A Limited Series
“This guy Charlie is here with all these great-looking chicks. He plays guitar and he’s a real wild guy. He has all these chicks hanging out like servants. You can come over and just screw any of them you want. It’s a great party.”
-Dennis Wilson (The Beach Boys) quoted in ‘Papa’ John Phillips (The Mamas & the Papas) book, ‘Papa John’
The scene described here is that into which wandered an impressionable 22-year-old kid, fresh to LA from a small town in Texas, who had come to California like many thousands of others to seek the freedom, good times, and easy living that the culture of the decade promised. What he didn’t know was that this gentle, charismatic guy named Charlie —whom the Hollywood jet-set embraced as a purveyor of good dope, easy girls and the occasional philsophical tidbit— was a violent psychotic with extraordinary abilities for seduction and an apocalyptic vision of himself as Jesus Christ.
Within eighteen short months, the young Texan would slaughter seven innocent people in cold blood for his guru Charles Manson in what have been acknowledged as among the most infamous and heinous crimes of the last 100 years.
Cease to Exist is the first person account of descent into the madness of the Manson Family, directly through the eyes Manson’s right-hand man —and murderer of all seven of the Tate-LaBianca victims— Charles “Tex” Watson.
Through Tex Watson’s eyes and words, audiences will witness the Manson Family from a perspective that is not only authentic, unique, and chillingly intimate, but which sheds unexplored light on the social and political climate of the times and its contribution to the conditions that made such an unthinkable thing almost inevitable. Narrated by Watson directly from the rich, borne-of-hindsight accounts in his autobiography “Will You Die For Me?”, the audience will accompany him on his descent, and provide insight to the fact that the potential to become a monster lurks inside far more of us than we’d like to admit. The fact that so few people know it was Watson that did the vast majority of the killing will make it all the more suspenseful. Cease to Exist is the Manson saga from a completely fresh perspective, following Charles Watson’s journey from all-star athlete in a small town in Texas; through the fast-paced world of late 1960s Los Angeles where he lives at Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s mansion; to his indoctrination into the Manson Family’s world of sex, drugs and mindcontrol; to his personally carrying out the most infamous and brutal killings in U.S. history.
Cease to Exist is, at its heart, a cautionary tale of a young man’s downward spiral to self-annihilation as he gets caught up in the times and the events that forever altered an era. On this journey the audience will encounter a series of historical pop-culture figures, bizarre counter-culture characters and events, and will witness firsthand the death throes of the most dynamic, exciting, and influential decade in American history.
EPISODE ONE
Death Valley, late summer 1969. Charles Manson has a knife pressed against Charles ‘Tex’ Watson’s throat. He is asking Tex if he ‘will die for him’. A sequence of flashbacks, media of the era (with an increasingly sinister tone), and voiceover from Watson’s book brings us glimpses (only glimpse) of why they are there in the desert.
Copeville Texas, two years earlier. Watson is a track star and a popular kid on campus. He has a loving family, but the constant watchful eyes of his parents and Methodist church weigh on him. The occasional shot of corny Christian posters, with a friendly, long haired Jesus. His older, Beach Boy’s listening brother is held up to him as an example.
But The lure of California and its promise of easy living and freedom win out. Watson flies to LA to goof-off with his friend Rich (who’d moved there a few months prior). He’s found the life he’s dreamed of. They go to the Sunset Strip, hang out with girls, and start smoking grass.
He picks up a hitchhiker: Beach Boy’s drummer Dennis Wilson and is invited to a party at Wilson’s house on Sunset near the ocean. Among the music industry moguls, movie stars and young beauties, he meets a few of the Beach Boys’ management team including Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher. There’s also a wanna-be hippie, a balding middle-aged man – Rev. Dean Moorehouse, who’s a bit more welcoming than one would expect. The crowd though, is enthralled with a small, gentle figure playing a guitar singing his song “Cease to Exist”.
Dennis introduces Charles Watson to the man with the guitar: Charlie Manson.
