Wojciech Frykowski was an aspiring writer from Poland who tried to make it in Hollywood with the help of his friend, Roman Polanski. But his connections would prove deadly.
Bettmann / Getty ImagesWojciech Frykowski was a Polish author and film maker who was slain in the 1969 Manson murders .
Wojciech Frykowski was brutally murdered along with his lady friend , Abigail Folger , in the 1969 Manson Family killing fling . The couple were pricy friends of theater director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate , and had displace into the Polanski - Tate theatre to keep the pregnant starlet troupe .
From Poland To Hollywood
Andrzej KondratiukWojciech Frykowski ( far correct ) and Roman Polanski ( second from left ) became good supporter and shot their first film together , ‘ mammal ’ .
Wojciech Frykowski was born in Poland on Dec. 22 , 1936 to textile entrepreneur Jan Frykowski and his wife Teofila Stefanowska .
As a student , young Frykowski gained a report as a trouble shaper in school . His aptness for engagement almost catch him into a fisticuffs during a school dance , where he met another scholar name Roman Polanski , who would later on become thesuccessful Hollywood directormarried to Sharon Tate .
Bettmann/Getty ImagesWojciech Frykowski was a Polish writer and filmmaker who was slain in the 1969 Manson murders.
Polanski , serving as the door man for the dance that Nox , would n’t let Frykowski into the locus . He hump he had a bumpy reputation . They almost got into a brawl , but alternatively had drinks together and became serious friend .
They spent wild nights out together at the bar , and with alcohol and Frykowski ’s explosive position in the admixture , thing could sometimes get out of command .
But Polanski and Frykowski were good enough friends that the former could see beyond his rebellious crony ’s tough facade .
Andrzej KondratiukWojciech Frykowski (far right) and Roman Polanski (second from left) became good friends and shot their first film together, ‘Mammals’.
“ Beneath his tough exterior Wojciech was well - natured , softhearted to the point of sentimentality , and perfectly loyal , ” Polanski after wrote of his dear friend .
Despite not being in filmmaking himself , Frykowski gravitate toward Polanski ’s community of student film maker atthe Lodz Film School . The schooling was ground in 1948 after the remnant of World War II in an attempt to nurture Poland ’s growing cinema talent .
“ 1945 was pretty much year zero for the Polish film industry ; they had to start from incision , and Lodz was part of that , ” photographic film historiographer Michael Brooke state . “ There was footling money for filmmaking … so many of the talented people went into teaching — so you had that rightfield from the start , and they have maintained that tradition . ”
TumblrFrykowski and Polanski on the set of ‘Mammals’. Frykowski floated aimlessly after they graduated from school and Polanski tried to help his friend whenever he could.
Frykowski , who often went by the cognomen Wojtek or Voytek , gain a level in chemistry but found himself shine by the cinema bug and desire to become more involved in his Quaker ’s film projection .
His first opportunity came when Polanski was making a short film , 1962’sMammals . Not take in any filmmaking skills at that point , Frykowski jump in as the film ’s financier , though he was never properly credit for the project .
TumblrFrykowski and Polanski on the set of ‘ mammalian ’ . Frykowski be adrift aimlessly after they graduate from school and Polanski seek to help his friend whenever he could .
Cielo DriveAccording to close friends, Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski had a challenging relationship fueled by drugs.
Next , Frykowski helped out as a life guard while Polanski tear his first feature film , Knife In The Water .
The independent Polish movie ab initio gained a cult postdate before it finally received congratulations from critic . The winner of the film brought Polanski on his first visit to the United States for a exhibit at the New York Film Festival . A still from theKnife In The Watermade an appearance on the binding ofTimemagazine , and in 1964 it was nominated for an Oscar for best extraneous linguistic process photographic film .
Meanwhile , Frykowski floated aimlessly . He spent some time in Paris to become an actor but never landed any roles . Then , he determine he wanted to become a writer but he never managed to release any writing , either . Despite their friendly relationship , Polanski knew that his booster was go nowhere tight .
Los Angeles Public LibraryFrom left to right:Leslie Van Houten, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel after they were arrested for the killing spree in 1969.
“ Wojtek was a homo of little natural endowment but immense charm , ” the director would later say of his aimless friend .
Frykowski allegedly lived off the inheritance from his founding father ’s illicit currency - exchange commercial enterprise and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle , having been known among external socialite circles for his outrageous partying and appetite for adult female .
