It's the Dearly Departed Podcast, featuring your host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. All right, it is Dearly Departed Podcast. It is episode
thirty four, and I'm Mike Dorsey, I'm Scott Michaels. And if you're
watching a video version, you know what this is about already because Scott is
wearing his Helter Skelter shirt, The True Tour, the Helter Skelter Tour.
We are going to be talking about the original Helter Skelter, the Helter Skelter
made for TV movie from nineteen seventy six that was based off of Vincent Bugliosi's
book of the same title. The Helter Skelter Book one of the most famous
true crime novels ever written. I think it's still probably the number one ever
sold, probably the most famous. But yeah, yeah, all of those
things. Yeah, So obviously this is an area we love to talk about.
We talked about it before because we did our whole episode on Once upon
a Time in Hollywood. Um, and you know Scott and I. If
you don't know, I'm sure you do. We did the movie, the
documentary The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter on the Mansons, which, by the
way, Buzzfeeds BuzzFeed readers ranked it the fourth scariest documentary ever made scary interesting.
Yes, you know that. You know Brandon Brandon's music really really complimented
that documentary so very much. And uh yeah, so I can see where
there's some really when we were going at the Barker Ranch, it's right,
people are really kind of chilled by that. And uh yeah, yeah,
well that's that's neat that it has longevity, like and the walk up the
Cello drive at night and the home video footage and the crime scene photos.
Yeah, um pretty. I remember it was like early days of social media
when that came out, and I remember seeing a post by like a teenager
saying that they were watched that basically that they watched our movie is like the
horror movie of the night to scare each other with. Basically, it was
really like what I used to do with my friends when I was in high
school. We would watch horror movies to scare the girls. So and that's
in ourselves them. It's funny how people say, oh I watched it.
I can I mean, I can't watch 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, you know, probably three times a month.
I turned it on to go to sleep too. Yeah, it's like that's
really cool that it has a cult following. Um, you have such a
soothing voice, Scott that even when you're talking about mass murder, it just
puts people in the calm people to sleep 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
go to sleep and like celebrities read stories. 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 Jillan Hall have all done like I've done this
calm app readings. So we could do the Scott Michael's one where you like
read calming stories about death and you don't murder. Reading is really difficult to
do, you know it Really it's hard to do when you're doing it because
you anytime you stumble, you can't repeat yourself, you can't go and or
um every time you you know you your mouth makes a whistle, noise or
something, that's it. You got to redo it. And eight I read.
I listened to audio books never like fourteen hours long. I can't imagine.
And and a lot of times they are narrated by like the author,
and I'm like, God, that must have taken so long. Because when
you work with I've worked with professional actors in the Vio booth and they're amazing,
Like they one take, they will nail it every time, one to
two times, I mean, and they could read an entire page and not
mess up one time. And you're like, how I can't get more than
a two sentences out right. It's it'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, that is really it's exhausting. It is.
I'm not saying it's hard work as in physical labor, but there is a
physical toll and you're just doing these I mean, I'm ready to pass out
after we do our podcast. It yeah, I mean, it's it's engaging
it's fun, but it's it's it's tiresome. You know. It takes a
lot of audio. And you were a radio DJ, but you used to
be able to play songs. You would 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 was nothing. Yeah, people screw up on
the radio all the time, so it doesn't ma but because it's throwaway,
but yeah, fourteen hour memorializing a fourteen hour story is really is really.
So I'm doing one right now on the on the Hertford Circus fire and oh
that thing I had where all the one hundred and sixty some people died in
a fire and while they went to see the circus, I mean is that's
a mental story and they go crazy about they're crazy in depth about the condition
of the bodies and stuff. It's been very very interesting, very very interesting.
So we did the sixties of six Degrees of Helter Skelter and Scott.
You were a credited consultant on Tarantinos Once upon a Time in Hollywood, which
was also on this story, and then 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 worked on those that Aquarius show, that
David Kovany Manson show. That one that they did was there was a really
good mini series, the The Myth of Helter Skelter that was on reels a
couple of years ago. It's like four nights. Um. So you know
this, this documentary has really given you know, me longevity in that regard
of a mansion. It's just it's weird to become a person that is considered
you know, some kind of uh I don't even like the term expert,
but you know what I mean, a focal point where people come for information,
and it's it's very odd to uh to everything always goes there, like
our our podcast always go there because it's our interests. Um. But yeah,
so I've been I've been lucky so somewhat at least experts on the case,
uh pay in one of us even paid expert on the case with you,
Scott. So Um. That's why we wanted to dive into this,
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 under iHeartRadio. UM and they're a really great
service and so now we will have um some ads, but not not too
many. We don't want to add flood people with ads, but there will
be a few ads, um, like beginning and end and like in the
middle, like at some point in the middle there's there's an ad. So
UM. So anyways, we're really excited to be on Spreaker. Yeah.
No, it's moving up and they seem like really like they'll be uh actively
you know, putting it in a rotation, so it's neat that more people
will be able to hear this. Yeah. They um, they reached out
to us, so that's nice and they were really helpful in helping us move
over. So thank you Spreaker. UM. We had some interesting before we
get to hate mail, we have some good mail. Yes tell me.
Uh. First of all, on Tissa, 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 played Tarzan at one point. Um they were
married couple and she had this um. Some people referred to it as a
cult um like it was like a weight loss group or organization that was based
on like the Bible lessons of the Bible 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 well be that one, right, yeah,
U soum sou So. They died and her and her husband died tragically in
a plane crash last year, a private jet crash into a lake right after
takeoff. And so there's an HBO I 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 those like kind of oh wow, this is
the more you look at it, the more bizarre it got. Kind of
a story you know, in what sense? Is it bizarre because of the
people or is there something about the crash itself that made it get weirder and
weirder. It wasn't the crash itself. That was weird. It was like,
oh, you know, they an actor 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 it was like, oh, and his wife
was this kind of had this kind of cult thing going on with the weight
loss, and there was a bunch of church people that were on your church
leaders in her group that were on this flight that went down. It just
was all just add an extra layer of intrigue. Which Tarzan was he so
he was actually it was Joe Laura and he was Tarzan in the series Tarzan
the Epic Adventures, which was in the nineties for like a couple of years,
okay or a year. It was one season. He stars in for
one season, So it's apparently it was about the character of Tarzan in his
early years, after his first exposure to civilization, before his marriage to Jane.
Oh think I'm married. I guess they did. That's nice. Wow,
that's interesting, Well because when you said that, now I went straight
back to what I thought the Tarzan death was going to be and it was
just ron Eli. We talked about it on one of our one of our
other podcasts of you know current one of the Patreon ones with the current obituaries.
But ron Eli was eight Tarzan who was murdered. He was shot to
death by his son and um thirty year old son of Tarzan was called justifiable
homicide after he had fatally stabbed his mother and then shot his father and killed
him Holy cash. So that yeah, that was That was just nineteen twenty,
nineteen October. I think we've uncovered a Tarzan curse maybe so maybe so,
uh, although I can't think of another. I don't know, but
who else was Tarzan Wismuller, Wisemoeller. Then there was Buster krab I think
it was Krabatar, and then Miles O'Keefe who did it with Bo Derek in
the in the eighties and the seventies or eighties, and I'm sure there are
many many more. But uh, but yeah, that was that was something.
But yeah, so plane crashed Tarzan and interesting. Well, thanks for
the tip. So thanks for the tip. 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 in which was pertinent to the subject matter
of today's show. He said, Um, he was about to start reading
The Family by Ed Sanders and wanted to ask if there's any other Manson related
books to recommend. And I asked you, and then you sent me a
picture of like fifty books on your bookshelf that are all man There's like two
bookshelves. Yeah, but I would say, um, really I would.
There was there's a lot of there's a lot of books that focus on the
theories. Yeah, and we know, like the race war thing was just
a small part really of what was going on. It was just what BOC
used to prosecute the case. And more power too. But I like the
ones to give you more background on the people themselves. And my friend Greg
King, he wrote a book called Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders and it's
hard to get but it was really good. 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 one where I when I read that, it
was like, oh, I can see how somebody he had the odds stacked
up against him. From minute one. You know he was When I said
it, I said, he was just bad from the beginning. And how
bad is a term I don't I don'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, I got about a third of the way into
and I lost interest. It was he put together some very interesting theories,
but I got really bored with his uh, with his Buliosi bashing And did
you feel like it was like he was conspiracy nut stuff or you just didn't
like that it was very all bashing of bulio It's you know, I was
exhausted by how he was really going for buglios and that ruined a lot of
it for me. That I was just like, here we go again.
Okay, we know, we know you don't like him, and this is
what he did. And it concentrated so much on Buliosi's personal life, and
it's like it's supposed to be about this. So I got bored with it.
But I'll tell you I got some really interesting pieces out of that that
that changed the way I thought about the crimes definitely as its fans like I
see people talking about it. Yeah. Now the other books that are like
the books that are written by the people, The Texas Watson book Will You
Die for Me? I like that one. Susan Atkins did one called Child
of Satan, Child of God, which kind of sucked, but her last
version of it, called The Myth of Helter Skelter, made some things seriously
click in my head. The Myth of Helter Skelter, Susan atkins last book.
You might even be able to download that for free on her website.
Missus La Bianca wrote a book, the first missus La Bianca wrote a book
about Leno la Bianca, which is like 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 New Chicks Snake wrote a book. I didn't
bother reading that one, The Squeaky Book I read that was a bit technical.
There's so many books. There's so many 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 some really good ones. The family by Ed
Sanders, which was reissued as Sharon Tate Something a couple of years ago.
But I would say the Susan Atkins book The Myth of Helter Skelter, and
Tex Watson's book is a very interesting book. Will You Die for Me?