EDISODE TWO – “Good Vibrations”
Dennis offers Watson a room at his house in Pacific Palisades. The house parties continue as Charles becomes closer to Dean Morehouse, who’s quite devoted to Manson, seeing him a Jesus-like figure preaching a new-age gospel: that they should abandon their egos and cease-to-exist. We will see more and more over the series that this means the more one devotes to Manson, the more he will reward you with praise, drugs and sex.
Manson never misses a party when the celebrities are around.
At Dean’s urging, Watson takes LSD for the first time. Manson, Dean and Manson’s girl Mary play-up the Jesus imagery for the benefit of Watson’s lysergically-enhanced state of mind.
The following day, Dean and Watson go to see Terry Melcher who loans them his Jaguar as part of Charlie’s ego-killing regimen. Terry has a nice home –a ranch style in Benedict Canyon: 10050 Cielo Drive. Leaving with the Jag, Charles opens the gate with the push of a button (important later).
Back at the house, Dennis Wilson —angered that Dean has been hitting on Beach Boys’ girlfriends (and spending his money)— tosses them all out, including Charles. With nowhere else to go, Dean and Watson drive to where Manson has staked out some space.
They arrive at Spahn Ranch.
EPISODE THREE – “Garbage Dump”
Charlie won’t let Watson or Dean move into the ranch buildings with the rest of the ‘Family’. Not allowed to join the others, they’re given a tent in a ravine, close enough to hear the togetherness and singing. Dean tells Watson his story – he’d come to LA to rescue his young daughter from Manson but comes to realize that Manson is special, perhaps even Jesus returned. (At 15, Dean’s daughter is one of Charlie’s favorites, and she adores him.)
Slowly, Watson is allowed to participate, and he meets the others, including Sadie, Leslie, Katie, and Squeeky Fromme.
He’s also introduced to George Spahn, the blind 80-year-old owner of the ranch. The girls pay ‘special’ attention to George and in return, the Family is allowed to stay. Hearing Watson’s accent, Spahn nicknames him “Tex”.
“Tex” now goes along on The Family’s notorious “food runs” (proto-Freegan dumpster-diving) and he also participates in the practice of group sex – all orchestrated by Charlie with the stated goal of losing hang-ups and killing the ego.
Terry Melcher and Gregg Jacobson (also of the Beach Boys’ camp) come to the ranch to hear Charlie’s new songs – Charlie’s been pressuring them for some studio time; they like the girls and the drugs. Although they’re horrible, the Family ends up in a recording studio where they lay down a few songs including “Garbage Dump”…and the rather good “Cease to Exist”.
Melcher doesn’t show for the recording. Manson’s fury manifests with giggles and scat-singing —the Family scats right along as the nonsense becomes “die today…die today…” while the engineers look on in amazed confusion.
EPISODE FOUR – “Behold, He is in the Desert”
Charlie has moved The Family to Death Valley. He’s amping up the ‘Christ-in-the-Wilderness act; the beauty of Death Valley, and the beauty of death itself. Manson disappears, leaving Tex and the others lost without him. Without him, Tex can feel Manson’s influence dissipate – the cracks are starting to show. Their devotion is reinforced when Charlie ‘miraculously’ returns to camp. Charlie wants to know what’s happening with his recordings and they return to Spahn.
Back in LA, they learn Gregg is in jail. Charlie sends Tex to Terry Melcher’s house on Cielo to seek help with bail. Melcher and his girlfriend (Candice Bergen) are quite cold to Tex, not willing to help and simply wanting to get him out of their kitchen. A hallway mirror shows a figure he wouldn’t want in his house either. Shaken, be buzzes out on the gate button and he has a bad trip while hitching home to Spahn – perhaps he doesn’t want to eat from garbage cans and “die”, but live the life he came to LA for in the first place.
