This One's a Biggie...

 

"Jodi Arias signs movie deal for a biopic!"

"New TV drama about Charles Manson!"

Yes. I will be talking about the wonderful world of the celebrity criminal. BORED, BORED, BORED!

I’ve wanted to write about this for a long time. Celebrity criminals have always been around – the musical ‘Chicago’ is even based on two real murderers whose lawyer made them so infamous they were found not guilty and became Vaudeville stars. The musical in itself comments on the celebration of criminals, at least in the American justice system – though it occurs all over the world.

My friends and I all have notorious murder cases we’ve been intrigued by for different reasons. Each of us knows a little about the others’ because of the time we spend talking about it, but essentially we each have our specialist ones. Mine is the Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969 and the Manson Family in general, Sophia’s is the Jodi Arias case from 2008, and Joe’s into the Black Dahlia, or Elizabeth Short from the 1940s, whose killer still hasn’t been found to this day. Don’t Google the names, by the way. There are lots of scary, horrifying and saddening images of what humanity is capable of doing to the innocent.

Elizabeth Short - or, more famously in death, the Black Dahlia. A young aspiring actress killed in Hollywood in the 1940s. Her killer was never found.

Now, I became interested in the Charles Manson case through Sharon Tate. A singer called Marina and the Diamonds wrote a song called ‘Valley of the Dolls’ on her Electra Heart album. Being a person who wonders what songs are based on or mean I looked it up and found out it was based on the 1967 film of the same name. Naturally I watched it and discovered my infatuation with Sharon. Looking into her more and more, I found out that she was sadly one of the many victims of the Manson Family creeps.

Susan Atkins, Patricia Kenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten on their way to court in late-1970, singing Manson's songs as they went, with the famous 'X' carved into their foreheads - to represent how they had X'd themselves from the world, though again following Manson's actions. Only around a year earlier they had slaughtered Sharon, Jay, Abigail, Wojciech, Steven, Rosemary and Leno in only two days.

Charles Milles Manson, born in 1934 to a 16 year old prostitute and rumoured black, absent father. In 1971 he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and first degree murder, and sentenced to death in the gas chamber, though California later abolished the death penalty so their sentence was reduced to life. Manson no longer arrives to parole hearings, though does find ways to push his ATWA beliefs on the world.

Sharon truly was so beautiful. She is somebody that I look up to a great deal, being someone who moved a great distance alone to train in acting, as I will soon be doing. An actress who had only just had her first real starring role in the year she was killed, 1969, in ‘12+1’ or ‘The Thirteen Chairs’ (released posthumously), she was well on her way to immense stardom. She had the vulnerability and elegance on screen of Marilyn Monroe, for different reasons, and a true talent for light comedy, horror and drama. You could almost call her the hippie sex symbol, I suppose, though she too wanted to be taken seriously, questioning directors’ motives head on (in ‘12+1’ she was asked to dive into a pool wearing a thin t-shirt and no bra, and she said straight up ‘is that because you want the shirt to go see through and cling to me? I had to do it once before’ - or something similar). Since finding out about her, I’ve also looked into Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring and Wojciech, and tried to find anything I can on Steven, Leno and Rosemary too, though details about their lives aren’t as easy to find due to their lack of fame or connections - apart from their grisly deaths.

Sharon Tate, model and actress of the 1960s who starred in 'Valley of the Dolls' and 'Eye of the Devil', whose life and blossoming career was cut short when she was killed by Manson's followers while 2 weeks away from motherhood in 1969. Atkins testified that Sharon 'begged for the life of her baby', asking for them to wait two weeks for the baby to be born before killing her. She reportedly called out for her mother as Atkins and Watson stabbed her. When Atkins returned to her body to write the word 'PIG' on the door in her blood, she stated Sharon made an attempt through gargled words to ask Atkins to take out her baby and save him. Atkins said she had 'no mercy for her' and tasted her blood. 'What a trip!' she would sickly recall.
(getting quite emotional at this point.....)

The thing that triggered this blog entry was reading an article about Rob Zombie, who is apparently planning to direct a TV drama about Sharon and the other victims of Charl... wait, what? Oh, my mistake.

He’s directing a TV drama series about the killers, Charles Manson and his Family. And I used to love Rob Zombie, too. Dammit, that’s a shame.