And I think you can download that for free on his website too, his
prison Ministry. So those what I would recommend, and I will always recommend
Helter Skelter. And people, I get so much crap for that for recommending
that book, but people, people are you know, people take Bugliosi to
task for things he did in his life, and they talk about this myth
of Helter Skelter like the whole things of 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 other stuff you want to talk about, race,
war, business, Okay, that's incidental, 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 a highlighter the second time I read it,
it happened at this address at this time, and this is what they found,
and this who was there, and this 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's a technical book, a dissection of the
of the crimes and the truth of the trial. So I will I will
defend him because he did what he had to do. But I always describe
it as sort of like Mamma Mia, you know, he took they took
all these avas songs and rove it in together to a plot of a story
they could right to make sense out of it. One of my favorite lines
from the movie, and I'm gonna paraphrase it, but it was from Helter
Skelter film, was um, he basically bulios. He tells it's something an
effect of he kind of rates the law enforcement officers on the case and basically
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 just a drug murder. He's like, no,
it's weirder than that. Yeah, So it does. He can criticize
a lot, but he did his job, and yeah, they would say
Manson was innocent. Well a lot of people say that, but you know,
he had he didn't have technically blood in his hands with those seven people,
but he did try to kill others, and he did participate in another
son any any an, he tied up the La Bianca's. Yeah, so
there's you know, he was not He wasn't some wide eyed person who just
said, you know, did he tell people to kill him? Probably not,
you know, but he made quite clear what he wanted. You know
what to do. You take this knife and you know what to do.
I mean, that's a fine line between telling someone exactly and then implying,
you know, basically, but uh yeah, it's bizarre. But I guess
said but mister Buliosi, I will. I have a lot of respect for
him, and you know, as a human being. I don't know.
I met him several times. It's very nice to me. I met his
wife several times. She was very nice 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 talking to 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,
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 anything else. Yeah. The haters call him
the bug the pay well, they actually did. The killers called them that
too, the bug, so they still do. The people that hate him
call him bug bug. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, Hey,
it's bool, get it right. Um. So anyways, thank you Douglas
for recommend or for asking us that question. And thanks oh now, just
a nod to uh to another person who watches or listens to us, Ron
Powers. He's the guy that suggested we go through all the Helpter Skelter movies
and talk about them, and that's what sort of this one up. So
so Ron Powers, thanks for suggesting this. Yeah, thank you Ron.
Um. Okay, uh, did you get any hate mail? Any good
ones? Hate mail? You know, most of them are pretty pretty allowsy,
but there are there was one about them, the Jane may Well,
Gene Mansfield and the James Dean video that 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 James Dean ever taken. How embarrassing you need
to brush on your homework? Brush up? You know, I don't know
Bubba with Domini Beard, I don't know. That was stupid. But what
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 video that I put up about, you know,
the Jay Mansfield car, and I took my camera and I went through
every inch of the interior of which here for people who don't know, you
own the car that Jane Mansfield died in right outside New Orleans. Yes,
and I took video of the inside's video know and also ever see anywhere else
in the world you know this is this is the car, and people,
you know, criticize a lot of it, and that's find whatever. But
somebody wrote, I'm sure Mariska Hargete is mortified that you have the car.
There are rules. I would be thrilled of Mariska Hargete with watching one of
my videos. There are rules, Mike, didn't you get there are rules?
We break all of them. All these 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 know they really James Dean killed himself by traveling
too fast. It's like, you know, no, no he didn't.
But it's just it's just you can't reason with people, and just diving into
the comment is so stupid. I mean, I was listening to it.
Was it Joe Rogan or somebody like that, who is just saying don't don't?
Why? Why do I want that at Why do you want to expose
myself to that? Yeah? It does 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 when it's creative. No no, oh,
well I'll tell you this in a second anyway. So that's it. The
end, the end, the end, the end. Okay, hold on
a second, I'm gonna pause for a second. All right, So we
get into the main feature. The main feature, Helter Skelter is coming down.
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 turning sixty in August eighteenth. Oh wow,
I know right right. So I share my birthday with Roman Polanski and Bent
and Pouliosi. Wow, it's cool. That also means the Roman, Pilanski
Bugliosi share a birthday, which on its own was kind of wild. But
yeah, top of that, Scott Michael'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's amazing. It is weird, well,
very weird. M So Helter Skelter was a TV movie. There was
over three hours long, and it was broken up into two different nights in
nineteen seventy six. It aired on back to back nights April first in April
second of nineteen seventy six. As we already said, it was based on
Bugliosi's The Prosecutor's Book. At the time that it aired, it was the
highest rated made for TV movie ever that it ever aired. It pulled like
a sixty percent share on its second night, which is insane, and I
think it was surpassed by Roots the following year, but up to nineteen seventy
six, it was the biggest TV movie ever made, and it was nominated
for three Emmys for Music, Directing, and editing, and it focused it
primarily on the investigation into the crimes and 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 turned me onto the whole thing because they because
Steve rows Back, his Manson was pretty pretty terrifying, and you know,
just just those I know, I noticed at one point, you know,
he does the crazy stare, you know, just a dead stare. And
I noticed one time it was like a still frame that they didn't they just
showed him, you know, and it did still frame. Yeah, but
those long gazes and those those terrifying eyes. And I remember that scene when
I was a kid that when that came out, and then when I found
out that Manson is going to be eligible for parole, I was a little
kid in Detroit and scared Manson was going 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 being there scene that one scene in the courtroom
where he looks at Buliosi and his watch stops and uh and that that was
that was terrifying. Yeah, that was a really scary, scary bit.
Um. It's funny how you know at the end they did, they did
like that whole thing at the end where they let the audience know that that
that after they were sentenced, you know, California overturned the death penalty and
then they did the whole oh scary they 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. Manson certainly did in the end. Um,
Texas never getting out unlikely, and and the other girls will get out.
Clem's the only one connected to anything that's ever that's gotten out, and I
think that's clim is it. And he'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
can go see him, yeah, if you know, if you know,
you can you can find the bar he plays in yeah. Um, for
a time I thought was Wild. He was in prison with Bouli or with
um Bosle. They were in the same 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
on somewhere, but I've heard it a few times. It's really interesting.
Um, I got a good prison story about Manson. Okay, this is
my friend Michael. Michael Channels is the 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.
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 not a 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
room wherever it is that you you sit 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 Kennedy or 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, come on over here. No, Michael's
like, yeah, so sir hands or hand comes over and and you know
it gets introduced to Michael by Charles Manson. Is just like the most insane
story. So yeah, I'm actually going up to la on Monday to interview
him to talk for the Channel because he's got some insane story. Not Sir
Hanser Hand No no, no, no, no, this is Michael.
Is a trip Michael to meet him. I was shocked that I would ever
be friends with him, but because don't judge a book by its cover,
I should know that. But after Manton died, I was sort of now
that, now that all that stress and all that weird oh business is gone,
I could actually meet him and have it. We became friends. So
I'm I'm interested to see this how this goes so anyway, and there's one
other thing I wanted to touch on about 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 associated with the book. But I was
always like, who's Kurt Gentry? You know, even I just this,
I didn't even bother looking him up, you know, but he I guess
he's just like a ghostwriter. And for this book. And he wrote the
true story of the U two spy incident, the Madams of San Francisco,
and the Killer Mountains, the search for the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine. Yeah,
he had. He had obviously a genre that he liked and uh and
he I think Helter Skelter made him a very wealthy man because he co produced
the movie too. And he died in uh in July of twenty fourteen in
San Francisco. You have seventy six k Kurt Gentry and and Booliosi was became
a prolific crime writer in his own right, not just Helter Skelter. He
wrote about the oj trial, He wrote about um, you know Bush and
the invasion of Iraq. He wrote about the Kennedy Assassination, which is one
of his Kennedy Assassination books, was also 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 was also at least two books of his turned
into movies TV shows. That Kennedy book was it was add to me like
that thing and no pictures, that's what 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 stayed with the Lee Harvey Oswald theory that's or
you know, however the prosecution or it was never prosecuted, but you know,
stayed with the official Warren commission a story. And he took every single
you know, conspiracy and just dissected it. And so I did read some
of it, but I couldn't get I couldn't. I'm at that hurt.
Well, And then I think what he did, because it was so dang
long, was that he released like a shorter version of the book later and
that's what got adapted into the Parkland film nine years ago. So, um,
let's get into the film, let's talk 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 because the Spawn Ranch had burned down years before
they filmed this. Even though this film, you know, was released in
seventy six, which is just seven years after the murders, which means it
was filmed probably six years after the murders. Uh, the Spawn movie ranch
where the Manson you know, hung out and lived for a lot of this
had burned down in a wildfire in nineteen seventy. So um, I don't
know where they filmed, what movie ranchs they filmed that, but there's other
movie ranches all around southern California that are like Spawn. So yeah, they
said it was. It was. It may have been even the Paramount ranch
that they built it up, that would make sense. I um. And
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 a dive and I couldn't find where that was.
The house of the use of the Tate House when they said that the
newspaper reporters were retracing the steps of the killers, you know, And they
said, well, turn left on Alesion And I was looking at Alesion and
Beverly Hills. I can't find It's not their Legion Park, isn't another part
of LA So I couldn't locate that house. And I'm sure someone will probably
mention it in the comments at some point, I hope so because I'd love
to see it. I'd love to see the house. The one location it
was real that stood out to me was the Lobianca House. Yeah, And
I thought that was impressive because they actually not only did they film on the
street, but it looked like they actually filmed on the property like all the
film house, like in drive the house. They did go in the house.
They went through the kitchen into the living room. I throwze it and
I went to the crime scene photos and I look, I matched cabinets,
I matted doorways and they went in the house. That was shocking to me.