But then , the money dried up . Broke and undirected , Frykowski set his sights on America , where his old friend Polanski had begun setting down beginning thanks to his burgeoning film career .
Wikimedia CommonsCharles Manson later in life during his time in prison. He died in 2017.
Frykowski Meets Abigail Folger
Cielo DriveAccording to come together friends , Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski had a challenging family relationship fueled by drugs .
It was through his new round of friend in New York that Wojciech Frykowski was introduced toAbigail Folger , heiress to the Folgers Coffee conglomerate .
They meet through common friend and novelist Jerzy Kosinski in former 1968 . By August , the couple decided to move together to Los Angeles , where they ended up hire a house off of Mulholland Drive .
FPM/Ian Cook/Getty ImagesBartek Frykowski filed a lawsuit against Charles Manson for the death of his father, Wojciech Frykowski. He won $500,000 in reparations.
Frykowski and Folger ’s union was tumultuous at best . Frykowski had dry out up his inheritance and had no job in Hollywood but he was n’t willing to give up his fancy modus vivendi . Instead , grant to police reports , he “ dwell off Folger ’s circumstances . ”
As Frykowski tightened his hold on Folger and her inheritance , his drug habit finally rubbed off on her as well . Close friends of the two admitted that both were steady users that like to try out with various substances from marijuana to cocaine .
A twelvemonth after they moved to Los Angeles , Frykowski and Folger house - sat for Polanski at10050 Cielo Drive , a secret pickup the rising movie director rented with his wife , Hollywood starletSharon Tate .
The two minded the home while Polanski and Tate were away in London . But Polanski had gotten so preoccupied with his next film project that it was resolve Tate — who was eight months pregnant — would go back to stay with Frykowski and Folger at the house until their babe make it .
An Unexpected Victim Of The Manson Family
On the night of August 8 , 1969 , the three arranged dinner plans with another member of their clique , fame hair stylistJay Sebring , who also happen to be Tate ’s X - beau . The four dined at El Coyote eatery on Beverly Boulevard and then head back to the house on Cielo Drive .
When they got to the theater , the group split up : Folger go to sleep to the Edgar Albert Guest bedroom , Tate and Sebring stay up speak in Tate ’s elbow room , and Frykowski passed out on the livelihood room couch .
In the centre of the night , Frykowski awoke from his slumber to the jabs of a blunt object . Without warning , members of a sickish flower child - religious cult after known as theManson Familyhad absorb the business firm .
They had been sent by their leaderCharles Manson , an ex - convict turned runaways messiah , to commit slaying in the hopes of framing bootleg men for bolt down rich white folks so as to kick off a airstream warfare — or what Manson liked to refer to asHelter Skelter .
Los Angeles Public LibraryFrom left to rightfield : Leslie Van Houten , Susan Atkins , and Patricia Krenwinkel after they were arrested for the wipe out spree in 1969 .
Frykowski — apparently still daze by drug and a full paunch — was ineffective to register the danger of the spot . He sleepily ask the unusual man who had awaken him up about the time before he was abruptly staring down the drum of a gun .
“ Who are you and what are you doing ? ” Frykowski necessitate after being jolted awake by the sight of the grease-gun . It wasCharles “ Tex ” Watson , Manson ’s right - helping hand humanity .
“ I ’m the devil , and I ’m here to do the devil ’s job , ” Watson answer . What abide by was anonslaught of violencethat Hollywood nor the public had ever see before .
Watson , along withManson family membersPatricia KrenwinkelandSusan Atkins , killed Frykowski , Tate , and their friends . A fifth victim , Steven Parent , was killed in his automobile after he visited the home ’s caretaker in the client theatre . Meanwhile , fellow Manson Family memberLinda Kasabian , who was there as the lookout and getaway number one wood , stayed out of the fray .
During the homicidal rampage , Wojciech Frykowski was stabbed 51 times , bludgeoned 13 times , and shot twice . consort to oral accounts from the killers , Frykowski have most of his stab wounds while muss with Atkins , who repeatedly stabbed him in an endeavor to regain command after he try on to escape . The viciousness was then cull up by Watson , who continued to stab Frykowski before last shooting him with a gunslinger .
When cops arrived at the bloody slaying vista the next morning , Frykowski ’s exanimate body was discovered on the porch while Folger was establish in the dope , her garb so blood - soaked that police could n’t evidence that the clothes had originally been blanched .
