Most of the Manson Family has been cast in writer-director extraordinaire Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, a tale of Los Angeles and the movie industry in the late 1960s using the iconic Manson Family murders as a backdrop and lens into the juicy subject matter. Respected television character actor Damon Herriman got the nod to play the hippie-cult guru Manson, a failed musician who attracted a following of mostly young, impressionable, eager-to-please women and eventually had them kill for him. In subsequent years, Manson has become the face of evil in the pop culture pantheon of mass murderers and serial killers and the embodiment of the dark side of America’s much-chronicled Flower Power era.
Manson ordered the slayings of nine people in the summer of 1969, eight occurring over 48 hours in August, most notably a beautiful actress and her unborn child. The murder spree included the brutal killing of burgeoning Hollywood starlet Sharon Tate, the heiress to the Folgers Coffee fortune, Abigail Folger and Jay Sebring, an in-demand male hairdresser who served as the inspiration for Warren Beatty’s lead character in movie Shampoo, on the first night of the slaughters. Manson and four of his followers were convicted at trial in 1971. Manson himself died behind bars last year.
Tarantino’s film is chalk-full of high-wattage acting talent and centers on a fictional past-his-prime actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double (Brad Pitt) and their struggle identifying with and thriving in a changing industry landscape. DiCaprio’s character is neighbors with Tate. The project has been shooting since June and is slated for a July 2019 release to theatres. Tate was married to Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski.
Herriman is best known for his memorable roles in the critically-acclaimed TV shows Justified and Breaking Bad. He played another notorious criminal in the Clint Eastwood-helmed 2011 movie J. Edgar, portraying Bruno Hauptmann, the man responsible for kidnapping and killing the “Lindberg Baby” in 1932.
Besides hiring Herriman for the Manson role, Tarantino has also tapped actors to play Charles (Tex) Watson, Manson’s right-hand man, and followers Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, Catherine (Gypsy) Share, Kathryn (Kitty Kat) Lutesinger, Patricia (Katie) Krenwinkle and Leslie (Lulu) Van Houten. Watson, Krenwinkle and Van Houten were convicted in taking part in the so-called Tate-LaBianca slayings.
The role of Susan (Sadie) Atkins, Manson’s main female henchman and the woman who stabbed a pregnant Tate to death inside her Benedict Canyon mansion on August 8, 1969, has yet to be filled. Van Houten was only present on the second night of the murders, helping Watson, Atkins and Krenwinkle kill married couple Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood on August 9, 1969.
Susan Atkin (L), Patricia Krenwinkle (C) & Leslie Van Houten (R) going to court in 1970
Early in the casting process, Dakota Fanning snagged the role of Squeaky Fromme, famous for trying to shoot U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975 and being Manson’s mouthpiece to the press during his flashbulb-frenzy of a trial. Fanning has been in Hollywood since her childhood when she delivered well-received performances in studio movies from the 2000s like I Am Sam, Man on Fire and War of the Worlds.
More recently, one of Hollywood’s leading feminists, Lena Dunham, was cast as Gypsy Share, the Manson Family’s designated recruiter and lesser-known actresses Madison Beaty, Victoria Pedretti and Margaret Qualley, were selected to play “Manson girls” Katie Krenwinkle, Lulu Van Houten and Kitty Lutesinger, respectively. Tracing his roots in the industry to the Disney and Nickelodeon brand of the late 2000s, actor Austin Baker (Hannah Montana, ICarly), walked away with the Tex Watson part.
Dunham created, wrote and starred in the Emmy-nominated HBO series Girls, which ended in 2017. Her character, Gypsy Share did five years in prison in the 1970s for trying to kill another Family member set to testify at the Manson trial by dousing a hamburger with LSD and staging an armed robbery of an outdoorsmen surplus store as part of an effort to spring Manson from custody.
Krenwinkle and Van Houten were put on trial alongside Manson. So was Sadie Atkins. They were all convicted in a marathon court proceeding garnering coverage from around the world. Watson was found guilty at a separate trial. Today in their 70s, Krenwinkle, Van Houten and Watson remain behind bars. Atkins died of brain cancer in a prison hospital in 2009.
This will be the second time Beaty portrays Krenwinkle. She played the Manson disciple in the NBC television show Aquarius two years ago. Beaty had a recurring role on ABC Family’s The Fosters. Qualley was one of the stars in the HBO show The Leftovers.
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