Angela Lansbury’s Unexpected Connection to Charles Manson

Charles Manson became a household name after members of the Manson family—the devoted followers who hung onto his every word and command—murdered seven people in different Los Angeles locations on two nights in August 1969.

Before the killings, Manson tried to use his guitar and songwriting skills to launch himself into rock stardom after moving to Los Angeles in 1967, a part of his history that's been widely publicized. What’s much less known is that his admirers in Southern California included the teen daughter of actress Angela Lansbury.

After spending several years in prison in California for violating his parole for check forgery, Manson was released on March 21, 1967, and made it to San Francisco just in time for the Summer of Love. The city’s atmosphere of sexual liberation, drug use and rejection of societal norms gave him the chance to flourish as a new-age guru.

Girls and young women were particularly entranced by Manson and his teachings. Many saw him as a Christ-like figure, an impression enhanced by his long beard and hair. He encouraged his followers to consume LSD and take part in orgies.

In Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson, Jeff Guinn writes that Manson and some of his flock relocated to Los Angeles in late 1967. He wanted to pursue musical stardom there. The following year, he and his followers moved in with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, a step that seemed promising for Manson’s dreams of becoming a rock star. He also got to know record producer Terry Melcher, who Mason believed would help launch his recording career.

However, Melcher, whose mother was 1950s movie star Doris Day, wasn’t the only celebrity offspring Manson encountered in Los Angeles. Deirdre “Didi” Shaw, Lansbury’s teenage daughter, was drawn to Manson soon after his arrival. 

Manson and his followers initially settled in Topanga Canyon, close to where Lansbury was raising her family in Malibu, as he continued presenting himself as a prophet spreading the word about a new way to live, as Greg King describes him in Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders.

“She was one of many youngsters who knew him—and they were fascinated,” Lansbury said in a 2014 interview with The Daily Mail. “He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.”

Lansbury shared in a biography that “Manson and his followers were always hanging around” her daughter’s circle. According to The Dark Heart of Hollywood by Douglas Thompson, Lansbury's stepson David Shaw said: "We all met [Manson], a lot of people in Malibu did. He used to come around our house looking for Deirdre."

At the time, Lansbury was starring on Broadway in the musical Mame and often away from California. So Shaw, who was about 13 according to Ed Sanders' The Family, had the freedom to spend time with the Manson family after school. 

When her parents weren't around, members of Manson’s entourage visited Shaw at home, onetime Manson adherent Dianne Lake wrote in her book Member of the Family. She also met up with them at the beach or visited them wherever they were staying.

Guinn writes in Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson that one way Manson exerted control over his female followers was through sexual initiations, a tactic he’d learned as a pimp. But Manson didn’t do this with Shaw, apparently valuing the material support she gave his group. Lake shares that Manson gave “speeches about how belongings owned you and not the other way around.”

Shaw took this to heart and put it into action by using her mother’s credit cards to buy clothes and supplies like car parts for the Manson family, Guinn explains.

Devoted Manson acolyte Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme wrote in her 2018 memoir Reflexion that Shaw raided her family’s kitchen to bring food to the Manson family, and that the teen bought marijuana and LSD from dealers at her high school and brought it to Manson and his acolytes.

In the end, Manson’s celebrity connections didn’t come through to help him achieve his visions of grandeur. Guinn writes that Shaw's credit cards were cut off and she was removed from Manson's sphere of influence around 1968. Lake’s book describes Shaw’s visits becoming more and more sporadic before stopping entirely.

Wilson kicked the group out of his home after a few months. Manson’s hopes that Melcher would sign him to a record deal died by 1969.

The Manson family then holed up north of Los Angeles at the Spahn ranch, a former filming location for Western movies and TV shows. There, his dreams shifted from fame to something darker.

On August 8, 1969, Manson sent four followers to an estate in the Benedict Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles. The house had previously been occupied by Melcher, the record producer who had rejected him. 

The new tenants were film director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate. Polanski wasn’t there that night, but three Manson family members killed a heavily pregnant Tate and four others. After Tate was stabbed, her blood was used to write the word “Pig” on the home’s front door.

The next night, Manson family members slaughtered Leno LaBianca, a grocery store executive, and his wife Rosemary in their home in the well-to-do Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.

Although Manson wasn’t physically present at the murders, prosecutors said he orchestrated the crimes in an attempt to launch a race war. Tom O'Neill notes in Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties that because Manson wasn't on the scene, the state used conspiracy charges to try him for first-degree murder. 

The people who physically committed the crimes were also charged with first-degree murder. Manson and his followers were found guilty in 1971 and sentenced to death. In 1972, California courts temporarily abolished capital punishment, so the sentences were changed to life in prison.

Shaw had no connection to the killings. In 1970, Lansbury and her husband moved to Ireland with their son and daughter, in part because they wanted their children to be far away from Southern California’s illegal drug culture. Shaw received treatment for her drug use while in Ireland.

The actress told The Daily Mail that her daughter eventually married and ran an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles with her husband. 

Lansbury went on to star in the popular television series Murder, She Wrote in the 1980s and 1990s and acted until her death at the age of 96 in 2022. Manson died in prison in 2017 at age 83.

She said it was the right decision to move with her two children to Ireland.

“Certainly, I have no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two if they hadn't been removed to a completely different milieu,” Lansbury told The Daily Mail in 2014. “We were so very, very lucky we spotted what was happening just in time.”