The article stated things like ‘it is difficult to endear an audience to one of America’s most reviled criminals’ and ‘all too often we like the anti-hero’ (paraphrasing a little). Here’s a tip, maybe DON’T TRY TO ENDEAR PEOPLE TO MURDERERS, because, oh I don’t know, THEY’RE MURDERERS?!
Like so many other docudramas and biopics, this one is going to focus on the murderers and the conspirators, the violent, brainwashed, drug addicted thugs who ended the flower child movement and the greatest decade that there ever was, rather than the innocent victims and the lives they led before being cut short. Zombie is going to glamourise and glorify evil Manson by making him into a character, a character which isn’t really, truly Manson – but an exaggerated version of the 79 year old convict in his youth, which has been made in order to be liked so that the TV show is a success and makes money. This will, as the article states, endear the audience to ‘charismatic’ Manson, the man in denial of ever doing wrong despite the corroborating evidence, and again leave the human beings he killed/ordered to be killed as ‘bodies’ or ‘victims’. Yet again. He will be exploiting the deaths of so many innocent and pretty genuine, great people who were so young and were on the way to achieve so much (Steven Parent, the boy there by accident, was only 18, the age I am now. I can’t imagine being killed when I have so much more that I want to do with my life).

One of Manson's MANY on screen counterparts in 'Helter Skelter', the film based on the book written by the lead prosecutor in the trial, Vincent Bugliosi.

Sharon Tate, 8 1/2 months pregnant and photographed here by ex-boyfriend and long-time close friend of her and Roman's, Jay Sebring, on the afternoon of August 8th 1969. Wojciech was there at this time, along with Mrs Chapman the housekeeper who left early evening despite Sharon offering her a room for the night to 'avoid the heat of the city'. She later thanked God she hadn't accepted. Abigail would later return 'home' too. Hours later, Wojciech was asleep on the sofa, Abigail was reading a book and smiled to Atkins as she quietly wandered the house, inspected the other members of the household - Abigail knew Sharon and Roman kept a fairly open house, not shutting their doors to anyone, so assumed Atkins was a friend of the couple. Krenwinkel said she saw Sharon sitting up in bed, Jay above the sheets talking to her with his back to the door. Only around 45 minutes later, they would all be dead, Sharon being forced to watch each of her friends die. Roman later said around August 18th, when he visited the house, that Sharon 'must have been sleeping at some point that night', because the pillows were in the middle of the bed. She used to cuddle them when he wasn't there at night.

Time after time we see events from HIS point of view, or THEIR point of view [Atkins, Krenwinkel, Van Houten and Watson]. I’m tired, sick and upset about it beyond belief. I don’t see t-shirts with Sharon Tate’s face on, or celebrations of their lives in the media, television or film, however Sharon’s sister has been trying to make this so very recently with the release of her Recollection book.
I do see, however, Manson’s music being covered by bands like Guns n’ Roses, t-shirts of his and his followers faces – the money from the sales of which ensure royalties go straight to them in prison. I see Manson’s paintings selling in online auctions for his benefit. I see films like ‘Helter Skelter’ based on prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s factual book of the same name being made where Sharon, Jay, Gibbie, Wojciech, Steven, Leno, Rosemary, Hinman are just passing characters who are only shown when they’re being stabbed, strung up and exploited (Shorty Shea isn’t even mentioned as far as I remember, or the Black Panther member who Manson shot and believed to be dead. I find it pretty hard to watch). Then we’re back to wonderful Manson, and his followers, the supposed ‘victims of brainwashing’ as cult supporters who deny the wrong in their actions like to call them. They are, truly, but they were in their own right minds the night they committed these acts, and not under the influence of any drugs as far as they testified in court. Another false idea people spout is that Manson didn’t do anything wrong. A lot of these movies paint him as just this anti-hero and preacher who told people to kill people, rather than do it himself – which is completely false. He sodomised a peer when he was 17 as he held a knife to his throat, helped to behead and cut the limbs from Donald ‘Shorty’ Shea, he cut the ear of Gary Hinman with his prized machete before Atkins and Beausoleil stabbed him to death at Manson’s command, he tied Rosemary and Leno up with some of his leather ‘thongs’, before they were killed on August 10^th 1969, and also ordered the killings of everyone at ‘the old Melcher house’ where he knew pregnant Tate and her friends were then living – NOT Melcher. He was very much as guilty of conspiracy to murder and committing murder as the perpetrators of the Tate-LaBianca murders.

Jodi Arias, who, though convicted of premeditated first degree murder and facing the death penalty, sells her art through the internet, receives support letters from 'fans' and has just recently signed a movie deal for a film about her life story, despite already having a movie detailing her relationship with Travis. Travis Alexander is still waiting for any royalties from any movies about his fascinating life up in Heaven.

Tanya Ramonde's onscreen portrayal of *pre dyed hair* Jodi Arias in Lifetime's 'Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret', from 2013. IMDb describes her as 'a seductive, aspiring photographer found guilty of killing her former lover', kind of as if it's a 'story' - Travis' name wasn't even mentioned in the description, as if he was never a real human being at all!