So they so they got in that's there. Well, you know,
when the video version of this, i'll i'll, I'll put those photographs in
there, or you can add them to wherever you can add them. But
I couldn't believe it inside. So when they I know where line al at
Bianca's body was and where it was positioned in the house, and they went
straight to it, there's a new picture hanging where the old picture was and
as that was really sometime. So a great uh. One of the things
I love about movies like this, especially when it's a made for TV movie
and it's you know, the budgets are 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 their lives. It's kind of a becomes a
snapshot of nineteen seventy five Los Angeles in addition to it being you know,
a period piece about nineteen sixty nine Los Angeles. So, um, I
don't know. I love watching it just for those to see those little you
know, locations and streets pop up like yeah, yeah they you know,
even when when the show the lab Yanka is driving around with the with the
boat, you know they they stopped at that corner where the library is and
Los feels and according to the book Helter Skelter, the book, the news
stand was on the corner where the Chevrons station is where they you know,
they bought the newspapers to mister missus Labyanka on their way home to be murdered,
bought a newspaper and the headline was Sharon Tate was killed. And they
always said it was in front of that 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 you know, going to straight locations, so
I'm sort of surprised by that. But if it is in a different place,
why they said it was across from the gas station. But then Bolosi
did get some facts really wrong in the book. He got you know,
he fudged around with some of the uh, 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
out? Yeah, Well, Stephen Weiss, who found the gun on the
hillside, who they changed his name, and they changed the name of that
character in the movie, which I thought was to Quint. Yeah, Stephen
Quinn, and I interviewed him and he, you know, he's like,
I never watched Dragnet because they said the little boy who watched Dragnet, you
know, had made sure not to watch put his fingerprints in. He goes,
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 I knew how to handle a gun, and
it wasn't you know, how to handle a gun properly, and so it
wasn't anything about fingerprints or I didn't even he said, I don't even know
where that came from. The kid watched Dragnet. So there were certain things.
I'm not saying BULIOSI did it. Probably Kurt Gentry did it to make
it sound more interesting, but that is that is one thing that that was
wrong. Not not important, but it's one of those pop culture references that
out that stuck with me. And when I was able to ask the kid
himself, you know, he's like, no, that never happened, you
know. So when he found Texas Watson's gun in his backyard that they've thrown
off the hill, yeah, having no idea they'd thrown into someone's backyard.
Probably. He's not saying I knew how to handle it like evidence. He's
just saying I knew how to safely handle a gun by not without it,
you know, to make sure it didn't go off right. You know.
I didn't walk around with my finger on the trigger. That's that kind of
thing held, just handle it a little bit like this. And it was
a gun in his hands. So so yeah, and hen said the way
he laid it out, He's like, well, you know, there we
were on these hills all the time. You know, there was a hill
behind the house. They went up to Beverly Glen, probably about fifty feet
up. And he says, we're always scrambling those hills. There were toys
all over those hills, you know. And he says, but I found
the gun, is like, now I knew. I knew it was the
real thing. I knew right away it wasn't a fake gun. But then
he told me that when, you know, because it was his dad that
made the calls of the police department saying 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 his father told him and so it was his
father that really turned the gun in in time September, first, three weeks
after the murders. They had it up until December, I think before they
realized they actually had it in their custody already. And when they were going
to make the movie, I guess they 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 two doors down that played there the parents
in the movie, which made sense because they filmed on location. They filmed
the real hillside, but the house I was tring to match it up,
and I could tell that they were in front of a house that was a
couple of doors down. So they must have used the neighbor's house who were
actors and that played mister and missus White. Amazing. Yeah, and so
that's out their backyard that's in the movie, but it is the same hillside,
just two houses down. I think they may have shot the like they
might have shot some of it, like the him handing over the gun to
the police officer, maybe in front of their house. Yeah, but for
sure the neighbors were that were in the movie. It was their house a
couple of doors down. That makes sense now because I was trying to place
it by the Google Earthly the other night, 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
of evidence that they didn't even know they had for months and uh and they
were publishing pictures of this gun saying be on the lookout for this gun.
I mean like everyone in the country was 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,
a being a prosecutor, obviously being involved in law enforcement, highly critical
of the police. For sure. There was no covering up of their which
is really interesting. Did initially because of this, because of that stupid dragnet
thing. They made it sound like the police were in Eppton that regard because
they say the police officer picked up the gun put their hands all over it,
and not realizing how important it could be. But it was really you
know, it's not that wasn't the case. 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 have been 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 he pushes the button anyway, you know,
that was hilarious. That was so funny. Blood on this boop smear
my fingerprint in the middle of it. Sad, I wish it man.
Yeah, there were some really kind of 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. I mean, when you really concentrate on the
tape house and that, you know, they showed the exterior when they're walking
around, it looks like this massive park with a road in it and stuff
like that. So yeah, I didn't really didn't. Really. I had
a hard time trying to place that place. But but yeah, they did
a good job though, finding a house of similar style, even if it
was a big, two story place, much bigger than the actual house,
it was still at least the right look. And they're hard to find.
I mean, as you know from Tarantino, having to find something like that,
very hard to find something that has all the long driveway at the electric
gate, a house that looks that way, you know. Tough, Yeah,
in the hills. Um speaking of goofs, before we get into like
the actors and everybody in it, they're at twenty about twenty three and a
half minutes into the movie. I sent you this, Scott. There is
this the shot when the Mansons are being arrested at Spawn Ranch. There's this
big long I think it starts off as like a zoom and they're kind of
in tight and they pull way back and they show every with the crowd of
people and police officers and Manson's in the middle of it. And as they
finished, and as they're pulling back, I'm a big I can spot things
really easily in films, like when a boom mic is in the shot,
or when there's lights or a crew member 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's in full view. There was a crew
member with a big hole holding up a big stand that has I think a
big light gel on it, and he's kind of steadying it with his hands
while they do this shot. And they clearly I don't know because they were
shooting in TV format, they just thought, oh, well, this isn't
wide screen. He'll be out of the shot, he'll be off the signs
not. It's very clear, very clear. I'll put I'll put a screenshot
of it up. Yeah. It's funny because I showed that to Troy.
I mean I saw it right in Troy. It's like, I don't see
it. I said, no, you see the guy. You can see
his arms and you can see his hat. He's wearing a hat. And
he's like, yeah, I don't see it. So it's your eye.
They caught it. And I'm looking at it's like, no, you're absolutely
I can see it, but it's easy to miss. You're probably the only
ones ever spotted it. I might be. Yeah, yeah, I hope.
So, man. I love spotting stuff like that. I see boom
mikes all the time now, boom mikes and shots constantly the shadows. Yeah.
Yeah, one time I think it was an episode of Suits. Maybe
there was like one of these walking talk 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 past in the background. I think it's like
the audio guys, like they're like their little video village. It's like clear
learning. Right, there were two guys sitting at it and the camera goes
right by them. It's like, wow, not notice. Oh yeah.
The best blooper of all we talked about this before was seeing seeing a Billy
Wilder in the reflection of Glorious Swanson's glasses in Sunset Boulevard, you know,
seeing the crews sitting there filming, which was a magical, a magical you
know, boo boo or what are you calling blue? Right? It's cool?
So yeah, I love that. But you're and with that movie,
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 the people that ear in the movie being made?
The movie? So before we get into the actors, I just wanted
to talk about the music really quick. So they their cover versions of Helder
Skelter of Pagys and Revolution. They were covered by a band called Silverspoon.
And I was and I was trying to 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 was Rick Green on drums, Michael Kennedy on
lead guitar and vocals on page Stephen on bass, Joey Hamilton on vocals.
Uh. So, yeah, there was this band called Silverspoon. Now the
incidental music. The score was done by Billy Goldenberg, who worked on Alias
Smith and Jones. Colombo Duel played against sam Ko jack in around the World
in eighty days, so he's got he has quite a you know, they're
both a very you know, significant career as a scoring movies. But it's
it's just kind of cool because that there's another one with the crazy strings that
we you know, when when certain things happen in the movie that are kind
of spooky, uh, you know, obviously scores very important, and Billy
Goldberg did a good job with that well. And uh and Duel has another
great famous movie, Goof with reflection crew reflection in it, that's very famous.
I think you mentioned that. Yeah, it's the I believe it's the
when the phone booth gets run over when he's in the phone booth and then
he has to get out of it because the truck smashes the phone booth.
I think there's a moment there where you can see Spielberg. I think in
the reflection of the glass of the phone booth. You know, thinking about
that, do you think that could have been his sort of Hitchcock thing.
It could be. You know, I definitely noticed it. He's a stickler
for details, so and he maybe he just didn't notice it and they didn't
have another shot, and he's just like, 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 like that, and I don't know. Yeah,
it's something that I think he had to. I think he tried to
meet Hitchcock or he's watching him film something on Universal, and I know that
he was also he was a big fan of Trufaux. Oh yeah, and
that's part of why Trufeau was in Close Encounters of the third kind, which
we will be mentioning again in a few minutes. Yes, yes, he
sayes. Um, so you want to talk about the cast and crew,
Sure, I just really have cast and director. Okay, But Tom Greise,
which is how you pronounce that. Some people think it's Grease or grease,
it's Greys. Tom Gryse was the director UM. And he had a
long, long, long career, and unfortunately this was kind of the end
of his career, in the end of his life. US. He started
out in television in the fifties and UH and two won two Emmys, and
he did theatrical films and TV movies. He kind of bounced back and forth
between them and UH. He's probably best known for the Charlton Heston western Will
Penny from nineteen sixty eight, which which 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 only done B movies up to this point.
And Grys pulled one of those great moves that you hear about in you know,
Hollywood history a lot when a director finally 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 to sell the screenplay. And Heston backed him,
and that got the movie made as a result of that, and Heston
apparently called that movie will Penny his favorite film that he was ever in.
