is how I knew her.But yeah, she was the demon
in the Exorcist when they show thephysical demon, not Linda Blair, but

(01:25:36):
her face, Eileen Deets. Andshe was one of the girls Christina Hert.
We talked about her already. ButBarbara Mallory, who was also played
Squeaky, she was in the movieAirplane. She was in The Bradies,
the movie the show The Bradies andthe Rescue from Gilligan's Island. So when
I got to talk to her,she goes, well, we know somebody

(01:25:58):
in common, and I said,well, well the still I'll just tell
you what it is. So herson was was Elliot Schwartz who worked on
Death Trip. No kidding, Soher Schwartz Sherwood Schwartz's grandson, right.
So so Barbara Mallory, who playsSqueaky, was married is married to uh

(01:26:20):
to Lloyd Schwartz, who is SherwoodSchwartz's son, and Elliot Swartz, who
we worked with on Hollywood Death Tripfor E the E Network. Was she
goes, oh, yeah, wellyou know my son, and he said
no, and I'm like, ohyeah, that was weird. So so
there was a six degrees of HelterSkelter quit literally in our lives with with

(01:26:41):
Elliott Schwartz. That's awesome. Um, all right, Well, Uh,
the actor that played text Watson notmuch to speak of because this was his
only credit and Texts really didn't havemuch of a role in the in the
movie. In this movie, Idon't even think he had a line.
Did he did? He kind ofappears I don't be on the line,
but they showed him when they're talkingabout him. Kind of a deal like
re enactment, you know. Yeah. Um, but it was played by

(01:27:04):
an actor named Bill Durkin. Thisis only credit that I could find on
IMDb. Um, there's another BillDurkin who has who was an executive producer
on The Coen Brothers Barton Fink.But I don't think that's this guy.
I think he was. He Itstood out that uh that he looked about

(01:27:24):
twenty years older than the others.You know, he had he definitely had
a wolfman vibe, you know whenhe when they show him looking at the
camera, he was looking very Wolfman. But uh but yeah, um so
al Checo che Checo or Checho ch e Cco. He played Leno Lobianca.

(01:27:45):
I think it's al Checo, butI could be wrong, could be
Checho Checho. Anyways, he hasa quite a heartwarming story actually for playing
such a tragic character. He hadninety nine acting credits. Another one of
these guys that was in everything.Yeah, all you know, bit parts,
supporting parts stuff. It's possible thathe Probably the most famous thing he
did was he was during World WarTwo. He was partnered up with Don

(01:28:10):
Knots as a comedy duo to entertainthe troops, and that did, like
they did hundreds and hundreds of liveshows together for the troops during World War
two. Al Originally, I meanhe was a fighting age. Originally he
was an engineering unit. He wasyou know, going to be in battle
or you know, be out therein it. But then it turned out
he was also an exceptional great performerand singer, and so they ended up

(01:28:31):
saying no, we're going to useyou to entertain instead, and he teamed
up with don Knots, and sohe ended up having uncredited roles in at
least three don Knots movies in thesixties, The Incredible Mister Limpett, The
Ghost and Mister Chicken, and TheReluctant Astronaut. Yeah, he made appearances
in which I'm sure is because ofthat. And supposedly he had an autographed
headshot of don Knots in his housethat said me, our paths continue to

(01:28:53):
cross nice, which I think isreally nice. Yeah. I didn't even
know that don Knots did those typesof things. Oh it did, like
the World War two stuff. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
don't know. I did not knowthat. But he only played as I
thought, he only played a fishon World War Two. I didn't know
he actually was in World War Two. Well, there's another Don Nuts connection
in this. If I can beso bold as to move on from this

(01:29:15):
man, if you're not done withhim, I'm almost done with him.
Okay, Oh wait, there's onemore story with him that I wanted to
mention. And so his wife diedof polio in nineteen fifty five. Wow,
And she was just twenty eight yearsold. She was on She was
also an actress. She was onshe was touring with I Think Oklahoma over
in Europe, the Oklahoma Musical inEurope, and she died from polio.