At Spahn, Charlie senses Tex’s doubt and takes him on an outing to a cabin in Topanga. Charlie has a brief and tense exchange with acquaintance Gary Hinman, who’s just leaving. Tex takes more acid while the man they’re visiting plays them The Beatles’ ‘White Album’. Tex’s doubt returns and overwhelms him; Charlie’s reaction to the track “Helter Skelter” sends Tex over the edge.
He runs.
EPISODE FIVE – “How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?”
Outside at the nearby Topanga Feed Store, Tex is picked up by his old friend Rich. He hasn’t told Rich about The Family, aware that he may not help if he knew the whole truth.
Over time however, Charles/Tex is becoming frustrated. Not used to monogamy after the ‘free-love’ at Spahn and well imprinted with Charlie’s teachings, it becomes clear that he is looking at the world as Charlie sees it: filled with establishment ‘phonies’ still stuck in their egos. He cannot get Charlie out of his mind, and still struggling with his parents calls for him to come home, he cannot get rid of the feeling that he has indeed found Jesus, and He is nothing like what his parents evision…he is far far better.
The draw is too great; he telephones the ranch. The girls on the other end are excited, talking about something called “Helter Skelter” and how it is “coming down fast.”
EPISODE SIX – “Back at the Ranch”
Once again believing that Manson is the answer to what he seeks, Watson takes Luella with him to Spahn. The reunion with Manson is tense, even more so as he plays Watson a record: a song on the Beach Boys’ new album. The lyrics and instrumentation are changed but there’s no doubt it’s “Cease to Exist”. Though “Tex” is excited, it’s clear that Charlie feels betrayed, and believes Terry Melcher –and possibly Tex– had stolen his song.
Some of the ranch buildings are painted black, they’re using one building as a “night club”, charging admission to local kids and bikers – members of the Straight Satans MC. Charlie’s new trip is far more fiery and vengeful than before; preaching vengeance and hatred against the ‘phonies’ and ‘piggies’. Luella leaves. Tex -enthralled with the sermon- couldn’t care less.
Meanwhile, the cops and ranch hand “Shorty” Shea are pressuring old man Spahn to kick Charlie and his Family out. Charlie moves them all to “The Yellow Submarine”, the bikers’ house in the nearby suburban Canoga Park, but vows that Shorty will get what’s coming to him.
EPISODE SEVEN – “Creepy Crawl”
Living with the Straight Satans MC, Manson’s “horsemen of the apocalypse”, Charlie’s rhetoric has shifted even more darkly. Drawing heavily from Revelation, The White Album, and talk of the apocalyptic race war he’d heard much about from adherents of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam during his years in jail, he preaches that the “end time” is drawing nigh, and he has an angle; The Family will survive and return to rule. Preparing for “Helter Skelter” (Charlie’s Armageddon), they now focus on amassing weapons and dune buggies.
Any doubt Charles Watson had had about the importance of Charlie’s ‘teachings’ during his sabbatical are wiped away. He is on the ‘right side of history’ and will not just survive the Apocalypse, but win and rule the world at Charlie’s side. (Having grown up in a Christian home, Charles Watson is obviously familiar with the basic concept of the Apocalypse, so this resonates with him, especially knowing he is on the right side).
As training, and to set the population on edge, Charlie sends Tex and the girls out to “creepy crawl”: breaking into homes, changing furnishings around in the middle of the night to instill fear in the residents.
Tex’s drug use intensifies, …with the addition of methamphetamine.
Charlie’s rhetoric of the Helter-Skelter race war intensifies – it’s imminent but they aren’t ready. The various issues of “Life” and “Time” laying around the garage featuring headlines such as “Negro Revolt: The Flames Spread” reinforce that Charlie is right.
While roaring around the mountains in their dune buggies, Charlie decides to move The Family back to Spahn.
Needing money for weapons, Charlie orders Tex to use an unwitting Luella to rip-off black drug dealer “Lottsapoppa” Crowe. It goes badly, with Charlie coming back to “clean up Tex’s mess” and shooting Crowe. Believing Crowe was a Black Panther (which both excites and terrifies him) Charlie plays up the fact that Tex now “owes him”.