He never regretted for a moment, and he worked with Greys I think on
a couple more projects after that. Okay, that was kind of interesting,
but yeah, Helter Skelter was the second 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 Helter Skelter aired on television. His last film,
which he didn't finish, was called The Greatest. It was about Muhammad
Ali, with Ali starring as himself, and he he died. They had
finished filming the movie about a month before he died and they were in post
production audit and Grys had a heart attack while playing tennis at a club in
the Pacific Palisades. Isn't that crazy? And I think it's interesting because one
of the early scenes in Helter Skelter is 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, and grabbed him and that's how Grys died,
was playing tennis. He was only fifty four years old when he died.
The woman who played Winnifred Chapman who was builed only as the housekeeper, her
name was Dorothy Meyer, and she was in Ali Are the Greatest as well,
no kidding, yeah, yeah, which so so. And she's like
the first actress to really be in the movie. I mean that was her
her. She was the opening and when she's screaming murder, that was chilling
too. I remember that vividly when that scene that for the first time was
you know, here her screaming after she found the bodies, and and that's
you know, she she made her career basically paying housekeepers and nurses. She
was a model for a while doing uh like Maxwell House and Hallmark and and
things like that, and she did a ton like a lot of these people.
I mean I looked up a lot of these people and I was like,
Okay, Jefferson's one day at a time, you know what I mean.
It was like they're all in Mannix, Colombo, Colleja, every almost
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. So she did although so she was she did
a she you know, she was a significant featured extra mostly. I think
she died in September twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven. She was sixty two
years old. So creative. Was there some creative license taken with her?
When she gets dropped off by the car? Didn't she walk up to the
house from the bus stop or did she given a ride? No, you
know that's something that I It was a she got dropped off at the bus
stop and then somebody saw her and offered her a ride. Now I know
how far up she went, but yeah, that's when we hit in six
degrees. That's another thing I'd like to modify, because you learned more stuff
all the time. So I don't know how far they made it up.
They just dropped her off at the bottom of Cello, I don't know,
but she did. She was given a lift you know, because that's that's
several that's a couple of miles from the bus stop to the task. Yeah.
So yeah, um, so yeah she was and Missus Chapman. Yeah,
there's somebody I want to know more about. That's Missus Chapman. Yeah.
So, um, getting back to The 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 was written for that movie and was originally sung
by George Benson in the movie, but then of course Whitney Houston covered it
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 it was songs by George Benson. So so
the Greatest Love is referring to I mean, it must have been written for
the songs for the movie. So maybe was he married or something or was
it maybe I don't know, what's I don't know, what's part of history
it covers. Maybe it's the love of boxing, I don't know. Yeah.
Um. Another interesting thing that I thought about about this, it's going
to blows in people's minds about Tom Gryse is His son is actor John Gryse,
and John Gryse is most famous for playing Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite.
Okay, and John Grys's first film role as a child was as a child
actor in the Charlton Heston movie will will Penny of his dad's movie and John
Grys plays William Garretson in Helter Skelter. Uncle Rico was William Garretson. He's
a skinny little guy too. That's a great great I had no idea.
I was watching Uncle Rico when I saw 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 nineteen at that point and probably yeah, and
uh yeah, that was that. I'll admit I found that too, and
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 a that was a piece of trivia. That
was like holy shit. So yeah, Uncle Rico plays William Garretson in Helter
Skelter, and Clem Grogan is played by an It was played by someone named
Steve Gryse, and I do know that. When I found Tom Gruise's obituary,
they mentioned, you know, next to Kenya who survived by and their
inner is a son named Stephen Gryse in his obituary. So I think Clem
Grogan was another one of Tom Gryse's sons, and that was his only IMDb
credit was playing Clem Grogan and Helter Skelter. But yeah, I put his
kids in the movie. I thought that was cool. It is cool I
do it. Yeah, I think that's awesome. So yeah, So Tom
Gryse, the director died on January third, nineteen seventy seven, almost exactly
nine months to the day after Helter Skelter aired on television. He was only
fifty four years old. Dropped dead from a heart attack and paramedics were unable
to save him and he was declared dead at the hospital in Santa Monica.
M R. Great movie, Yeah, great movie. Yeah. I mean,
not a lot of really high profile movies that he made, but he
made a lot of them, and he did a lot of television work too,
So he's one of those kind of journeyman type directors. I think.
Hm Um George Desnzo, who played Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor, probably most
famous for playing Marty McFly's grandfather and Back to the Future who hits him with
the car? And there's that funny dinner scene when they're watching it was the
Honeymooners, I think, or what are they watching on TV? And Marty
McFly says something makes a reference to John 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's you know, nineteen fifty four or
five or whatever. Yeah, hilarious. He's another guy that you like.
We talked about Paul Sorvino in our in 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 a thousand, you know, a thousand credits
because I recognize his face now it must be sure in this movie because his
credits were you know, he was in Close Encounters. That was probably gonna
come out. Um and uh, the actress just three and eighteen again,
But that's not that significant, you know, those are like amazing. I
mean, Close Encounters is a classic. Back to the Future, of course,
is a classic, but the rest of them are kind of like throwaway
movies. Yeah, and Close Encounters are the third kind. He it's a
bit part. He only has a few lines. He I think his real
big scene, or maybe his only scene is about a quarter of the way
in. There's a press conference that they have, like the military and government
has to kind of debunk these all these 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 saucer and all the people that, oh,
that's what I saw. That's what I saw, and he go and then
he pulls up this pewter metal plate and says, it's you know, my
kids threw this up in the air and I took a picture of it,
you know, like it's not you know, it's nothing. That was kind
of his big moment in Close Encounters Are kind, which was um, which
was a year after Helter Skelter. Oh wasn't and then yeah and then he
um. So he looks a lot the same in Close Encounters as he does
in Helter Skelter. He also was the star of the nineties crime series Equal
Justice that ran for two seasons ninety and ninety one, which also had a
young Sarah Jessica Parker in it before she right before she blew up. Okay
Sarah. Um, But George Descinzo died on August ninth, twenty ten.
He was seventy and it was Ppsis Sepsis died on the anniversary of the crimes.
So the real Boulios outlived the fake Boulios by five years. Mhm.
Um. Steve rails Back who plays Charles Manson, and I think it was
the focus of a lot of the um, you know, the the the
accolades that the show got was his portrayal of of Manson was really creepy and
convincing. Um. He is still alive and still working. Mostly he's done
B movies. Um, a lot of 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 B movie world. Yeah. Yeah, but
Rob Zombie found him for the Devil's Reach acts. Oh really yeah, Oh
I didn't know that. And he was in The Hitcher too, But but
Helter Skelter was his is only his third movie. You know, he was
he and he'll always be known for that. 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
when this movie came out, when we 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 watching this again, It's like, now he
was He was really good. He looked at and he acted it and uh,
maybe Manson was a little bit more. He played him solely seriously,
you know, solely seriously. And Manson had had a wild sense of humor.
You know, he stick his tongue out at people and Mike Mike Wise
cracks to the press. So you know, 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. So it was good, very good. Um.
Nancy Wolf, who played Susan Atkins, is also still alive and also
has done a kind of a lot of you know, be movies, any
movies and stuff like that. I really couldn't find much else about her,
right, I think, you know what, I think. I looked her
up, and I think she has her own website. Nancy Wolf was good,
you know, she was a really she was. There was there were
some questionable performances in this movie. You know that don't stand yes, But
Nancy Wolf, who played uh Susan Atkins, 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 Wolf actor dot com. But she was in
uh, The Ordeal of Patti Hurst, and she was in of course Barney,
Barney B. Jones, Baretta and um and lots of lots of theater.
But uh, but yeah, so she's still around and she's still acting.
But she was. She was very very good I thought in this movie.
And uh, you know it was questionable in this movie. I don't
know if we're going to get onto that, well, we will eventually,
may as well do it now when they showed her being arrested and having to
um, well going into prison into the Simbil Brand when a woman's prison and
palling up to who they they was was Ronnie Howard, who in reality was
Virginia Graham, who was the one that she first spoke to and told the
whole thing about the story. Yeah. Yeah, Virginia was a friend who
just passed away. But she was so Ronnie Howard. It's kind of complicated,
but Virginia did the story. But she'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 woman who'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
and then she says, and then we killed those people and I and then
she like like I have to go to sleep now. It was that abrupt
of me. It's like, you're a sexy You're sexy, and then you
know, and then we kill those people. 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 Sandra Blake, who was who was married and
had a son and daughter with Robert Blake. What isn't that wild? So
yeah, she's another one Mannix. You know, a show called Grown Ups
of Mice and Men. Not a huge list of credits, but she was
married and had two kids with Robert Blake. And wait, who was that?
It was married Sandra Blake who played who played Ronnie Howard who was in
prison with Susan Anna jailhouse snitch. Yes who They show her like, you
know, trying to be all discreet, I know who did it, but
she's you know, she didn't turn to the wall and say I know.
She's like well. Also when she's like walking, she's walking in the line
of girls and she hangs back and starts talking to the correctional woman officer woman
right like right behind all these women that are prisoners, Like, nobody can
see me talking to you. But yeah, it's like if anybody looks over
their shoulder, they're gonna see you talking to her right in the middle of
the hall, right ten feet behind them. Yeah, they don't know how
prisons work, but they But was so wild about this movie is they went
in prison, They went into the halls of justice, they went into the
court Yeah, I think the actual Do you know if that was actual sybil
Brand where they filmed that, I don't know, but it looked like a
women's prison and it was not a set that I'm positive of m And they
did go into city Hall, I don't know, or into a yeah,
the federal building. I think it's a vaable, but of justice, yeah,
And I don't know if they got into the actual courtroom. It wouldn't
surprise me if they did. But they got into a courtroom, they got
into the halls. I recognized the halls and all that. You know,
that was that's legit. It was in there, so you know they were
able to to do that, which is interesting. So sibyl Brand, which
was the women's prison, um it is no longer operates as a prison.