(01:29:40):
He said that she was about tobreak out big when she died, and
he was so devastating. They hadonly been married for two years when she
died. But then he never remarried. And in two thousand and six,
when he was eighty four, hedonated his house in Coldwater Canyon two Providence
Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank,where they acute rehabilitation department was renamed after

(01:30:02):
him and his late wife, JeanBradley. Wow. And but as part
of the deal, he was ableto live in the house until he died
and then it went to the hospital. I just thought that was really touching.
He ended up living up living tobe ninety three. He passed away
on July nineteen, twenty fifteen,ninety three years old. He died of
natural causes. But yeah, henever remarried. I guess never had and

(01:30:24):
had no next of ken, sohe donated the house to the hospital.
It was a hospital that had helpedhim with a lot of his health issues
too. An old age. That'svery interesting. Yeah, he donated in
honor of him and his wife,who passed away when she was only twenty
eight. That's something. Yeah,that's very interesting, sad, sad story.
I don't I'm trying to put thistogether in my head. Can you

(01:30:46):
die suddenly of polio if you're ontour with Oklahoma? That is the part
I didn't quite understand. Okay,I don't see polio as being a sudden
thing that hits you when you're andyou're dead, but yeah, I don't
know when you're performing in a musical. Yeah, So it just really thought.
I just thought, I'm sure we'llhear. I'm sure we will hear.

(01:31:08):
But uh but yeah, that's no, I didn't know. It's it's
so funny how um these people thatare you know, just bit parts literally
an extra basically with two lines orsomething, you know, but they have
these such interesting stories. And yeah, he's in nine he had ninety nine
roles. He was in one ofthose guys that was in everything, just
like some of these other actors,you know. So they yes, they
were small supporting parts where he mightonly have one line or no lines.

(01:31:30):
But you know, in The IncredibleMister Limpet he played an uncredited sailor.
So oh funny. Well, Iguess don brought him along, didn't he.
Yeah, really nice nuts to dothat too for his old scene partner.
Yeah. So the don Knots connectionthat I wanted to bring up was
that the actor who played the JudgeJudge Older his name is Skill Homier or
skip Home Homier Homier has his nameHomie, Yeah Homier or Homier Homier Homier.

(01:31:58):
He uh, he played He playeda lot of Nazis. He did
always like one of his one ofhis things. He was in a couple
of episodes of Star Trek which peopleremember as the Nazi like character and uh.
And he was in um yeah,I played the doctor Bacteria carrying doctor
Severn in a Star Trek episode.But people that are in like one episode
of Star Trek or Superstars in Treke Land, you know what I mean.

(01:32:21):
But he was in the Ghost ofMister Chicken as well. But he
played like the nasty not the nasty, but the not very nice reporter that
was always dogging on don Knots.So he had like a lead role in
in the Ghost of Mister Chicken andwhich was one of my all time favorite
favorite movies, and he was hewas just kind of he had the beautiful

(01:32:43):
girl, and the beautiful girl ultimatelydumps him, you know, because he
was handsome and goes with the knots. So I just didn't when I was
doing the research on this, I'mlike, oh my god, that's that's
the guy. I had to makesure. But he played Ali. Ali
was the character's name in the Ghostof Mister Chicken. He was sort of
the nemesis if there was going tobe one. I think of him of
Don Notts, and his name isAli Ali ol I e oh, not

(01:33:05):
Ali like Muhammad No. So Iwas gonna mention this person mainly because of
their career they had, which Ithought was interesting. But Alin Alan Oppenheimer
played Aaron Stovitz, who was theoriginal Manson prosecutor before BULIOSI correct. I
believe he is still alive and workingat ninety two years old, and he

(01:33:29):
has done a ton of high profilecartoon voice work. He was Skeletor and
mat at Arms and he Man duringthe eighties. During the series, he
was character named Vanity on the Smurfs. He narrated the never Ending Story Oh
Wow. He has appeared in threedifferent Star Trek series, Voyager, Deep
Space nine, and the Next Generation, and most recently, he did voice

(01:33:53):
work on Toy Story four and theFallout four video game. I mean in
the list, I mean, I'mjust scratching the surface, yea, of
all the voicework he's done, likemajor major voice actor. Played the Aaron
Stovetz, a small part of theoriginal Prosecutor. Yeah. I mean,
it was a it was a itwas a It was a decent part for
this movie. I mean, hewas recognizable and had a lot of lines.

