Polanski and Tate :

According to a book written by Greg King,”Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders”, ‘When Polanski met Sharon, he wasn‘t keen to have her in his movie in the beginning. Roman Polanski met Sharon Tate several times. On the other hand, Sharon thought Polanski was a weirdo and she had said she would never work with him.’

In another account given in a ‘People Magazine’, article it states: “The two were first introduced by producer Martin Ransohoff in the mid 1960s, who was attempting to help Tate snag a role in Polanski’s upcoming film. The actress relayed to her sister, Debra, that her and Polanski didn’t immediately hit it off, as revealed in the book Sharon Tate Recollection, compiled by Debra. According to the tribute, Polanski refused to talk to Tate on their first date. On the couple’s second excursion, he allegedly scared Tate by “storming” at her while wearing a Frankenstein mask.”

“After their bizarre introduction, Tate landed the role of Sarah Shagal in the Polanski-directed film The Fearless Vampire Killers. Polanski also co-starred in the film as Alfred, Tate’s romantic interest.” -https://people.com/movies/sharon-tate-roman-polanski-hollywood-couple/

In 1967 Ira Levin released his novel “Rosemary’s Baby”. It would only be a year later that Polanski would release his now infamous movie based on the book and bearing the same name. It is this film that it is widely rumored Anton LaVey personally played “the devil” in the rape scene.

If this is indeed the case, then it would put the latest date, for Polanski and LaVey to have met, in 1968, when the movie was filmed and released. Whether or not they ever knew one another prior to the filming of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, is unknown (at least by me). I speculate this may be the case but that’s as far as it goes. If the allegation is indeed true, then Sharon would have had a high probability of also knowing LaVey. Further strange coincidences that seem to be tied with Polanski, his works and the actual events that we now look back at as history are that the name ‘Rosemary’ appears in both Polanski’s film and in the list of victims. Rosemary LaBianca to be precise. And the premise for the film is that a woman’s baby is sacrificed by a cult for the success of the husband’s career. On a separate but seemingly connected event, the hotel in which Polanski filmed ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, was to later be the scene for the murder of John Lennon. But that’s a story for another time.

There have been reports over the years that claim that Manson was not an unfamiliar face at the Cielo Drive home and that Sharon knew Manson. Towards that end there may be a different post but for now I’ll stick to the subject at hand and that’s the LaVey tie. But I will leave this here just as food for thought.

Enter “Sexy Sadie”:

One of the most well known members of the commune dubbed by the media as “The Family”, was Susan Atkins. Susan suffered a very tumultuous childhood. Born on May the 7th, 1948 in San Gabriel, California. Susan was molested by her brother Jon and there are indicators that suggest maybe her father as well.

“When Charles Manson met and slept with Susan for the first time, he told her that she was in love with her father. She nodded, in agreement. But did she actually have sexual feelings for her father, or was she perhaps acknowledging her father’s sexual feelings for her? In the absence of his wife, did Mr. Atkins develop incestuous thoughts for his teen daughter? Did he act upon those feelings? “- https://themansonfamily-mtts.medium.com/before-she-was-sexy-sadie-c698ab143389

Susan stumbled through various petty crimes as a young child and throughout her teens. Simple petty theft of candy as a child following her molestation at the hands of her brother, arrested at a department store for stealing a bra, age 12. But these two rather benign run-ins with the law would certainly not be the last time Susan would be arrested.

In 1966, aged 17, she moves to San Francisco, taking a job as a waitress at a restaurant called, “Burke’s”. She took a second job as telephone solicitor and was given the use of an apartment and a car by her boss in exchange for sexual favors. When her personal life begins to fall apart, in an apparent cry for help, she takes an overdose of codeine pills, unlocks her door and dramatically calls 9-11 and waits for someone to bust down the door.

In 1967 at 18, Susan, her boyfriend and another man go on a tri-state crime spree. They are arrested for car theft and her boyfriend is sent to prison. Susan is put on probation and sent back to her father. Within weeks she had run away again, once again ending up in San Francisco.

In the summer of ’67, Susan ran into her high school friend Barbara, who told Atkins about the commune in the Haight-Ashbury district where she was living. The commune consisted of six couples, and as fate would have it, one of the men was single and needed a new old lady. Susan joined Bob, Barbara and the others at their place on Lyon Street. But Bob and his friends were drug dealers, and the drama in her life continued.

In November 1967, Susan meets Charlie Manson for the first time at a party, she and Bob were living with her friend Ella Jo Bailey and Ella’s boyfriend.

