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Late actress Angela Lansbury once had to pry her daughter from the clutches of convicted murderer and cult leader Charles Manson – revealing that she moved her entire family from Los Angeles to Ireland in order to protect her youngest child from the sinister criminal. 

In a 2014 interview with DailyMail.com, Lansbury revealed that Diedre, now 69, had fallen in with a bad crowd that was being led by the musician-turned-mass murderer during the 1960s – having also begun abusing hard drugs with her brother Anthony. 

‘It started with cannabis but moved on to heroin,’ Lansbury – who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 96 – revealed. 

‘There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits. It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson. She was one of many youngsters who knew him – and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.’ 

In order to keep her daughter and the rest of her family safe, the Murder, She Wrote actress moved her whole family from their home in Los Angeles to Ireland, where her mother’s family hailed from.

Angela Lansbury revealed to DailyMail.com in 2014 that her daughter Diedre (pictured; now 69) was briefly swept up in Charles Manson’s circle in the 1960s; Lansbury and Diedre seen in 2000 in Beverly Hills

Getting out of town: In order to keep her family safe from Manson and drugs, the Murder, She Wrote actress moved her whole family from their home in Los Angeles to Ireland; Manson pictured in 1969 as he is escorted to his arraignment

Like some of Manson’s followers, who would later commit the horrendous Tate–LaBianca murders, Diedre was allegedly drawn to the cult leader’s charms.

‘She was one of many youngsters who knew him — and they were fascinated,’ Lansbury continued. ‘He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.’

Bad influence: Lansbury said Diedre (pictured) and her son Anthony began using heavy drugs in the ’60s, and Diedre became ‘fascinated’ with Manson; Angela and Diedre seen in 1989 in LA

Chilling: ‘He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it’; Manson is pictured in his 1969 mugshot

Fearing the kind of trouble her daughter might get into if she stayed in Manson’s circle, Lansbury proposed a major move overseas.

”I said to [husband] Peter [Shaw], “We have to leave.” So we upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork,’ she said, explaining that it was a sort of homecoming, even though she had been born in London.

‘I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn’t be exposed to any more bad influences,’ Lansbury continued. ‘I still have a house there which I try and visit at least once a year. 

‘So I refused all work for a year and simply kept house. I bought Elizabeth David’s books and learnt how to cook properly,’ she added, referencing the popular British cooking writer. ‘It was a wonderful time in my life.’ 

A change of scenery proved to be just the prescription for her children, who thrived in Ireland.

‘Anthony pulled right out of his bad habits quite quickly,’ Lansbury shared. ‘It took Deidre a little longer, but she finally got married and she and her husband now live in Los Angeles, where they run their own Italian restaurant.’

Time for a change: ‘I said to [husband] Peter [Shaw], “We have to leave.” So we upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork,’ she said; Lansbury seen with husband Peter Shaw and son Anthony in 1979 in NYC

Anthony would later follow in his mother’s footsteps in the entertainment industry, and the two even collaborated when he directed 68 episodes of her series Murder, She Wrote.

Even though everything worked out with her family, the thought of what could have happened to her children still frightened Lansbury decades later. 

‘It fills me with dread. Peter and I had no idea what had been going on,’ she admitted. ‘But then we had no experience of drugs. We didn’t know the significance of finding a pipe in a drawer. Why would we? 

‘And when we did, we didn’t know how to help them. Nor were there any experts back then who could offer advice to the parents of kids from good families who were using, and sometimes overdosing on, drugs. It was like an epidemic.’

‘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, the simplicity of life in Ireland,’ she added. 

‘In the end, we found a doctor who prescribed methadone, a heroin substitute, which helped with the withdrawal symptoms as Anthony and Deidre were weaned off hard drugs. We were so very, very lucky we spotted what was happening just in time.’  

Safe haven: ‘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, the simplicity of life in Ireland,’ she added; Lansbury seen with Diedre and Anthony in 1957

Manson was eventually convicted in 1971 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for seven murders committed by his followers in 1969.

Although he is not believed to have explicitly ordered the killings, his behavior and teachings convinced a jury that he was responsible for the murders. The prosecution said that Manson’s ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy. 

On the night of August 8–9, Manson’s followers murdered the pregnant actress Sharon Tate (who was the wife of director Roman Polanski), along with her friend Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger of the Folger family, the Polish writer and director Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent. On August 10, Manson’s followers broke into the home of Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary and brutally murdered the two. 

On that fateful summer night, Polanski was in London scouting locations for the Day of the Dolphin when he got the call that his wife was stabbed to death 16 times in one of the most vicious and brutal murders in the history of Los Angeles. 

Behind bars: Manson was convicted in 1971 of leading his followers to kill seven people in 1969, including the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. He died in prison in 2017; seen in 1970

Media frenzy directly followed the murders, with speculation that perhaps it had been part of a satanic ritual. 

Polanski posed for photographs in the home, next to where the word ‘PIG’ was written in blood, saying he hoped the graphic images would help shock people to come forward with information.  

About a month later members of the Manson ‘Family’ were arrested on suspicion of involvement in an unrelated murder, which lead investigators to a breakthrough on the Tate case as well.  

The suspects told police they had killed Tate and her friends not because of who they were, but because of the home they were in, which had belonged to a previous acquaintance of Manson. 