(01:34:13):
I mean, he was he wasa character that you recognize. Troy
knew him right away from a sixmillion dollar man, and he's like,
oh, that's Alan Apenheimer, sixmillion dollars man, you know. And
I knew him right away from Westworldbecause he was like the the the guy
in the control room. But hewas the one that was, you know,
like overseeing the mechanics of the robotsfrom the computers. And and so
I remember I remember the original westWorld, not the good one. Yeah.

(01:34:36):
Brenner, Jil Brenner was that wasa great that was a great movie.
That was a great movie. Yeah. So, and also I didn't
know this he was he was.I tried double checking this and triple checking
it to make sure. But heplayed DeMille in the original musical Broadway musical

(01:34:58):
of Sons of Boulevard. Really didn'tit just it was the one, the
very first one, and it wasyou know, Glenn Close in that whole
business. But but he's on thesoundtrack as playing to mill It was a
spoken word part. It wasn't reallyI don't think it was really any serious
singing. But I tried double checkingis it another Alan Appenheimer, But but
it keeps going back to him,So I think it was really him,

(01:35:19):
and he was, you know,he was in this musical for a while,
he was with it. So it'sjust kind of interesting. It's just
something that's incongruous. It's also goodreminder you when we can't find someone's credits
on IMDb, it doesn't mean theyweren't a big Broadway success because imb doesn't
carry doesn't cover theater, separate databasefor that. So yeah, and he's

(01:35:44):
still working in ninety two. Gohim. Yeah, good for him.
Hey, if you do what youlove, you know, I mean,
that's all these people. I'd loveto talk to these people, but I
got nothing to say, though,Man, what was it like being the
Hell's cult? You know? Imean, what are you can? But
it would be so cool to getthere, get there, you know,
just you're you. Oh my gosh, it's so cool. That's I remember.

(01:36:06):
One of the first celebrity encounters Iever had was I went I was
in I was just out of college, and I went the Improv in Tempe,
Arizona and Poly Shore. We wentto see poly Shore stand up and
he stuck around afterwards to sign ticketsor whatever to meet people, and he
was like sitting at a table andI stood in line and I got up
there, and I'd never done thatbefore, and I just looked at him

(01:36:28):
and I and he looked at melike expecting me to say something, and
I had nothing to say. It'sthe biggest Basically, I was like,
you're you. Yeah, yeah,here's ticket you signed. I don't know.
I don't know what I was supposedto say. Here, my god,
you're so funny, Like, Idon't know, yeah, yeah,
that's yeah. It is getting dumbfoundedin front of people is funny. He

(01:36:48):
was touring at the time. Hesaid, the finance a movie. I
think it was the in the Inthe Army Now the movie that he was
in that he was self funding.I guess by touring, I would say
that a big studio production. Itwas po It was just it was post
you know, his boom of hiscareer that happened in like the late nineties
when he was like Encino Man andthe Weasel all that. Yeah, uh,

(01:37:11):
do you have anybody else? Well, it was I wanted to.
We talked. Rudy Ramos was DonkeyDan, Danny de Carlo. He was
in Resurrection Boulevard. He's still alive, but he was in Road Dogs with
Steve Rail's bag. He was inQuicksilver and Colors with Sean Penn, Beverly
Hills Cop two. So he's stillaround. Um I was. I didn't.

(01:37:32):
I think at the name of theactor who played Bill Tennant, the
one who vomited, that would havebeen um. That was the business the
manager of Polanski, who you knowit was? It was so it was
that was bad acting too. Didhe really did he really did that happen
in real life though? Did hereally run out? Yeah? He did?
Tenant did puke. Yeah, yeah, I would yeah when he identified

(01:37:55):
his friends that that would have beenterrible, but it was just in repturospect
fifty years later. You were kindof like, Okay, it's a bit
hokey. It looks seen. It'sobviously puking out cream corn or something,
and you know, but it waslike the gause, I want you to
look at her, and because Ican't, I can't. He goes,
no, Look it was you know, shoe and his friend's corpses, Like
you couldn't tell who Abigail Polder wasfrom behind anyway because of the you know,