I think it was damaged during I think the north Ridge earthquake. It was
severely damaged. I think it was north Ridge, one of the earthquakes.
Severely damage. I think it was north Ridge, and they just decided they
it was already so old to begin with, and then with the damage they
decided just not to repair it. But it still exists and is used almost
entirely now as um a filming location, and they also use it for training
like police training and stuff. But yeah, it's no longer operates as a
prison anymore, even though it still exists. Yeah, and that's where all
the girls were taken. Leslie, pat Crome, Winkol and Susan Ekins were
all taking the civil brand and uh so that's I think that's why everyone knows
what it is. The same with the California Men's Colony where they took text.
That's I think that's gone now that's been Uh uh yeah, doesn't doesn't
exist anymore, probably for the same reason. But uh yeah, okay.
Um Marilyn Burns who played Linda Kasabian, that was obviously a huge role,
and she is one of the few actors in this film where this wasn't the
biggest thing they ever did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she was
the lead role of Sally in the Chest 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 of recognizable actors. But then I thought was
interesting for that they got, you know, by at the time, probably
one of the most famous horror movie actors alive. Yeah, to play Lynda
Kasabian, who Lynda Kasabian was the Manson girl who turned State State's witness and
testified against him. So it was a meaty part and she had to really
be able to act um to do it. And in Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
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 is the 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 kind of like, that's borderline. I didn't
really an artic fan of it. I didn't think I didn't think it was
very you know, convincing. She has, uh, she appeared in two
more Chainsaw Mascar sequels. She's a She's appeared at horror conventions. She she
gave a great interview with a horror website called The Terror Trap in two thousand
and four, and they talked about making Helter Skelter. It was great.
It was a great interview. And first of all, she said that none
of no actresses didn't want to audition to be in this show because none of
them wanted to shave their heads. So if the talk around Hollywood was no
actresses wanted to audition to be Manson girls, because they're like, hell no,
I'm not shaving my hair off. Um. And she says in the
end, they let the actresses wear skull caps, which I find hard to
believe because it looked real. I did. I did a real look at
that too, and I did. They looked real to me. They did
a hell of a good job if these are skull caps, because usually you
can tell, especially something with a limited budget. But she says that in
order to get the part, they had 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 of surprised, And she was like she
was stoked because Linda Kasabian was the one who didn't yeah state witness um.
And then also she said, uh, and nobody really wanted to touch it
because of the subject matter. It was kind of like, who wants to
be in that picture? Who's going to do that picture? Kind of a
thing. It was because it was so 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 to do it. She said. They
asked her if she ever got to meet the real Linda Kasabi, and she
said she wouldn't have wanted to even if she could. Definitely has no love
for these girls, although she did say that, you know, any actor,
you have to find some point of entry for sympathy for the role you're
playing, to understand what they were thinking. But yeah, you could tell
she didn't exactly have a high opinion of the Manson girls. And she was
attacked by an extra on the set really when she oh, here you go
Paramount Ranch, So there you go, she goes when I was at Paramount
Ranch and extra came up to me and 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 a member of the family. Who knows.
You know, there's so many people that coasted in and out of it.
Who knows, but yeah, someone got on the set as an extra
and came up to her and dug their nails into her arm and said,
Linda wasn't there that day. So I thought that was kind of interesting,
very um. I mean, the people had so much hate for Linda Kasabian
that they would go after the actress playing her, you know, for you
know, for being she wasn't there that day. What does that even mean?
I mean, that seemed that's maybe they're trying to say she wasn't at
the murder scene. Yeah, and that her testimony is non was you know,
made up? Maybe that's maybe that's the implication. Yeah, I don't
know. Um. And then lastly they asked about Bugliosi and he said,
yeah, yeah, he would come down to the set, and she claims
that Bouliosi wanted them to reshoot the ending, which I assume is maybe the
closing argument, because he didn't like the actor's performance of him, and at
the end, Bouliosi supposedly said he was much more that he was much more
dramatic than the portrayal. Bugliosi was a much more dramatic person than how he
portrayaled. And he said, I'm much more flamboyant than that than what the
guy did. So I don't know if they actually did go and reshoot the
ending or if he also just wanted them 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 is being you know, that ridiculous scene at
the end when lay Manson's being led out the back of the court room and
a conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So so that might be it
because I I that some of that some of that text is questionable too,
you know, where he's telling Vincent how 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, you know kind of thing. Yeah, it's
about a little bity like how you like it liked to have unfolded. Maybe
I don't know, took a little creative license at the end. Um so
Nia Marilyn Burns, who played Linda Kasabien, passed away on August fifth,
twenty fourteen. In her sleep. No cause was given, and she was
sixty five. You mentioned that she well, she said that who would want
to be? You know, people said who want to be in that picture?
When I was reading the book, this is a stupid, stupid story.
But when I was reading the book about Helter Skelter, they said that
Rudolph Altabelli had who owned the house on Yeah, represented Sally Kirkland was one
of his clients. Now he was an agent, he was a right agent.
Yeah, Yeah. And I did meet Sally Kirkland eventually and had this
conversation with her, and I think she was annoyed with me because she kept
talking earlier alone and I couldn't hear it fucking things she said. But but
anyway, as I see, this is a dumb story. But for some
reason in my mind, I always get Sally Kirkland or Sally Kellerman, that's
who it was that he represented. I always get him screwed up Sally Kirkland,
Sally Kellerman. Sally Kirkland was the actress who won or was nominated for
an Academy work for a movie called Anna, and she using a whole bunch
of things the sting the way we were but not not an a lister.
I used to see her at the Silver Spoon like all the time. So
I finally got up the nervous So did Rudolph Altabelli, you know, represent
you? And she said no. I said, okay, well that's I
screwed up the names. And they said, well, oh, because something
about Helter Skelter, And you know, I thought that he might have because
he owned the Tate House. She goes, no, No, I wanted
to be in the movie. I auditioned 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 a thousand girls in this movie. How could
you not have gotten that job? You know, you were nominated for an
Academy Award. It's like, if you're an actor in Hollywood, you haven't
been in a Marble movie yet, what are you doing? Yes, So,
Shelly Kirkland Keller dumb story. But I was able to and I did
interview. We're off Alta Belli at one point. We talked about that before,
but but it's just a funny aside um. Well, and it's interesting
now when I think we talked about this when we did the once upon a
time in Hollywood episode, But that was years ago. You and I have
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 them to be in the sixties of Helter Skelter,
and you tracked him down first and you called him. Yeah, and
I've sent him a letter and he called me back. Yeah, yeah,
Okay. Do you remember how the call went? Oh yeah, I remember
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 do I have being a documentary for? And
I said, well, you know, well, you know you give some
money for your time. All we not 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,
we wanted to talk about the house and Terry Melcher. I said,
how did you meet Terry Melcher? He was driving on Bennett Canny with his
cock out. I mean that is what 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. And I did ask him because they said there
was a rumor about him and William Garretson, you know, Garretson possibly being
a you know a thing, you know, yeah, like a waller,
hustler, a hustler, you know, like Garretson was the people to don't
know. Garretson was the young man who was staying in the guest house,
which is where Rudy Altabelli sometimes also stayed right when he right, Yeah,
Rudy Altabelli picked him up hitchhiking and offered and the job of staying in his
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 little bit on the side possibly, But he
got pissed off, I mean when I brought that up. But I know
that was gay, and I know that stephen parent was probably gay, and
uh and uh so yeah, that's been one of the root that's been one
of the stories. I know. So um, stephen parents family has always
denied it, and it's kind of a 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 person killed. 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 the last 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 like that. Yeah. I mean, I
don't know if we talked about that, but I mean, I want to
go into this really quick. It's a 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 say that 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 scenario that O'Neill put out, and it was
a fascinating one. They're saying that the murders were already taking place, voychecking
Abigail Fould, You're already dead in the front lawn. Stephen Parent was leaving
the guest house, which was at the far end of the property. All
the way through all that stuff to get up, he leaves the guesthouse.
He gets to this part in front of the house and he looks in and
sees Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring being murdered on the inside. So they say
that he may have locked eyes with Texa Watson, which is terrifying. And
then he took off running towards his car. So he starts his car,
and this is the theory. And he would have had the run by two
other bodies on the way out because by then Abigail Folder and right, they
were probably already dead. Yeah, they're probably already dead, unless Texas already
out in the front and you know it 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 believe this to be true because the back of
his car had had a dent in it and from hitting the wooden fence,
the fence had damage and so to the back of his car. So and
that's that's true. That's just a fact. So my theory or his theory,
which I agree with, is that Parent got into his car, Tex
is chasing him, accidentally puts his car into reverse, then hits this thing.
As he's going forward, Text comes up to him and slashes him with
the knife. Now, then he gets his car into forward, gets all
the way to the gate, and that's when they stop him and he says,
I won't say anything. Don't worry, I won't say anything, and
they shoot him. So the theory as it plays out with you know there's
like the killers are saying, is that 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
take his gun and put him in his other hand. So it makes sense
that it happened when the damage to the back of his car, which exists,
it did happen, that it was all done in the heat of the
moment. And what he was saying was 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, not the gun, because he just helped stab
a bunch of people to death. Yeah, and comes out Stephen parent backs
into the thing and wrecks the car. Text already has a knife in his
hands. He walks up and slashes his hand. But then he gets in
the park and drives away and texts like, shit, now I gotta shoot
him. Yeah. So that's when Tex 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 to hit him with a knife and shoot him,
you know. And that doesn't and and there's still really no explanation as
to why the fence was damage and the damage is reflected on the back of
his car. Yeah, it's not something unless he just just by biggest coincidence
ever. He just happened to as he's quietly leaving the house before the murders
happened, had a little fender bender right before they came over the gate.