Manson died of natural causes on November 19, 2017, at Corcoran State Prison in California  where he had been housed since 1989. He was 83. 

Diedre’s connection to Manson doesn’t appear to have been close enough for him to involve her in the cult’s 1969 murders, as Lansbury told RadioTimes in 2017 that the family moved after their house burned down in 1970.

She said both Anthony and Diedre had to learn to cook and garden to stay self-sufficient in their new Irish home. 

In Jeff Guinn’s 2014 book Manson: The Life And Times Of Charles Manson, he noted that Diedre never moved in full-time with Manson’s cult, but she was still useful to him, as he and other Manson family members would ‘go stock up on clothes or car parts without a concern for cost because Didi paid for everything with her mother’s credit cards.’

However, they were eventually canceled, and she reportedly withdrew from Manson’s circle.

Lansbury — who was at one point the richest women in television history thanks to her role as amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher (pictured) in 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote — died peacefully in her sleep yesterday at her Los Angeles home at the grand old age of 96

Lansbury — who was at one point the richest woman in television history thanks to her role as amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote — died peacefully in her sleep yesterday at her Los Angeles home at 96.

Jessica Fletcher was essentially America’s Miss Marple, a twinkly-eyed lady of a certain age living alone in Cabot Cove, which is a version of St Mary Mead. 

As with Agatha Christie, whose world embodies a timeless lost Englishness, Murder, She Wrote, conveyed, as Angela said, ‘heartland American values,’ and the public adored it, 28 million tuning in each week from 1984 until 1996.

It’s always being repeated, everywhere in the world.

It was a hard slog, with 14-hour days for 12 full years. 

Angela’s remuneration went up from $40,000 an episode to $200,000, by which time she’d become the executive producer and negotiated all manner of lucrative concessions from Universal and CBS.

How murder of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight others in the summer of 1969 shook America and made cult leader Charles Manson one of the country’s most notorious criminals 

When Sharon was at the peak of her acting career, Manson Family cult members Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel were sent to the house by Charles Manson and told to ‘totally destroy everyone in it, as gruesome as you can.’

Sharon Tate, 26, was a model and rising film star after her breakout role in the 1966 film Valley of the Dolls. 

She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant when she was attacked. She begged her killers to let her live long enough to have her son but she was stabbed 16 times. 

Her final words were: ‘Mother, mother’ and an X was cut into her stomach and her blood used to write the word ‘Pig’ on the front door of the house. 

 Sharon Tate

Tate’s mother, Doris, became an advocate for victims’ rights in California and was instrumental in a 1982 law that allows family members to testify about their losses at trials and parole hearings.

Her younger sister, Debra, also dedicated her life to victims’ rights and has testified at countless parole hearings for the killers, demanding they never be released.

Tate’s husband, director Roman Polanski, was out of the country the night of the killings and has said it took him years to recover from the grief of losing his wife and baby.

Jay Sebring

Jay Sebring, a hairdresser to Hollywood’s stars, was Tate’s former boyfriend and also begged the killers to spare her unborn child. He met Tate in 1964 and they began a relationship, until Tate met future husband Roman Polanski on the set of The Fearless Vampire Killers, where she threw Sebring over for Polanksi. Yet they remained friends. The Manson Family shot him, kicked him in the face and stabbed him multiple times.

Sebring had transformed the male haircare industry after graduating from beauty school in Los Angeles, and his clients included Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. He founded Sebring International in 1967 to market hair products and to franchise his salons internationally.

Abigail Folger

Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger had dined with Tate and Sebring earlier that night at El Coyote restaurant, a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles.

The 32-year-old Frykowski was a friend of Polanski’s from Poland and an aspiring screenwriter. An autopsy found he was stabbed more than 50 times and shot twice.

His 25-year-old girlfriend was the heir to the Folger coffee fortune. She managed to escape the house but was tackled on the front lawn and stabbed 28 times.

Stephen Parent

Steven Parent, a recent high school graduate planning to attend college in the fall, had dropped by a guest house on the property to visit the estate’s 19-year-old caretaker, a casual acquaintance named William Garretson. He was leaving the property when Watson confronted him at the front gate and shot him to death.

Garretson, who was briefly taken into custody, returned to his native Ohio soon after the killings. Except for his testimony during the murder trial, he rarely spoke publicly about that night. He died of cancer in 2016.

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, who owned a chain of Los Angeles grocery stores, had no connection to Sharon Tate or her glamorous friends.

The following night Manson went for a drive with the four Tate murderers plus Leslie Van Houten and Clem Crogan. Manson chose the home of the LaBiancas at seemingly random. He tied them up and then, before leaving, ordered his followers to kill them. Among the weapons used was a chrome-plated bayonet, which Van Houten used to stab Rosemary sixteen times in the back and buttocks.

Bruce Davis was convicted of the murder of musician Gary Hinman. He held a gun on Hinman while Manson cut his face with a sword, Davis said in testimony. Manson follower Bobby Beausoleil was arrested while driving Hinman’s Volkswagen bus and was later convicted of the crime.

Gary Hinman

Donald ‘Shorty’ Shea, 35, was a stuntman and a horse wrangler at the Spahn Movie Ranch near Chatsworth, who was killed after the Tate-LaBianca murders. It is believed that Manson’s followers killed him because they feared he was a police informant. His body was found eight years after his death.