(01:38:17):
the hair and all that stuff.I mean, who else is it
going to be? But it wasjust it was just kind of kind of
funny, but I want you tolook at her. Um. I was
like, there was a couple ofthings that I that I pointed out that
I thought were kind of funny onlyin retrospect, because I know that we
know what the door looks like andhow how it had the word pig written

(01:38:38):
on it. And then this onewas it's a little tiny yeah yeah,
yeah, and the refrigerators had heldskelter. It's probably catch up or something.
It like pretty bad too, Um, when they were showing the murder
weapons and they were showed they showedthe rope in the in the courthouse and
Beliosi just picks up the bloody ropewith his bare hands and just you know,

(01:38:58):
walks around the court with this thing. You know, it's like real
DNA on this and real blood andit's like no gloves or anything like that.
That was kind of funny. Someof the things that were kind of
interesting is how they dramatized the peoplethat were that were involved, like the
Coots family who were living, youknow, right outside the gates of Cello
Drive, who were out there withtheir drinks in their hands and they were
like, oh, it sounded likea gunshot. I'm sure it's nothing,

(01:39:24):
let's go in, you know,that kind of mistake, and it was
like right outside their door. Butthat's basically what really happened. And uh
and there was the other thing waswhen they they showed the Weiss couple watching
it on the news and Jerry Dumpy, the newscaster was was the newscaster famous
La newscaster was to play the newscasterin the in the movie announcing there's no

(01:39:45):
there's been no developments in the murderthat had you know, captivated, you
know, or terrified the city.And then I just loved the dialogue that
sounds like the gun Stevie found haddruken grip, didn't it. Oh they
must know it's you know kind ofit. They must know they have that
it was. It was just sortof comical because you know, but h
but anyway, I think that Ithink that we've covered it. It.

(01:40:09):
There was an odd There was anodd moment in the movie of Spawn Ranch
when they pulled when they were arrestingeverybody and they pulled Manson out from underneath
that house. Did you do youremember the lady in a chicken coop?
Yes? What was that? Idon't know what that was about it or
something. Yeah, it was theweirdest thing. She was living in a

(01:40:29):
chicken coop with chickens, and itwas like that was that was an odd
I've never read about that reference.They've been pretty accurate with most of the
other stuff that they portrayed. Thelady living in the chicken coop wasn't quite
what I remember at all. Butthe point that that makes the point that
was important to make that Benzibuliosi say, what you will about the man in

(01:40:53):
life. They had no responsibility toprove a motive they had. They did
not have to prove why anyone didanything. They wanted to prove that they
did it. So everyone is talkingabout you know, he's full of crap,
all this Hilder sculptor BS. Yeah, it may have been BS.
But his job was not to provea motive. It was their job.

(01:41:13):
His job was to prove they didit, and he did so that that
I will always defend him. Ihave a lot of respect for him.
Um, you know, questionable behavioras a human being. Okay, fine.
I knew his wife, not didn'tknow her, but I mat her
I liked her. His wife,actually, Gail Bouliosi used to play cards
in the Playboy mansion and with thesecretary with he and she recognized me from

(01:41:35):
the girl's next door. Missus Bouliosidid because I wouldn't introduce myself to him
at one of those signings. Anduh and then and she because you were
on you know, my friend Marywas the secretary at Playboy. I saw
you in that episode. It waskind of cool. Missus Buliosi knew who
I was. That is cool.It was wild it was wild. But
yeah, that's the thing. Yousay what you will about the man is

(01:41:57):
a human being. I don't reallycare. There's a lot of people that
were great actors that were horrible humanbeings. John Phillips a terrible human being,
but an amazing musician, wrote someincredible songs. So you know,
California Dreaming, the Moms in thepop is. You can't discount his talent.
And I can certain things I can'tlike. I can't listen to Michael
Jackson anymore for some reason. Ijust I see it, I listen to,
and I turn it off. It'swhatever, whatever floats your boat.