Yeah. Yeah, which it seems unlikely. Yeah, it was just the
first time, it was like something clicked. It was like, Wow,
the evidence actually points to that. The only one to disagree were the killers
or the killers. Yeah, But it also it doesn't make it logically,
it makes more sense, because how do you shoot somebody multiple times in the
yard of a house and then sneak into the house after that? Yeah,
nobody heard the gunshots and was like what the hell is that? Yeah,
whenn't you at that point Be're like, grab, we just blew it.
We're not We've lost the element of surprise. We just may Yeah, I
mean, I don't know, I don'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 Manson went back to the crime scene later
on that night, because he didn't know who heard the gun shots. He
didn't know who was going to be up there, like he's going to come
sneaking around a rear range bodies. Mason was a Manton was a was a
you know, he was he was a coward. He didn't need everybody to
do his dirty work. He didn't want to do it. So Yeah,
but anyway, that that just was real revelation. So we went off way
off track on that one. But all right, So so after you talked
to alta Belly, Yeah, I believe I wrote it down verbatim. It
was very brief, but yeah, yeah, I remember you called me afterwards
and you were like, I don't ever want to talk to him again because
you're like because you're like because he's gay, and he got he picked it
up on me and he just started being 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?
Oh I did know that. Actually I have no recollection of that.
Yeah, So I called him. And it's funny because my voice, my
impression of him as the same as yours. He goes, he's what do
you want? You know? And I'm like, well, we want to.
We want to put you in you know movie, We want to We'll
be a quick interview, just like what 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 thing he says, well, what are you
paying? Oh? Yeah, that was like geez, we have no money
at all, Like we're making this with zero money. And I was just
like on the wheel. I was just like a five hundred dollars Yeah,
he goes, what am I going to 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 the That was the end of the Yeah.
I remember I was going to pay it out of my own pocket. It
was gonna be worth it, you know. 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 I gonna do with that? I don't have
five hundred dollars? Wow? Funny the story of Rudy Altabelli. So that's
why Rudy Altabelli isn't in the six series of Helter Skelter because we couldn't figure
out what he wanted for it. He wanted money, he didn't want money.
He wanted too much money. I don'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's dad for the murder scenes. So it's
true. He denied it, but it's true I did ask him that that's
right. I did ask him that I remember that, and he didn't.
He just said it's not true, that's not true. But later on I
got the actual bill, you know, or the article or something. It
was the article in the paper that was about the lawsuit that was filed,
printed the bill or confirmed the bill exists or yeah. Because he also sued
over like a breach of the least agreement, right because he said that Voytech
and Abigail Folder were living in the house and he wasn't notified as the landlord
that there were extra tenants living there or something like that. That's true.
They had no business living there. He rented the house to two people and
those other two shouldn't have And he did say something to the effect that one
of those people may have encouraged that type of element some it was worded as
such. Interest said, you know, it was probably you know, referring
to Voytech encouraging you know, the undesirables being up at the house because it
wasn't going to be Sharon, you know an Abigail Foulter was for her own
you know. Voytech was the gunbag you know that. Yeah, Well,
votech was involved in drugs, and that's where the whole drug theory came out,
that it was a it was a over a drug dad or something or
just yeah, he was not a good man, not a good many.
Christina Hart, who played Patricia Crenwinkle, one of the other manson Girls.
UM. She's also still alive and working and has guest starred in over forty
TV shows. She was in t three episodes of Happy Days and probably what
you might but know her best from from television is she played the Roper's hot
niece on Threes Company, and that's where the one where they the Ropers tell
Jack that their nieces coming to visit and they want her and they want mister
Roper wants Jack to take her out on a date or take her out and
show her a good time or whatever, and Jack is just says no because
he's kind of like, how how hot 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 then he's like he totally wants to take her
out. So that was the whole setup for that show. But yeah,
she was the hot niece UM and she UM teaches acting classes at the Hollywood
Court Theater, or at least she did until very recently. I assume she
still does. But her daughters are actually also very successful actresses their own right.
Caitlyn and Porsche double Day, which double 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
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, you know, Yeah, it's all these guys.
Yeah, all these people did that. The one thing that she did
that that I had to look it up to because I've never heard of this
before. She was in ten episodes of the show of which only were ten
episodes made of show called David Cassidy Man Undercover. And it was it was
a David Cassidy show that he was like this detective or I mean that that
it was. It was a show. I know, I never heard of
such a thing. It was the premise that David Cassidy's playing himself but also
playing an undercover agent. Well, I know, I'd love to know.
Yeah, it's like the most famous teen idol on the planet, but also
he's undercover. Oh it's out on DVD, dude, can you believe that?
In fact, when I was in Fort Lauderdale recently, I had I
had went to David Cassidy's house and to film it for our to shoot video
of it for my cool for my YouTube channel. He plays Officer Dan shay
Uh in this in this twenty something officer under operates undercover in the Los Angeles
youth scene. Oh, I bet you 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 the title, even though yeah, yeah,
that's not his character's name, and Jack Cassidy was probably still alive at that
No, Jack Assid was dead by then, I think yea. By the
way, I was watching that, um the Colombo episode that Spielberg directed that
Jack Cassidy is in. Have you ever seen that? I don't know what
it's one of the it's one of the it's like the third episode of Columbo
ever made. I think Spielberg directed. It was one of his earliest directing
gigs. YEA. And what's wild is it's this um. I think it's
an author that gets murdered. So at the beginning, we're in this author's
like high rise office and he's typing away on the typewriter and we're filming out
the window of this I think it's a convertible Rolls Royce coming down Sunset Boulevard
and coming past like you can say, I think the whiskey in the distance,
and it's coming down Sunset and it pulls in, so it's act the
actual building. I mean they filmed the real spot. And he pulls in
a parks on the roof of the parking garage next to this building that's on
Sunset Boulevard, and Jack Cassidy gets out of the car and he's got a
gun. You know, he's the killer. He's going to go into the
building. What's wild is you can see from this viewpoint into Hollywood where Jack
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 in King's Road. Yeah, you know,
a block off and you I mean it's the camera's looking in that direction.
So it's definitely there. In that sea of trees and apartment buildings in the
distance is Jack Cassidy's death site. That's interesting. That's interesting. Wow.
You know that's reminiscent of that Anton Yelchin movie, you know, or he
just filmed it at Hollywood Forever and they show him walking down the street in
his own grave is in the background where 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 still alive. Yeah. Yeah. It teaches
acting nice. She taught out. I was teaching acting with her husband,
who was also an actor, but he passed away a few years ago,
and I think she's still doing it and still I think still doing some acting.
Also in addition to an acting teacher, um Kathy Payne, who played
uh Leslie van Holton. I thought she was terrifying. Yes, I agree,
he was good. She was really good. And I don't know if
Leslie was that terrifying, you know, really seriously, she freaking had the
psychotic stare down like down and the delivery and she's still alive by Kathy Payne
is um. She hasn't had any IMDb crowds at least since ninety one.
She I think she she retired from acting and went into the financial world.
Uh now, because it's too bad because she was freaking she was the scariest,
but she was scarier than Manson, I thought, Yeah, and what
was It was fascinating to watch that whole courtroom because just the way it was
demonstrated in this short movie is how exhausting they were, you know, always
screaming, getting up and screaming and having to be shoved out and you know,
just like every you know, and the counteract that that attorney, you
know, he really was that obnoxious, objecting everything to interrupt every sentence.
Yeah, and those but those girls and you know, that screaming and it
was you just know that that jury must have been so tired at the end.
Towards the end they taught they were they referenced the part Bouliosium, one
of his other like co prosecutors or whatever on it. They mentioned, I'm,
you know, finding the body of Manson's lawyer. Yes, was that
That's not the same guy that was that played his that was his lawyer in
the throughout the whole trial that kept objecting, right, No, Ronald Hughes
was the guy who actually got along with But he was kind of a slob
and he lived in his mother's garage or whatever, and OK. Yeah,
and he's the one if they found dead. So they changed some of the
names in the movie. So I missed the part in the movie where they
talked about him being missing in the first place. So I didn't know where
that. I didn't understand who they were. I know who they're talking about
in real life. I didn't understand if it was a character we had seen
in the film at some point it was that guy. Well, he was
the big guy who was talking of Bouliosi and was kicked out for swearing and
he said he and he apologized to Buliosi for for swearing in the courtroom when
when the judge you know, got him for contempt. So he was a
friendly guy when you know, I was 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, what was the whole story with him? He
was a yeah, I think it was a flash flood that happened or something,
but he was he was he like an avid hiker or something. And
yeah, maybe I didn't know much enough of it to be to think of
it very mysteriously, you know, I didn't think. I mean, of
course it looks good. And of course when it happened, the girls are
going CEC Charlie did it from in prison, you know, so so everything
got sort of was so blurry with fact and fiction back then, but it
did. I mean, And also I think BULIOSI played it up too,
But I don't think it was ever ruled, you know, a murder or
a questionable. Yeah. And I don'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 wedged between a rock, which is what
happens when you get caught up in a current. You usually get wedged into
some trees or debris or rocks and stop. That's where they find you in
the way. So it was a coincidence. And I don't know if they
were trying to use that to make it a mistrial or I don't remember they
were trying to throw that case out forever. But contract was the obnoxious one.
He died not that long ago. Who they based that that attorney on.
I forget who they call what they called him in in the movie,
but they changed his name. Well there you go. Why why would they
Why would they do I wonder why they 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 wanna The names were changed to protect the innocent.
I guess they can't because they portrayed him to be an obnoxious jerk,
which he was. Um So Cathy Payne, 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 remember that movie being on TV once and I
walked into the room and when I was a kid, my mom was watching
it and it was like I was the part where the avalanche is about to
happen. So it was a scary thing to watch. And my mom was
said something. She turned out, Sima, she goes, don't watch this.
