The story of how Mama Cass introduced Michael Caine to Charles Manson
“I remember all of the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised”. Those were Joan Didion’s words on the murders enacted by the Manson family on the night of August 8th, 1969. In her essay The White Album, Didion paints the murders as a kind of inevitable end, as though a sudden darkness had to kill the decade’s optimism. But there was also a more grounding thought behind the sentiment; in the writer’s circle of actors and musicians, including the Mamas and Papas, no one was surprised because they all knew Charles Manson, and they all saw evil right there.
Charles Manson haunted the music scene of the 1960s in both a spiritual and a very physical way. His cultish ways and devilish interaction with counterculture became a face to the darker side of the decade’s sound. As he created myths around The Beatles’ White Album or made his own anti-establishment rock music and seemingly got violent as a result of not making it as a rock star, Manson epitomised conservatives’ fear that counterculture was satanic as he twisted the free love era into something terrifying.
But, of course, he was physically a piece of the swirling movement, too. Manson had close ties to The Beach Boys, even resulting in the band recording one of his songs after his ‘family’ crashed at Dennis Wilson’s house. Terry Melcher, the band’s producer, also lived at the Cielo Drive house where Sharon Tate was murdered, leading people to believe he was actually trying to get to him instead after Melcher had refused to record Manson’s album. There are stories of Jim Morrison and Manson’s chaotic nights out after Morrison picked up the startling figure while hitchhiking. Some of the best-known talents of the 1960s genuinely believed in Manson’s musical abilities as he struck up friendships with Neil Young and the Mamas and Papas.
After the murders, all of these connections would become harrowing. Dennis Wilson even received threats from Manson, who sent him bullets in the mail. He was also asked to testify against the cult leader but said, “I couldn’t. I was so scared”. Only a few years later, Wilson died after spiralling into addiction.
The Mamas and Papas were also required to give their own reckoning after the murders, realising that they’d not only opened up their homes to the figure but had happily introduced him to others. Throughout the 1960s, the Manson Family bus was regularly parked outside John and Michelle Phillips’ house. As a star known for her parties and friendly spirit, Mama Cass also welcomed Manson into the fold. Within that group, as Michelle Phillips entered an affair with Roman Polanski, was Sharon Tate. When their friends became Manson’s victims, it was a harrowing and horrifying comedown to a hazy era.
That was the case for so many names who had run-ins with either Manson or the figure that would become his victims. Musician Dave Mason remembered that well, especially the connection between Cass and the victims, stating, “One of the freakiest parts was that at Cass’, I saw a lot of Abbie Folger and Wojciech Frykowski until the Manson crew slaughtered them.”
Actor Michael Caine also remembers it well. In his autobiography, he recalled a night spent at a party with Mama Cass, Tate and her hairdresser Jay Sebring, who was also murdered by the cult. The party would have been nothing to write home about if it wasn’t for the recollection of being introduced to a person he described as a “scruffy little man”. That was Charles Manson.
“I don’t have any guilt,” Manson declared at his trial. He was always adamant that he didn’t kill anyone and never ordered anyone to kill anyone, but instead turned his court hearing into an anti-establishment takedown, placing the blame for the murders on the system. But for the musicians that knew him, and that new Sharon Tate or any of the other victims, not only was Manson a guilty man, but they were guilty too for falling for it.