Officers dig up the remains of Donald 'Shorty' Shea, Hollywood stuntman, in 1977, almost a decade after he was beheaded and dismembered by Manson, Bruce Davis and co at Spahn Ranch.

I have NEVER seen a portrayal in the media of Sharon’s life, of Jay’s career, or any of the other victims’ lives. These are the people we should be celebrating, not the vile evil of the criminals.

I want to see a show that humanises the Tate/LaBianca/Hinman/Shea victims. I want to see a movie that humanises Travis Alexander rather than creating sympathy for the relationship he shared with Jodi Arias. I want to watch a film that focuses on the lives of these people, and ensure that people know that they were just as interesting, just as charismatic and fascinating as perhaps some people find these disgusting murderers.

Steven Parent, 18 years old, shot four times by Tex Watson for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time on the night of the Tate murders. He had been visiting William Garretson in Cielo Drive's outhouse, and was on his way home just as the Family scaled the fence. How is fate for you, that typically nobody Garretson met ever visited him, but this boy did on that particular night? Crazy. He was heard by people in the surrounding area, a Scout leader as far as I recall, calling out 'Oh God, no, please don't shoot!" before the sound of gunshots, but nobody thought to call LAPD.

In my own little, humble opinion, criminals should not be glamourised and celebrated. Rather, they should be rightly vilified and looked upon with the shame, embarrassment and disgust that they deserve. This is a topic that upsets me a lot, and I have ranted time and time again, about Manson mainly, but also Jodi Arias whose art is sold and who is signing deals for movies about her life story etc. The celebration of these people seems just to never end.

Abigail Folger, friend of the Polanskis, killed in 1969

Sharon and Wojciech on August 8th, hours before their deaths 

I think Roman Polanski said it best in a fairly recent interview...

“When I see these people wearing his shirts, or playing his music, I wonder: do they know that Charlie Manson killed my wife? Do they know that he killed my baby, my friends?”

Sharon Tate and her husband, the love of her life, Roman Polanski, famous film director and co-star of Sharon in his film 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' where they met and fell in love. Roman was due to return a week after the murders took place to celebrate his birthday and await the arrival of the couple's child. When he received the call telling him that 'everyone's dead', the people around him said that they had never seen a man physically crumble like he did. He fell to the ground crying out for Sharon. Roman is as much a victim as the slain, as he had trouble coping with the loss of his wife, unborn baby and friends, going off the rails in the mid/late-1970s. He took part in the investigation himself, but his work and life after the murders is never shown in film adaptations - or at least for very long. 

Next time you watch a documentary about a murderer, or see a movie or TV show based on a true murder case, spare a thought for the victims. Spare a thought for the lives of the human beings who died and made that TV show possible. Spare a thought for the producers and creators, who earn money from making these people into ‘passing characters’ simply used as bodies to stab, rather than the actual, real life human beings with souls and families that they were.

If you would like to help in any way, you can go to STOPMANSONPAROLES.com and sign the petition to ensure that members of the Manson family cannot be offered parole. Bruce Davis, killer of 'Zero' in one of the 'reaction murders' and an aid to Manson in the slaughter of Donald Shea, was almost released on parole recently. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to live next door to him - despite him pushing 80.

You can also go to Change.Org and search 'Travis Alexander Law', where a petition has been set up to create a law which stops innocent victims being slandered in court without real, hard evidence simply to make the defence's case. Travis was accused of paedophilic tendencies, domestic violence and verbal abuse without any real, substantial evidence on the former two, and only few instances of name calling via text/IM on the latter. This happened not only in Travis' case, but in so many more, including the Tate case. The victims were essentially blamed in the media because:

1) Sharon's belief in not closing her door to anybody - this was out of kindness, and also, nobody locked their doors in Benedict Canyon before the murders. Nothing could have predicted the horrible events that occurred. 

2) They were accused of hosting orgies and Satanism - Roman Polanski debunked all of these salacious rumours about his wife later in a press conference, however.

3) That everyone there was a drug addict, and they had hosted a party and someone had flipped out - this idea was more so when it was taking time to find the culprits due to a lack of evidence, and the media was speculating. Roman said Sharon was obsessed with her pregnancy, so in the eight months before the murders hadn't touched alcohol, cigarettes or marijuana. Sharon had taken LSD around 13 times before she met Roman, but when she convinced him to try it she had a bad trip and vowed never to take it again. Wojciech was probably the most avid user of drugs, though not on that particular night. Abigail used drugs, as did many young people of the late 1960s, but not as much as her boyfriend Wojciech, and Jay sometimes used cocaine. A roach was also found in an ashtray in his bedroom. There was no 'drug den' at Sharon's home, or any drug fuelled parties held there.

These people were all innocent,  but they were allowed to be slandered in the press. Please sign and help in any way you can, it would mean the world :)

All my love,

Eloise. x