(01:42:20):
There's no you know, you can'thelp what you like and what you don't
like. And BULIOSI did a goodjob and he didn't have to do anything
else. Yeah, and that's allI got. Well, thank you again,
everybody. I think this is abeen another epic epic podcast episode of

(01:42:41):
Dearly to part of podcast talking aboutprobably arguably our our favorite story. Yeah,
and I think our once again,our podcast probably lasted longer than the
movie. No, it was actuallythree hours, I think. No,
we didn't quite go that long though, for once, for once, see
we need to do three hour moviesand then we will will never be longer
than the actual movie that we're talkingabout. I just love this movie.

(01:43:01):
And there's so many people that areYeah, there's so many people that had
so many interesting credits. Not jumpup and down, oh my god,
I remember them credits, but theythey're all part of Hollywood in the seventies,
you know, the fabric of TVand movies in Hollywood. And yeah,
and the best, yeah, thebest kind, the best era of
television. I think the seventies andthe eighties. I do love that.

(01:43:24):
But but yeah, so thank youguys for watching. Thank you very much.
And um, also just a headsup that our Patreon supporters, they
have five dollars a month ones gotto hear this episode a day or two
early. Um, and uh andand even the there's five dollars tier,
and there's the two dollars tier.Um, what's the two dollars one gets
still gets you the extra episodes thatwe do between these main ones. Um,

(01:43:48):
and that Patreon really does help supportthe pod and help us keep going.
So yeah, M Dearly Departed podcastover at Patreon. I'll look us
up and please I'll put a linkunder the video and again I'll say that
again, you know, not toconfuse what I do with my YouTube channel.
My YouTube channel is something that's differentthan this. The Julied Party podcast
is an independent thing that Mike andI both do, and so the Julier

(01:44:12):
Party podcast Patreon page will be underneaththis on the video. And uh and
also you get that close to aninety minute episode, you know, but
donate two bucks a month and youget like almost a ninety minute episode of
just exclusive for Patreons, just amini episode of all the obituaries. We
talk about all the current events andpeople that have just passed away and their

(01:44:34):
stories and stuff like that. Yeah, which we used to do on this
show, but it just made theshows too long. But also it's great
because we can we can talk moreabout it those than we would have when
they were at the front of theshow. M you know, we literally
talk like twice as much about themnow as as we used to. So
it's cool. It's more Scott andMike King time. Um well, I

(01:44:56):
mean, let's start with the finaldeath. Vincent Bugliosi died sixth twenty fifteen.
He was eighty years old and hedied from cancer. Did I say
you about my first encounter with him. Did I tell you this story about
me calling me up on the phone. I was interviewed for the Late Daily
News about the about the Menendez House, and we were in the paper grave

(01:45:17):
Line. That's when I was workingfor Grave Line Tours. Yeah, and
I was quoted in the paper Isaid, our most most requested stop was
the Tate House, and then nowthat that's destroyed, it's now the Menendez
House. So this would have beenJanuary of ninety four that I just moved
here. So it was a Sundaynight in my and the dear Leader party.

(01:45:39):
Are the grave Line phone rings?It's in my house and I pick
it up and he goes, ScottMichael's are speaking. This is Vinci Buliosi.
I just laughed out loud, No, really, no, really,
who was this now? He goes, no, it's me. As I
read your article in the paper,your quote about the Tate House being destroyed,
and I wanted to know more aboutit. So we just talked for
He said he's working on a twentyfifth edition of the book Helter Skelter,

(01:46:01):
which ultimately came out and um,and so he just wanted to verify that
it was indeed, you know,torn down, gone, and and that
was that was just the end ofit. I said, no, no,
no one is going to believe this. I said, will you please,
like, can I have a noteor something from you, just saying
it was actually you on the phone. And he sent me a nice little
letter saying, you know, itwas a pleasure talking to you or something

(01:46:21):
like that's awesome. But it wasI was like, this is vincibilio was
I'm like, no, it's not. Who is somebody's messing with me,
like anyone would even know, youknow, but to pretend to him of
all people. Yeah, I likedhim. He was always nice to me.
So there you are. Um.And if you don't know the story
about the house getting torn down,uh, one of the last people to
alta Belly owned it until he soldit. Event he owned it and lived