Charlie takes Sadie and others to get money from Family hanger on Gary Hinman. Hinman lets them in as friends.
EPISODE EIGHT – “Helter Skelter”
Hinman won’t give them what they want. Torture and murder are the result with Charlie slicing off Hinman’s ear and then sewing it back on with guitar string. When one of them is later arrested for killing Gary Hinman, Charlie fears that the Family will be taken-in before the war begins. They have to start it themselves.
He orders Tex, Sadie and Leslie to go to Terry Melcher’s house on Cielo and ‘destroy everyone there’. They comply, slaughtering the five people with knives and a pistol. The violence is clumsy, improvised, and brutal. Sadie writes the word “Pig” in blood on the front door, and Tex presses the same gate button a final time, leaving a bloody fingerprint.
They escape back to Spahn; Tex and the girls -programed to need approval- are giddy that Manson is pleased.
The next day is spent coming down from the meth, and Tex is in a numb, zombie like state, working on dune buggies. Another pep-talk from Charlie and Sadie, reiterating the importance of what they are doing; the shock of the newscasters about the murders —and news footage of last month’s race riots in York, PA— nail the point home.
Charlie goes with them the next night “to show them how to do it right”, but coward he is, makes an excuse leaving them stranded at a house in Los Feliz. Sadie and Tex’s meth jar helps get things started. They kill a middle-aged couple, leaving more bloody messages and “War” carved into the man’s belly.
The next day, again crashing from meth, but with just enough humanity re-emerging to realize this must stop, Tex fakes a call from his mother pretending that she’s been contacted by the FBI.
Charlie cancels that night’s murderous outing, and the Family escapes to the desert to await the Helter-Skelter apocalypse.
EPISODE NINE – “Death Valley ‘69”
The Death Valley scene from first episode, but straightforward and realistic; in the dirt with brutal reality of the harsh Death Valley climate.
With U.S. Park Rangers in pursuit, The Family searches for ‘the bottomless pit’, the safe haven Charlie has promised them.
Charlie leaves Tex in a cabin with a shotgun to await and kill the rangers. Instead, sweating, dehydrated and detoxing, the horrific realization of what he has done envelopes him in a series of all-too real hallucinations. Realizing Charlie is not Jesus —but possibly the Devil—, he flees, wandering over the Panamint mountains and starting his journey home to Texas.
Back home and still fighting Charlie’s programming, he tries to live a normal life. Manson’s rhetoric is deeply embedded. The full detox is hard, but Charles Watson’s family has welcomed him home.
Inevitably it happens; his fingerprints have been found, and he’s arrested. His family (not willing to accept reality) fights extradition as he grapples with his actions. Working with his parent’s chaplain, he awakens to the fact that he has been following a false prophet…and has done horrific things. He’s arrested and shipped to LA, where in the courthouses and jails he encounters various Family members, who, still under Charlie’s control, pass messages to one another and to Charlie. Watson finally sees them as the freakish and insane people they are.
Watson’s small trial is overshadowed by the media’s focus on Charlie, the girls, and their shock-provoking rhetoric – Family members encamped on the street outside; “X”s burned into their foreheads. When future failed presidential assassin Squeaky Fromme implores Watson that The Family needs him, he’s able to say definitively that his family is in Texas.
Watson is sentenced to death.
Years later, the death penalty has been repealed, and Watson is running a successful prison ministry. He’s visited by a woman who purports to want advice on her own Christian outreach. The woman –Suzan LaBerge- starts asking Charles about his past and how he ended up where he is. Ultimately, she reveals that she is not a minister but the daughter of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca, the second night’s victims. Suzan is testing, wanting to know if Watson has truly changed.
She leaves believing that he has.
Adapted from the book “Will You Die For Me?” by Charles “Tex” Watson
and the motion picture screenplay “Cease to Exist” by Jacqueline Stansbury
© Jacqueline V. Stansbury & Steve Housden ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTACT
Steve Housden 310-623-2676 stephen.a.housden@gmail.com