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How a Music Producer Was Tied to Charles Manson — and Possibly Evaded His Own Murder
Some theorize actress Doris Day saved her only child's life by urging Terry Melcher to move out of the home that months later became the scene of horrific murders committed by members of the Manson Family.
Music producer Terry Melcher helped create 1960s beach and surf music in California, working with legends like The Byrds and Wayne Newton. He even played the tambourine for several Beach Boys songs and co-wrote their hit “Kokomo.” But the son of legendary actress Doris Day is infamous for another reason: his relationship with notorious cult leader and serial killer, Charles Manson.
Just months before actress Sharon Tate and four others were killed by members of the Manson “family,” Melcher moved out of the very same house at the urging of his mother.
“A mother’s tuition, perhaps, and it may have saved his life,” said Beach Boys frontman Mike Love in his 2016 memoir Good Vibrations, People magazine reported.
Making Manson, a new perspective on the Charles Manson case, will air as a three-part docuseries on Peacock beginning on Nov. 19, 2024, with never-before-heard audio interviews with Manson from prison. Before the series airs, learn more about Melcher's role in the case.
Who is Terry Melcher?
Terry Melcher was the only child of Doris Day, one of the leading Hollywood film stars of the 1950s and 1960s.
He became a producer for Columbia Records in the mid-1960s, and worked with The Byrds, according to the Los Angeles Times. He helped the band to form their hugely popular versions of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn.” He also produced and created with well-known artists including Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Mamas and Papas, Bobby, Darin and Glen Campbell.
Melcher worked with his mother frequently, and composed songs for her projects, including “Move Over, Darling” for Day’s 1963 movie with James Garner. He was also the executive producer of her Doris Day Show from 1968 to 1972, and helped with her return to television in the 1980s with the show Doris Day’s Best Friends, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"She and Terry were extremely close and close in age because she was 17 when she had him," Melcher’s publicist Linda Dozoretz said to the Los Angeles Times. ''They were amazing together. There wasn't a day that went by when Terry wasn't involved with one of his mother's projects."
But it was Melcher’s involvement in producing and collaborating with The Beach Boys that eventually linked his name to Charles Manson.
How did Terry Melcher know Charles Manson?
Beach Boys co-founder Dennis Wilson picked up two hitchhikers in Malibu, California in 1968, Ella Jo Bailey and Patricia Krenwrinkel, according to Fox 10 Phoenix. The women told him of their “spiritual guru,” Charles Manson. Wilson met Manson, and soon began to socialize with Manson and the members of his “family.”
Beach Boys’ Mike Love spoke about their relationship in his memoir as well as in a 2016 interview with The Wall Street Journal, and described Wilson as being “under the spell of Charlie for a while.” Love went on to describe a dinner party he attended with bandmate Bruce Johnston at Wilson’s house, where the Manson family was in attendance.
“We were the only ones with clothes on,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It was quite unusual.”
Manson was an aspiring singer and was looking for a recording contract, according to Fox 10 Phoenix.
“Through Dennis and some of those gatherings, I met a lot of people with solid connections, including Terry Melcher … and several others who liked my music enough to want to record and market me and my material,” Manson wrote in his 1994 book Manson In His Own Words.
Wilson said in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone that Manson wrote a song called “Cease to Exist” that the Beach Boys turned into “Never Learn Not To Love.” Wilson claimed Manson didn’t want credit for the song, but did want money, Fox 10 Phoenix reported.
Melcher invited members of the band, as well as Manson, to parties that he and his girlfriend, actress Candace Bergen, threw at their 10050 Cielo Drive estate in the Benedict Canyon area. In 1969, Melcher also visited Manson at Spahn Ranch, which Love wrote in his memoir was likely a favor to Wilson. It was at that visit that Manson auditioned for Melcher.
“Terry told the LAPD … once he got to [Manson’s place] he just wanted to get the hell out of there,” said Bill Cassara, a retired Monterey County Sheriff’s deputy, in his memoir, according to Fox News. “It was filthy and very obvious that there was no talent. He described hearing Manson’s girls singing while he played the guitar. He felt he had to get out. So he tried to make a graceful exit.”
Love agreed in his memoir that Melcher wasn’t impressed by Manson’s singing abilities, and wrote Melcher decided not to give Manson a recording contract, People reported — news that Manson didn’t handle well.
“Manson wouldn’t stand for it,” Love wrote. “Consumed by rage and seeking revenge against a corrupt society, he convinced his followers that the apocalypse was coming in a bloody race war, at the end of which, he and his disciples would take over.”
Was Terry Melcher Charles Manson's intended target?
In January 1969, Melcher moved out of his Cielo Drive estate, at the urging of his mother, Love wrote in his memoir. The house was then rented to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, movie director Roman Polanski.
“The move was no accident,” Love wrote. “Terry, Doris’ only child, was extremely close to his mom. He had told her about Manson, and about some of his scary antics, his brandishing of knives, his zombie followers, and that Manson had been to the house on Cielo, and she insisted he move out.”
Seven months later, on Aug. 9, 1969, several members of the Manson “family” murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at the home on Cielo Drive. During Manson’s murder trial, prosecutors argued that Melcher’s rejection of Manson and refusal to sign him to a recording deal was part of the motive for murder. They also argued Manson believed Melcher still lived in the home and was targeting him, The New York Times reported. But police later said Manson knew Melcher had moved from the house before the killings.
Melcher’s connection to Charles Manson and the scene of the Tate murder rattled Melcher for the rest of his life.
“No one would ever talk about the Manson murders in front of Terry,” Cassara said in his memoir, Fox News reported. “Terry was a very paranoid person. He did not like to be around crowds. He certainly didn’t like being recognized.”
Terry Melcher died in November 2004 after a long battle with cancer, according to The New York Times.
Watch Making Manson, streaming only on Peacock, beginning Nov. 19, 2024.
