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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 11:49:31 GMT
Linda lived in Topanga Canyon in 1968 and 1969. When the Manson murders first started, she lived next door to Gary Hinman who was the first murder. I grew up in Topanga and was in high school at the time.
conservatism.freeforums.net/board/87/ronstadt-manson-connections
ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/4861/ronstadt-manson-connections
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/658/1968-69-topanga-canyon
Linda traveled in some of the same circles as Charles Manson or at least was in the vicinity at the time he and his "family" were doing their thing. Leslie van Houten popped up in the news today and it is an interesting subject to read about and/or discuss.
companion thread: ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/4552/places-linda-lived?page=2
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Linda Ronstadt meets Leslie Van Houten
I'm currently reading Linda Ronstadt's book Simple Dreams. In her book, Linda relates how she (and her friend Nicolette Larson) were really into roller skating. This was during the late 1970's, when skating was very popular. I can relate, because I loved going to roller discos! While skating in Southern California one day, Linda and Nicolette met Leslie Van Houten.
 
On to the story (excerpted from Simple Dreams):
Nicky and I started skating on Venice Beach, which we loved because it was full of extreme Southern California characters. There were old Jewish lefties playing chess, whatever was left of the Beat Generation, Muscle Beach bodybuilders, and street performers. There were also slackers and stoners of every description lying around enjoying the warm sun and the great looking girls in skimpy clothing.
Skating liberated us from car culture. If we saw something we liked, we could stop and join in immediately without having to park. If we didn't like what we saw, we could roll on by. The two of us were both novice skaters and could stop only by grabbing on to a pole or a tree.
We had a pal named Dan Blackburn, who worked as a news correspondent for NBC. He was a good skater and offered to meet us at the beach and give us some tips. Dan said he would bring a friend he wanted us to meet. He arrived at the designated hour and introduced us to a slender brunette, quiet and pretty, with a refined, well-brought-up manner. Her name was Leslie. We skated for an hour or so, until we were accosted by a tangle of people who were lying on the ground, trying to grab our ankles and begging for water. Some of them were eating dirt. They were obviously wasted on something strong. Someone said it was "angel dust," which was the street name for PCP. The analgesic effect of angel dust can prevent users form realizing they need water, and by the time the drug starts to wear off, they are desperate with thirst.
We managed to slide away and skated to a nearby restuarant for lunch. After we ordered, we began to talk about how we felt sorry and embarrassed for the people we had seen, that they had been shorn of any dignity they may have possessed, and that angel dust looked like a bad drug. Nicky and I had never tried it, and wondered what could be its appeal. Quiet Leslie became animated and said that yes, it was a very bad drug, and could cause one to do things one would never do when sober. She said she knew this, because she herself, had done some bad things under the influence of drugs and had gone to jail. Remembering my own jail experience, I naively asked her what she was arrested for. "Murder," she replied. "Well, who did you murder?" Nicky sputtered. Leslie replied that her full name was Leslie Van Houten and that she had been part of Charles Manson's "family." Nicollete and I were choking on our burgers. She seemed so nice and normal.
We wondered as politely as we could, how she had gotten out of jail and could be lunching and roller skating with us instead of sitting in a cell with the rest of her cohorts. She was out on an appeal because her attoney disappeared during the trial, and so she was found to have had ineffective assistance at trial.
As she saw it, the combination of Charles Manson's influence, plus the drugs he had encouraged her to take, would convince the court that she was not in her right mind, and therefore innocent. Dan and Leslie left us pondering how someone's life could change so irrevocably from normal to grotesquely tragic. As we skated back to where the car was parked, we wondered, could this happen to either of us? Or someone we loved? It definitely reinforced the hearing loss argument against drugs. I remember feeling so disturbed and distracted that I lost track of what my feet were doing and fell hard on the concrete. This, added to my fall down the stairs at the Capitol theatre a few years earlier, caused yeares of back problems.
Leslie's appeal, no surprise, was ultimately unsuccessful, as she was retried and ultimatley found guilty. After close to a year of freedom, she was returned to prison, where she remains to this day.
The above photo (from this time period) was found on the "Truth on Tate-LaBianca" website.
Truthontatelabianca.com
www.lsb3.com/2014/03/linda-ronstadt-meets-leslie-van-houten.html |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:07:42 GMT
Could this thread please be removed from the site? I know it’s an event that is now a part of our “national consciousness,” but I have a feeling I’m not the only person who’d prefer not to see this name here. On that note, while it sort of is an interesting story that Mrs. R and Nicolette Larson briefly met Leslie V H, I’ve occasionally thought, “She probably should have left that story out of the book...” It was a huge and important part of the music scene of the 1960s and 70's and it changed their world forever. Hiding it or ignoring it won't change history and that is what this thread is about. Because of that and other incidents Linda and others have kept a distance from fans. I and some others here ran fan clubs for Linda back then and I can tell you that some of the scariest humans wrote letters to me thinking they were to Linda. She or her managers at the time made some wise decisions. It was the world we lived in. I wish she would have commented on it even more than she did and am curious to know if she had conversations with Brian Wilson about his brother's involvement with Manson. doing the dishes the other day.....started thinking about this "herstory" re manson/la crime She was probably saved by her family!!! Wasn't her brother a head cop in Tucson? Think about it...her family was probably constantly calling the LA cops to check on her and following her whereabouts.....i sure would of been if she was my relation!!! |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:10:58 GMT
Quote by ronstadtfanaz: Metaphorically speaking, of course, yes (LOL). |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:11:36 GMT
I read the 1974 book Helter Skelter when I was a teen, and was quite disturbed by it...for a long time lol. I never forgot it, and so my ears perk up whenever I hear the name Manson. The "shock value" definitely worked on me as I read that Linda accidentally had lunch with one of Manson's followers! I also recall reading that VF Obit back in 2017 that addressed the Beach Boys connection--and more. Basically; Dennis Wilson introduced Charles Manson to Producer Terry Melcher (The Byrds' Producer & son of Doris Day) Terry Melcher declined to pursue a record deal with Manson, which angered Manson greatly. Terry Melcher owned and/or previously lived in the house where Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate were living when she was killed. Bottom-line, for all of Manson's anti-hollywood banter, he'd pursued the Hollywood dream too, and possibly sought revenge on Terry Melcher for squashing it, but Melcher didn't live there anymore... |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:12:10 GMT
Michael Schulman of The New Yorker must have read this thread lol!!
