At 83-years-old, infamous cult leader Charles Manson died this week and while serving out his prison sentence for his involvement in the Tate murders. Bryan Cranston “shuddered” after hearing about the death of Manson and reminisced about the time he encountered Charlie Manson in California while horseback riding with his cousin. In the video above, the Breaking Bad star tells the story of the time he met “the little man with crazy eyes whom the other hippies called Charlie.”
Cranston knows a thing or two about evil villains from his time on the crime drama Breaking Bad, but early in his life, he encountered real evil. When Cranston was only 11 or 12-years-old, he came chillingly close to Manson, a mysterious man with “big, dark eyes and wild hair.” Cranston was so close to the head of “The Family” that he “was within his grasp just one year before he committed brutal murder in 1969.” In a tweet, Cranston explained that the face-to-face encounter with Manson happened at the Span Ranch in the San Fernando Valley.
Hearing Charles Manson is dead, I shuddered. I was within his grasp just one year before he committed brutal murder in 1969. Luck was with me when a cousin and I went horseback riding at the Span Ranch, and saw the little man with crazy eyes whom the other hippies called Charlie.
— Bryan Cranston (@BryanCranston) November 20, 2017
Manson was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder and had been sentenced to death in 1971. However, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after the state of California abolished the death penalty.
[JOE]