At the party, Susan drifted toward the guitar-player like a moth to the flame.

“I wanted Charlie to grab me and keep me from falling.” — Child of Satan, Child of God by Susan Atkins with Bob Slosser

It is here in San Francisco, aged 19, in 1968 that Susan would meet Anton LaVey. Incidentally it is the same year Polanski was involved with LaVey in the shooting of ‘Rosemarys Baby’. Strange coincidence.

In an article written by grandson of LaVey entitled, “When Killers come to your Church: Growing up in the Church Of Satan”- by Stanton LaVey, he writes, “Scandinavian photographer Leif Heilberg, who recruited 19-year-old Susan Atkins to pose nude with my grandfather at the Black House. Many of these photos were printed in the men’s magazines of the late 1960s that ran exposés on “LaVey’s Lustful Church” — the sex angle was exaggerated to sell Satanism to the public. Heilberg would sweep the streets of Haight-Ashbury for hippie runaways.”

“As long as they would pose nude, the girls had a paying job. Atkins made the cut because she didn’t just pose with my grandfather and my grandmother Diane once or twice, but many times, and always with badly done makeup. As my grandmother said, she looked like a clown because of her thick white lipstick and bright-blue eye shadow.”

Atkins also played the role of “the vampire’s bride” in the campy strip club burlesque reviews my grandfather directed. She would emerge nude from a prop coffin, and Dracula would pick her up, raise her high and carry her offstage.”

(The Picture above is claimed to be of Atkins, I cannot vouch for that but have left it here for the reader to decide)

Bobby Beausoleil:

Future Manson Family murderer Bobby Beausoleil met Charles Mason after co-starring with Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, in Kenneth Anger’s original version of “Lucifer Rising,” filmed in 1968, that later became the 11-minute short film, “Invocation Of My Demon Brother,” directed, edited, and photographed by avant-garde film director and member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, Kenneth Anger (IX° degree), featuring the rather unusual soundtrack made by an LSD driven Mick Jagger,who played a Moog synthesizer.

There are, of course, numerous occult theories as to what really happened regarding the earlier version of “Lucifer Rising” that was never released in its entirety. (However Keep Kenneth Anger in mind. We’ll revisit him when I make the connection to the Beatles).

LaVey (Left) Beausoleil (Right)

Bobby had not only a connection to the Founder of the Church of Satan but in Kenneth Anger he also had the friendship of a man who was student of Crowley and ardent practitioner of Thelema. As seen above, Bobby stands by a door with the Crowley quote from “The Book of the Law”. “Do what thou wilt.”

Of both Beausoleil and Sadie Adkins, LaVey’s grandson wrote this, “I’ve never been able to figure out whether Atkins and Beausoleil, who later both took part in the Manson murders, met during this time. What makes it even creepier, though, is the infamous photo of Beausoleil standing on the steps of the old Russian Embassy wearing a top hat and tails with Aleister Crowley’s words “Do what thou wilt …” scrawled in red paint that looked like blood. Just two years later, “pig” was painted on the door of actress Sharon Tate when she was murdered by Atkins.” To add to this final assertion, it was not just the Tate residence where words were written in blood. This actually originated with Beausoleil’s murder of Gary Hinman. It was at Hinman’s residence that the first words of “political piggy” were inscribed.

I could push the boundaries of this line of thinking by listing Manson himself among the list of people who had, in the slightest an interaction with LaVey, as I have seen maps of that area of the Haight Ashbury, that Manson first operated out of when he had his first followers and it was a simple 13-14 minute drive away from “The Black House” where the Church of Satan was located. As well as rather close distance in the scheme of things to, “The Presidio”’ However I have to stick to what are the reported facts. To my knowledge no report actually puts Charlie and LaVey together at the same time and place. The possibility that they may have at one time or another crossed paths can only be conjectured. But I will say this, Manson had a gift at always being just an arm’s-length away from everything that he was purported to be involved with. This is true of the actual murders in the Tate/LaBianca cases. At the times of the killings he was not physically present. Even in the Hinman murder it is reported that when Charlie left, Gary Hinman was still alive. The only ties we have on record, to an actual Satanic cult to my knowledge, is with the ‘Process Church of the Final Judgement” where he appeared in their literature once.

The LaVey Family and ‘The Zodiac’:

Also according to the account of LaVey’s grandson Stanton LaVey, there may have been interaction between ‘The Zodiac’ and his grandmother Diane Hegarty, LaVey’s daughter ‘Zena’s’ mother. He writes this of the purported correspondence.