I said, Okay, she goes a 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 her role she had in Avalanche, but I
hope she made it. Oh do you know what I just realized. Um,
So we had this event in Dearly Departed Tours. Um. I forget
when it was. It wasn't It was well while we were still open,
so it was about three years ago probably, And three of the women who
were in the Health of Skelter movie didn't appearance at the shop. I just
I forgot all about this to you there that's a day. And one of
them was Christina hard who played who played Pictards your Cranlinkle, Barbara Mallory who
played Squeaky, and Eileen Dietz who was an unnamed girl. She had I
think a line in the movie. But Aileen Dietz was fascinating. Eileen Dietz
is the Exorcist. Is the demon in the Exorcist with the with the crazy
face that shows up in all those bizarre scenes. And Eileen Deets was one
of the voices of the demon, you know, the Mercedes McCambridge gets the
credit, but I Ailean Dietz was part of that too. She was in
Halloween too, She was in the Freeway Killer. She was on General Hospital,
which is how I knew her. But yeah, she was the demon
in the Exorcist when they show the physical demon, not Linda Blair, but
her face, Eileen Deets. And she was one of the girls Christina Hert.
We talked about her already. But Barbara Mallory, who was also played
Squeaky, she was in the movie Airplane. She was in The Bradies,
the movie the show The Bradies and the Rescue from Gilligan's Island. So when
I got to talk to her, she goes, well, we know somebody
in common, and I said, well, well the still I'll just tell
you what it is. So her son was was Elliot Schwartz who worked on
Death Trip. No kidding, So her Schwartz Sherwood Schwartz's grandson, right.
So so Barbara Mallory, who plays Squeaky, was married is married to uh
to Lloyd Schwartz, who is Sherwood Schwartz's son, and Elliot Swartz, who
we worked with on Hollywood Death Trip for E the E Network. Was she
goes, oh, yeah, well you know my son, and he said
no, and I'm like, oh yeah, that was weird. So so
there was a six degrees of Helter Skelter quit literally in our lives with with
Elliott Schwartz. That's awesome. Um, all right, Well, Uh,
the actor that played text Watson not much to speak of because this was his
only credit and Texts really didn't have much of a role in the in the
movie. In this movie, I don't even think he had a line.
Did he did? He kind of appears I don't be on the line,
but they showed him when they're talking about him. Kind of a deal like
re enactment, you know. Yeah. Um, but it was played by
an actor named Bill Durkin. This is only credit that I could find on
IMDb. Um, there's another Bill Durkin 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 It stood out that uh that he looked about
twenty years older than the others. You know, he had he definitely had
a wolfman vibe, you know when he 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 c h e Cco. He played Leno Lobianca.
I think it's al Checo, but I could be wrong, could be
Checho Checho. Anyways, he has a quite a heartwarming story actually for playing
such a tragic character. He had ninety nine acting credits. Another one of
these guys that was in everything. Yeah, all you know, bit parts,
supporting parts stuff. It's possible that he Probably the most famous thing he
did was he was during World War Two. He was partnered up with Don
Knots as a comedy duo to entertain the troops, and that did, like
they did hundreds and hundreds of live shows together for the troops during World War
two. Al Originally, I mean he was a fighting age. Originally he
was an engineering unit. He was you know, going to be in battle
or you know, be out there in it. But then it turned out
he was also an exceptional great performer and singer, and so they ended up
saying no, we're going to use you to entertain instead, and he teamed
up with don Knots, and so he ended up having uncredited roles in at
least three don Knots movies in the sixties, The Incredible Mister Limpett, The
Ghost and Mister Chicken, and The Reluctant Astronaut. Yeah, he made appearances
in which I'm sure is because of that. And supposedly he had an autographed
headshot of don Knots in his house that said me, our paths continue to
cross nice, which I think is really nice. Yeah. I didn't even
know that don Knots did those types of things. Oh it did, like
the World War two stuff. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
don't know. I did not know that. But he only played as I
thought, he only played a fish on 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 be so bold as to move on from this
man, if you're not done with him, I'm almost done with him.
Okay, Oh wait, there's one more story with him that I wanted to
mention. And so his wife died of polio in nineteen fifty five. Wow,
And she was just twenty eight years old. She was on She was
also an actress. She was on she was touring with I Think Oklahoma over
in Europe, the Oklahoma Musical in Europe, and she died from polio.
He said that she was about to break out big when she died, and
he was so devastating. They had only been married for two years when she
died. But then he never remarried. And in two thousand and six,
when he was eighty four, he donated his house in Coldwater Canyon two Providence
Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where they acute rehabilitation department was renamed after
him and his late wife, Jean Bradley. Wow. And but as part
of the deal, he was able to 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 to be ninety three. He passed away
on July nineteen, twenty fifteen, ninety three years old. He died of
natural causes. But yeah, he never remarried. I guess never had and
had no next of ken, so he donated the house to the hospital.
It was a hospital that had helped him with a lot of his health issues
too. An old age. That's very 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 this together in my head. Can you
die suddenly of polio if you're on tour 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 and you'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'll hear. I'm sure we will hear.
But uh but yeah, that's no, I didn't know. It's it's
so funny how um these people that are you know, just bit parts literally
an extra basically with two lines or something, you know, but they have
these such interesting stories. And yeah, he's in nine he had ninety nine
roles. He was in one of those guys that was in everything, just
like some of these other actors, you know. So they yes, they
were small supporting parts where he might only have one line or no lines.
But you know, in The Incredible Mister Limpet he played an uncredited sailor.
So oh funny. Well, I guess don brought him along, didn't he.
Yeah, really nice nuts to do that too for his old scene partner.
Yeah. So the don Knots connection that I wanted to bring up was
that the actor who played the Judge Judge Older his name is Skill Homier or
skip Home Homier Homier has his name Homie, Yeah Homier or Homier Homier Homier.
He uh, he played He played a lot of Nazis. He did
always like one of his one of his things. He was in a couple
of episodes of Star Trek which people remember 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 Trek e Land, you know what I mean.
But he was in the Ghost of Mister 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 and which was one of my all time favorite
favorite movies, and he was he was just kind of he had the beautiful
girl, and the beautiful girl ultimately dumps 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'm like, oh my god, that's that's
the guy. I had to make sure. But he played Ali. Ali
was the character's name in the Ghost of Mister Chicken. He was sort of
the nemesis if there was going to be one. I think of him of
Don Notts, and his name is Ali Ali ol I e oh, not
Ali like Muhammad No. So I was gonna mention this person mainly because of
their career they had, which I thought was interesting. But Alin Alan Oppenheimer
played Aaron Stovitz, who was the original Manson prosecutor before BULIOSI correct. I
believe he is still alive and working at ninety two years old, and he
has done a ton of high profile cartoon voice work. He was Skeletor and
mat at Arms and he Man during the eighties. During the series, he
was character named Vanity on the Smurfs. He narrated the never Ending Story Oh
Wow. He has appeared in three different Star Trek series, Voyager, Deep
Space nine, and the Next Generation, and most recently, he did voice
work on Toy Story four and the Fallout four video game. I mean in
the list, I mean, I'm just scratching the surface, yea, of
all the voicework he's done, like major major voice actor. Played the Aaron
Stovetz, a small part of the original Prosecutor. Yeah. I mean,
it was a it was a it was a It was a decent part for
this movie. I mean, he was recognizable and had a lot of lines.
I mean, he was he was a character that you recognize. Troy
knew him right away from a six million dollar man, and he's like,
oh, that's Alan Apenheimer, six million dollars man, you know. And
I knew him right away from Westworld because he was like the the the guy
in the control room. But he was the one that was, you know,
like overseeing the mechanics of the robots from the computers. And and so
I remember I remember the original west World, not the good one. Yeah.
Brenner, Jil Brenner was that was a 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 he played DeMille in the original musical Broadway musical
of Sons of Boulevard. Really didn't it just it was the one, the
very first one, and it was you know, Glenn Close in that whole
business. But but he's on the soundtrack as playing to mill It was a
spoken word part. It wasn't really I don't think it was really any serious
singing. But I tried double checking is it another Alan Appenheimer, But but
it keeps going back to him, So I think it was really him,
and he was, you know, he was in this musical for a while,
he was with it. So it's just kind of interesting. It's just
something that's incongruous. It's also good reminder you when we can't find someone's credits
on IMDb, it doesn't mean they weren't a big Broadway success because imb doesn't
carry doesn't cover theater, separate database for that. So yeah, and he's
still working in ninety two. Go him. Yeah, good for him.
Hey, if you do what you love, you know, I mean,
that's all these people. I'd love to talk to these people, but I
got nothing to say, though, Man, what was it like being the
Hell's cult? You know? I mean, what are you can? But
it would be so cool to get there, get there, you know,
just you're you. Oh my gosh, it's so cool. That's I remember.
One of the first celebrity encounters I ever 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 went to see poly Shore stand up and
he stuck around afterwards to sign tickets or whatever to meet people, and he
was like sitting at a table and I stood in line and I got up
there, and I'd never done that before, and I just looked at him
and I and he looked at me like expecting me to say something, and
I had nothing to say. It's the 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 supposed to say. Here, my god,
you're so funny, Like, I don't know, yeah, yeah,
that's yeah. It is getting dumbfounded in front of people is funny. He
was touring at the time. He said, the finance a movie. I
think it was the in the In the 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. It was po It was just it was post
you know, his boom of his career that happened in like the late nineties
when he was like Encino Man and the Weasel all that. Yeah, uh,
do you have anybody else? Well, it was I wanted to.
We talked. Rudy Ramos was Donkey Dan, 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 in Quicksilver and Colors with Sean Penn, Beverly
Hills Cop two. So he's still around. Um I was. I didn't.
I think at the name of the actor who played Bill Tennant, the
one who vomited, that would have been um. That was the business the
manager of Polanski, who you know it was? It was so it was
that was bad acting too. Did he really did he really did that happen
in real life though? Did he really run out? Yeah? He did?