Thanks Michael for more pieces to the puzzle.Evidently Linda's neighbor Gary Hinman was a music teacher who supposedly came into some inheritance that the Manson Family wanted. This whole episode still resonates today as from the below video I discovered Gary's murderer now has a connection to Lady Gaga whom Linda just mentioned in her New Yorker interview. Gary Hinman's Cousin Kay Martley Re: Manson Cult Killer Bobby Beausoleil Parole 2-1-19 |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:12:55 GMT
I find some irony that Linda was at the Bitter End when her neighbor sadly met his bitter end at the same time.There’s been a lot of looking back this year at the summer of 1969, with these big anniversaries of the moon landing and Woodstock and the Manson murders. What do you remember about that summer?
When Woodstock happened, I was in New York. I remember getting all the reports from people like Henry Diltz and Crosby, Stills & Nash. They’d come back with stories of everybody being in the mud. It sounded like a good thing to have survived, but I’m glad I didn’t go up there. Overflowing toilets and no food is not my idea of a fun time. I was playing some club—probably the Bitter End.
When the Manson family came through, they managed to murder my next-door neighbor, Gary Hinman. I was lucky I wasn’t home that night—they may have come for me. We knew those girls, Linda Kasabian and maybe Leslie Van Houten, too. I lived in Topanga Canyon at the time, and they would hitchhike, and they would talk about this guy Charlie at the Spahn Ranch. But I didn’t know him personally. We knew it was kind of a bad scene. But, when we found out how bad of a scene it was, we were horrified.That was quite a couple of weeks: |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:13:38 GMT
It's a shame Linda wasn't asked to perform at Woodstock, that would have been legendary. She already had "Different Drum" 2 years earlier so she was fairly well known. Other performers like Santana hadn't even released their first album yet. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:14:16 GMT
Quote by ronstadtfanaz: I think she probably could have done it, and made it work quite well. I also believe, however, that she would have been in during the "folk" segment of the festival, which I think was on the first day and night, before it turned into a mud bath. She would have fit in with folks like Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie, and, of course, Joan Baez, one of heroes from the 1960s folk music explosion/scare--especially with her take on Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released", which I think was also in her repertoire during that time. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:16:11 GMT
Interesting video that puts things into perspective...Hippies, Manson, Vietnam, Woodstock, Music etc. Get a feel how things were at the end of the decade and the end of an era. I didn't realize that Manson was the same size physically as Linda Ronstadt at the time.Manson: The Man Who Killed The 60s (Charles Manson Documentary) | Timeline
Timeline - World History Documentaries
Published on Nov 4, 2017
Check out our new website for more incredible history documentaries: HD and ad-free. bit.ly/2O6zUsK
The events of the night of 9th August, 1969 changed the face of the ’60s. The brutal murders of beautiful starlet Sharon Tate and her friends shocked the world, and when the Manson Family murderers were found, flower-power culture came under the spotlight. The Family had long hair, took illicit drugs and lived in a commune. To middle class, right-wing America, they encapsulated everything threatening about hippiedom. Witness reveals how establishment figures manipulated the Manson murders to discredit the flower-power generation. Fascinating archive footage shows the escalating violence of the period and, in a rare interview from jail, Manson himself recalls the turbulent events that ended the era.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:16:42 GMT
Just found this video regarding Hinman, in part. It starts at 22:00 and is chilling. Evidently Hinman had allowed several people that ended up as part of the Manson Family stay at his house off and on. This included one Manson Family member that killed him. This should bother people knowing that just next door was Linda Ronstadt who probably had seen many of them coming and going on a daily basis.
Charles Manson - the Helter Skelter Murders and the Murder of Gary Hinman - Part 1 |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:18:34 GMT
Michael Schulman of The New Yorker must have read this thread lol!!
Thanks Michael for more pieces to the puzzle.Evidently Linda's neighbor Gary Hinman was a music teacher who supposedly came into some inheritance that the Manson Family wanted. This whole episode still resonates today as from the below video I discovered Gary's murderer now has a connection to Lady Gaga whom Linda just mentioned in her New Yorker interview. Gary Hinman's Cousin Kay Martley Re: Manson Cult Killer Bobby Beausoleil Parole 2-1-19
Val said: While some people might be uncomfortable with the topic of Manson, imagine how those of us who lived in Topanga felt at the time. I was only 17 and I had friends that lived up Old Topanga and one near Linda. None of them wanted to stay at their own houses, they wanted to do sleep overs with friends in other parts of the canyon. The memories of actually having looked Manson in the eye on time have never left me, nor has the murder of Gary. If not for a job up at the stables, I might have gone out to that ranch but I worked weekends and had school weekdays. |
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 8, 2020 12:19:58 GMT
I can't even imagine. To most in the country it was just a horrible story but to the neighborhood it had to be a living nightmare. It doesn't leave you.
L.A. in the Time of Charles Manson (Full version) |
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