“Before Atkins and Beausoleil became killers, my grandmother was at home doing double duty raising her daughter, my mother, Zeena, and my grandfather’s daughter from a previous marriage, Karla. She also handled all Church of Satan business, which included correspondence.

One of the people she corresponded with was a prospective member, a merchant mariner who sent strange coded letters. When letters from the Zodiac Killer started appearing in newspapers, my grandmother was convinced the killer was the merchant mariner. She was terrified when she received a letter from him right after the Paul Stine murder. In the letter, he stated if he wasn’t only in town for one night, he’d stop by to see my grandfather. Not knowing what to do and not having proof, she approached my grandfather with the letter. While he didn’t dismiss my grandmother’s suspicions outright, he also didn’t believe the letter was from the Zodiac Killer.

So my grandfather let the merchant mariner visit the Black House. After he left, my grandmother noticed that his letters always arrived around dates when Zodiac crimes were occurring in and around San Francisco. Eventually, the man my grandmother pegged as the Zodiac Killer invited her and my grandfather to dinner. While dining, all my grandmother could think was: Is he or is he not the Zodiac Killer? She stayed alert to anything that might be a reveal. There was no reveal, nothing happened, and she gave up on her belief in the theory she’d become obsessed with.

After that dinner, my grandmother never heard from the merchant mariner again. But when she later searched his name, a Southern California address came up. Without being certain of the current whereabouts of the man she believes to be the Zodiac, she’s reluctant to give more detail. She still fears for her safety, and for mine.” -Stanton LaVey, ‘When Killers Come To Your Church: Growing Up In The Church Of Satan’

Richard Ramirez:

Most of the time we draw our research from a host of resources, but every once in a while a source becomes available that branches out into so many different areas that you can’t help but continue to pull information from it. The article from Stanton LaVey is one such article. In the final part of his article he writes of his grandfather’s meeting with Richard Ramirez and the events that lead to the actual meeting. On this event he writes this:

“By 1983, business and life had slowed down quite a bit for my grandfather. And that’s when Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, started coming to the Black House on some sort of anti-Christian pilgrimage to meet my grandfather.

The house had become the subject of a lot of vandalism and frequent trespassing, so my grandfather had a high fence with razor wire installed. Wooden slats were slid between the folds of the fence for more privacy — we could see who was outside without being seen ourselves. I was 5 when the 23-year-old Ramirez made his presence known to us.

He’d come up to San Francisco from Los Angeles, to “shake the hand of the great Dr. LaVey.” Tony, the house security guard, my grandfather’s driver and my occasional babysitter, confronted Ramirez after he noticed someone standing on the sidewalk and staring at the house.

The stranger told Tony that his name was Richie and he just wanted to meet “Dr. LaVey,” and would take only a minute of his time. Tony told him to scram. Ramirez then started walking in slow circles around the block, pausing whenever he reached our fence. After this had gone on for a couple of hours, Tony went back outside to get rid of him, bringing a pistol with him in case Ramirez tried anything. But Ramirez was around the corner and halfway down the block by the time Tony reached the gate.

Some hours passed and everyone forgot about him. But then he was back. This time my grandfather went outside, tucking one of his many handguns in the pocket of his long black trench coat. As he approached Ramirez, he asked, “What are you doing out here?”

“I just wanted to meet you, Dr. LaVey,” Ramirez said nervously, and stuck out his hand. My grandfather ignored it.

“Well, now you have, so now you can go, I don’t take unexpected visitors. Next time make an appointment.”

Ramirez said, “Thank you for everything you’re doing for us satanists,” as my grandfather walked back up the steps.

When Ramirez was caught, the story became that he made his pilgrimage to meet my grandfather as a religious act before committing his crimes in the name of Satan. Ramirez later said that my grandfather was impressed by his intelligence and manners.

What my grandfather actually said was that Ramirez seemed like a kook.”

It has been claimed that following the incarceration and eventual death of Ramirez that the Church of Satan made him an “honorary member”. Whether this is a tall tale or that the above account is an entire white-wash by LaVey to distance themselves from a convicted serial killer I guess can never be fully known. LaVey died in 1997 and Ramirez died in prison in 2013.

To Be Continued

Next time:

The Occult Six Degrees Of Separation Part 2: “Manson,The Family and Mark David Chapman, The Beatles and Polanski Connection.