Tenant did puke. Yeah, yeah, I would yeah when he identified
his friends that that would have been terrible, but it was just in repturospect
fifty years later. You were kind of like, Okay, it's a bit
hokey. It looks seen. It's obviously puking out cream corn or something,
and you know, but it was like the gause, I want you to
look at her, and because I can'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 was from behind anyway because of the you know,
the hair and all that stuff. I mean, who else is it
going to be? But it was just it was just kind of kind of
funny, but I want you to look at her. Um. I was
like, there was a couple of things that I that I pointed out that
I thought were kind of funny only in retrospect, because I know that we
know what the door looks like and how how it had the word pig written
on it. And then this one was it's a little tiny yeah yeah,
yeah, and the refrigerators had held skelter. 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 showed the rope in the in the courthouse and
Beliosi just picks up the bloody rope with his bare hands and just you know,
walks around the court with this thing. You know, it's like real
DNA on this and real blood and it's like no gloves or anything like that.
That was kind of funny. Some of the things that were kind of
interesting is how they dramatized the people that were that were involved, like the
Coots family who were living, you know, right outside the gates of Cello
Drive, who were out there with their drinks in their hands and they were
like, oh, it sounded like a gunshot. I'm sure it's nothing,
let's go in, you know, that kind of mistake, and it was
like right outside their door. But that's basically what really happened. And uh
and there was the other thing was when 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 newscaster in the in the movie announcing there's no
there's been no developments in the murder that had you know, captivated, you
know, or terrified the city. And then I just loved the dialogue that
sounds like the gun Stevie found had druken grip, didn't it. Oh they
must know it's you know kind of it. They must know they have that
it was. It was just sort of comical because you know, but h
but anyway, I think that I think that we've covered it. It.
There was an odd There was an odd moment in the movie of Spawn Ranch
when they pulled when they were arresting everybody and they pulled Manson out from underneath
that house. Did you do you remember the lady in a chicken coop?
Yes? What was that? I don't know what that was about it or
something. Yeah, it was the weirdest thing. She was living in a
chicken coop with chickens, and it was 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. The lady living in the chicken coop wasn't quite
what I remember at all. But the point that that makes the point that
was important to make that Benzibuliosi say, what you will about the man in
life. They had no responsibility to prove a motive they had. They did
not have to prove why anyone did anything. They wanted to prove that they
did it. So everyone is talking about you know, he's full of crap,
all this Hilder sculptor BS. Yeah, it may have been BS.
But his job was not to prove a motive. It was their job.
His job was to prove they did it, and he did so that that
I will always defend him. I have a lot of respect for him.
Um, you know, questionable behavior as a human being. Okay, fine.
I knew his wife, not didn't know her, but I mat her
I liked her. His wife, actually, Gail Bouliosi used to play cards
in the Playboy mansion and with the secretary with he and she recognized me from
the girl's next door. Missus Bouliosi did because I wouldn't introduce myself to him
at one of those signings. And uh and then and she because you were
on you know, my friend Mary was the secretary at Playboy. I saw
you in that episode. It was kind of cool. Missus Buliosi knew who
I was. That is cool. It was wild it was wild. But
yeah, that's the thing. You say what you will about the man is
a human being. I don't really care. There's a lot of people that
were great actors that were horrible human beings. John Phillips a terrible human being,
but an amazing musician, wrote some incredible songs. So you know,
California Dreaming, the Moms in the pop is. You can't discount his talent.
And I can certain things I can't like. I can't listen to Michael
Jackson anymore for some reason. I just I see it, I listen to,
and I turn it off. It's whatever, whatever floats your boat.
There's no you know, you can't help what you like and what you don't
like. And BULIOSI did a good job and he didn't have to do anything
else. Yeah, and that's all I got. Well, thank you again,
everybody. I think this is a been another epic epic podcast episode of
Dearly to part of podcast talking about probably arguably our our favorite story. Yeah,
and I think our once again, our podcast probably lasted longer than the
movie. No, it was actually three hours, I think. No,
we didn't quite go that long though, for once, for once, see
we need to do three hour movies and then we will will never be longer
than the actual movie that we're talking about. I just love this movie.
And there's so many people that are Yeah, there's so many people that had
so many interesting credits. Not jump up and down, oh my god,
I remember them credits, but they they're all part of Hollywood in the seventies,
you know, the fabric of TV and movies in Hollywood. And yeah,
and the best, yeah, the best kind, the best era of
television. I think the seventies and the eighties. I do love that.
But but yeah, so thank you guys for watching. Thank you very much.
And um, also just a heads up that our Patreon supporters, they
have five dollars a month ones got to hear this episode a day or two
early. Um, and uh and and 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 that we do between these main ones. Um,
and that Patreon really does help support the pod and help us keep going.
So yeah, M Dearly Departed podcast over at Patreon. I'll look us
up and please I'll put a link under the video and again I'll say that
again, you know, not to confuse what I do with my YouTube channel.
My YouTube channel is something that's different than this. The Julied Party podcast
is an independent thing that Mike and I both do, and so the Julier
Party podcast Patreon page will be underneath this on the video. And uh and
also you get that close to a ninety minute episode, you know, but
donate two bucks a month and you get like almost a ninety minute episode of
just exclusive for Patreons, just a mini episode of all the obituaries. We
talk about all the current events and people that have just passed away and their
stories and stuff like that. Yeah, which we used to do on this
show, but it just made the shows too long. But also it's great
because we can we can talk more about it those than we would have when
they were at the front of the show. M you know, we literally
talk like twice as much about them now as as we used to. So
it's cool. It's more Scott and Mike King time. Um well, I
mean, let's start with the final death. Vincent Bugliosi died sixth twenty fifteen.
He was eighty years old and he died 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
Line. That's when I was working for Grave Line Tours. Yeah, and
I was quoted in the paper I said, our most most requested stop was
the Tate House, and then now that that's destroyed, it's now the Menendez
House. So this would have been January of ninety four that I just moved
here. So it was a Sunday night in my and the dear Leader party.
Are the grave Line phone rings? It's in my house and I pick
it up and he goes, Scott Michael'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 about it. So we just talked for
He said he's working on a twenty fifth edition of the book Helter Skelter,
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 of it. I said, no, no,
no one is going to believe this. I said, will you please,
like, can I have a note or something from you, just saying
it was actually you on the phone. And he sent me a nice little
letter saying, you know, it was a pleasure talking to you or something
like that's awesome. But it was I 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, you know, but to pretend to him of
all people. Yeah, I liked him. 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 sold it. Event he owned it and lived
in it off and on for years afterwards. Right and then at the end,
right before it was torn down. UM, Trent Rezner and nine Inch
Nails recorded I believe it was downward Spiral or they recorded in the living room
where the murders happened. And there's video and which is in sixtories of Helter
Skelter, of that set up with the big soundboard in there and everything,
mixing boards and everything, and uh. And then when Resiner moved out,
he learned that it was going to be torn down, which means he would
be the last tenant there. And so he took the pig door with him,
Um, the front door that had Sharon Tate's blood written, the word
pig written in her blood. Of course 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 as a door in his recording studio in New
Orleans for a time. And then I think at last I heard was it
was in storage? Well he was it was. Yeah. When the building
was sold, the door was taken off of it and putting the basement in
the building. We went to New Orleans and looked for it. And uh,
it turns out that I guess it was a plastic surgeon that bought the
place and was operating out of it and had this thing in the basement.
And somebody approached him and asked if they if they wanted it. Because Resiner
turned his back on the whole true crime thing. You know, he said
he was embarrassed, and you know, he felt sad, so he yeah,
he said he regretted later on that he probably was insensitive. He realized
looking back, it was insensitive for him to record an album there, or
to exploit that or whatever whatever word you want to use for it. But
yeah, yeah, I mean, just on what you did for God's sake.
But anyway, so he left the door behind, but it does belong
to an artist now who has it in his home and he's going to he
said to me that he was going to put it in a place so you'll
be able to see it from the street, so people will be able to
see it, but yeah, it'll be part of his art collection, and
you know, I really want to protect it from the element, so it's
not an outdoor door. Yeah. There. If there's one one artifact I
would love for my museum, it would be that. And I was like,
somebody approached me probably fifteen, well probably like twenty years ago now saying,
you know, I know who has a door. Are you interested?
And It's like, well, of course I am, And what's your starting
point? And I'm like, I'm not 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 in a bidding more. I figure if it's
going to end up in my possession, which I think belongs sort of in
this, you know, because I'm not financially motivated, I think that I
could, you know, show this thing has been a history. Anyway,
talk to the guy, really nice guy, and I'm glad it's in a
safe place. And I hope one day at this show up and end up
being part of the collection of the Dearly part of museum. I really do.
But in the meantime, I'm I'm I'm comfortable with where it is.
I think it's cool. The guy's a 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 to be yet, but again we're on Spreaker
now on iHeartRadio, so that's our home home base now. But you'll still
be able to get us on iTunes and Spotify and all those other places that
we've always been at. And I think 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 is the day this this this episode is officially
becoming public for everyone to want to listen to, is the day the murders
happen fifty three years go. And we've been talking all about these people and
the and and everything about the hoopla after it and all these people actors,
and ultimately there are seven people that are dead because of this, you know,
real people that were killed, and um, I don't I can't even
talk about their names right now because I probably wouldn't make it, but but
I just it's so important that these seven people not be forgotten. And not
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 you know, serious about it, because I
get I get caught up in it and I get emotional. But but it's
important. There's seven people lost their lives and ultimately that's the truth of all
of this, and what's happened in fifty three years is extraordinary. But don't
ever forget those seven people. Yeah, and with that, we'll see you
next time. Good night. This has been an episode of the Dearly Departed
podcast. Dig up more episodes at Dearly departedpod dot com and on iTunes and
Google Play. See you next time.