(01:46:44):
in it off and on for yearsafterwards. Right and then at the end,
right before it was torn down.UM, Trent Rezner and nine Inch
Nails recorded I believe it was downwardSpiral or they recorded in the living room
where the murders happened. And there'svideo and which is in sixtories of Helter
Skelter, of that set up withthe big soundboard in there and everything,
mixing boards and everything, and uh. And then when Resiner moved out,

(01:47:05):
he learned that it was going tobe torn down, which means he would
be the last tenant there. Andso he took the pig door with him,
Um, the front door that hadSharon Tate's blood written, the word
pig written in her blood. Ofcourse the blood had been cleaned up,
but the door was still there,and so he took the door, and
supposedly it ended up in his asa door in his recording studio in New

(01:47:28):
Orleans for a time. And thenI think at last I heard was it
was in storage? Well he wasit was. Yeah. When the building
was sold, the door was takenoff of it and putting the basement in
the building. We went to NewOrleans and looked for it. And uh,
it turns out that I guess itwas a plastic surgeon that bought the
place and was operating out of itand had this thing in the basement.

(01:47:49):
And somebody approached him and asked ifthey if they wanted it. Because Resiner
turned his back on the whole truecrime thing. You know, he said
he was embarrassed, and you know, he felt sad, so he yeah,
he said he regretted later on thathe probably was insensitive. He realized
looking back, it was insensitive forhim to record an album there, or
to exploit that or whatever whatever wordyou want to use for it. But
yeah, yeah, I mean,just on what you did for God's sake.

(01:48:11):
But anyway, so he left thedoor behind, but it does belong
to an artist now who has itin his home and he's going to he
said to me that he was goingto put it in a place so you'll
be able to see it from thestreet, so people will be able to
see it, but yeah, it'llbe part of his art collection, and
you know, I really want toprotect it from the element, so it's
not an outdoor door. Yeah.There. If there's one one artifact I

(01:48:31):
would love for my museum, itwould be that. And I was like,
somebody approached me probably fifteen, wellprobably like twenty years ago now saying,
you know, I know who hasa door. Are you interested?
And It's like, well, ofcourse I am, And what's your starting
point? And I'm like, I'mnot playing this game, so I'll give
you five hundred bucks for it,and I never heard from the person again
because I'm not going to get ina bidding more. I figure if it's

(01:48:53):
going to end up in my possession, which I think belongs sort of in
this, you know, because I'mnot financially motivated, I think that I
could, you know, show thisthing has been a history. Anyway,
talk to the guy, really niceguy, and I'm glad it's in a
safe place. And I hope oneday at this show up and end up
being part of the collection of theDearly part of museum. I really do.

(01:49:14):
But in the meantime, I'm I'mI'm comfortable with where it is.
I think it's cool. The guy'sa nice guy and good for him.
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.So anyway, that's it. All right,
guys, thanks a lot for listening, And um, we don't know
what your next show is going tobe yet, but again we're on Spreaker
now on iHeartRadio, so that's ourhome home base now. But you'll still
be able to get us on iTunesand Spotify and all those other places that

(01:49:40):
we've always been at. And Ithink we'll still get us on maybe on
pod being like forward it over there, I think our our SS feed.
One other thing I want to mention, because we've been talking about this for
hours now, the day this isthe day this this this episode is officially
becoming public for everyone to want tolisten to, is the day the murders
happen fifty three years go. Andwe've been talking all about these people and

(01:50:02):
the and and everything about the hooplaafter it and all these people actors,
and ultimately there are seven people thatare dead because of this, you know,
real people that were killed, andum, I don't I can't even
talk about their names right now becauseI probably wouldn't make it, but but
I just it's so important that theseseven people not be forgotten. And not

(01:50:23):
because they're part of pop culture.They are, that's why we know them.
But those seven people have names,and it's hard for me to say
them when you're trying to get youknow, serious about it, because I
get I get caught up in itand I get emotional. But but it's
important. There's seven people lost theirlives and ultimately that's the truth of all
of this, and what's happened infifty three years is extraordinary. But don't

(01:50:46):
ever forget those seven people. Yeah, and with that, we'll see you
next time. Good night. Thishas been an episode of the Dearly Departed
podcast. Dig up more episodes atDearly departedpod dot com and on iTunes and

(01:51:06):
Google Play. See you next time.