The Aftermath Of The Manson Killings
All the resident of the Cielo Drive house were brutally remove that night . On top of the gruesome crime setting , police found the word “ PIG ” written in origin on the front door . The blood , it later turned out , belong to to the fraught Sharon Tate , who was stab and hung from a rafter along with her unborn child .
newsworthiness of the homicide scatter faster than a California wildfire , and “ pit the daytime out of everyone , ” as actress Connie Stevens hadso memorablyput it .
“ When you spill about the Manson case , you ’re talking about perhaps the most outlandish execution case in the annals of offense , ” said prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi , who handle the Manson case . “ There was a lot of reverence . masses were canceling party , set off people from Edgar Albert Guest lists . The words publish in roue made it especially direful for the Hollywood bunch . ”
The Hollywood luminance beam a little blow over as the manufacture ’s grown stars reportedly enshroud off ; Mia Farrow , the whiz of Polanski ’s hit filmRosemary ’s Babyand a friend of Tate ’s , was too afraid to attend to the funeral ; Frank Sinatra break into concealment ; Tony Bennett propel from a cottage to an intimate suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel ; and Steve McQueen began maintain a gunman under the front can of his car .
Initially , constabulary had suspected that themurders at the Tate housewere a drug heap gone bad . After searching the mansion , they found small amounts of drug all over the assumption , include in Sebring ’s railroad car .
Wojciech Frykowski was a known user who oft played with cocaine , mescaline , marijuana and LSD . After their autopsy , both Frykowski and Folger had MDA , a psychedelic amphetamine , in their blood streams . But the law-breaking scene was simply too blinking for any of that to make sense .
Wikimedia CommonsCharles Manson later in life history during his time in prison . He died in 2017 .
Moreover , another murder had popped up the daylight after at the estate ofLeno and Rosemary LaBianca , a married couple who own a mountain range of foodstuff memory in LA .
Just like the cleanup at the Tate house , the killers left a subject matter in blood , this clip it read “ HEALTER SKELTER , ” a misspelling of the Manson religious doctrine .
The Aftermath Of The Manson Family Murders
After four calendar month ofinvestigation , a string of clues and a prison house confession from Manson member Susan Atkins led prosecutors to tie the murders back to the Manson Family , who were at the time living at the former movie lotSpahn Ranch .
Manson , Atkins , Krenwinkel , and Watson were all tried and institute hangdog of execution . All were sentenced to the death punishment but their sentences were commuted to life in prison after California bump down capital punishment in the former seventies .
Frykowski , for all his troubles and misdeeds , allow for two children behind after his death . One of them was 12 - year - old Bartłomiej , cognize to the English - speaking press as Bartek Frykowski , whom Frykowski had from one of his retiring marriages .
FPM / Ian Cook / Getty ImagesBartek Frykowski register a case against Charles Manson for the destruction of his father , Wojciech Frykowski . He won $ 500,000 in reparations .
Bartek filed a case against Charles Manson for the death of his Fatherhood , and in 1971won his caseful . But he did not see a dime bag of his compensation money until 22 years subsequently , when Guns N ’ Roses recorded the songLook At Your Game , Girl , which Manson wrote during his musical period . The lot ’s recording label agree to pay $ 62,000 to Bartek for every million record album copy they sell .
While the money was surely been utilitarian for Bartek ’s own mob , he say that it would take more than a few dollar to be able to take his father ’s death .
“ It is truly a bizarre chain of events that brings me here today , years after the most tragic result in my life-time . Even though this new billet can not change the past tense , my hope is that something positively charged will emerge for the future . ”
“ Manson ruin my spirit really,”he said a year later .
In a tragical turn of events of case , Bartek die in 1999 from what many speculated was a murder , though official statements from Polish authorities said it was a suicide .
Despite the uncovering of the Manson Family as the culprits behind the murders , conspiracy possibility continue to obsess the death of the Manson victims decades after their dying . One of the moreoutlandish theoriessurrounding the casing is that it was indeed a drug deal on Frykowski ’s end that had give out defective , and that Manson was simply a partner in crime tasked to kill him off as part of his duties to a interior diabolical internet .
“ We ’re in the area of surmisal , ” Bugliosi said . “ It ’s like the JFK character assassination : No one come up with hard grounds . There simply is no hard evidence that drugs were the motif … . mayhap Charlie ’s the only one who really bang what his motives were . ”
disregardless , the delusional ring leader never expressed any self-reproach for the destruction that him and his follower brought to the free lives of his victims .
“ I am a man of God , ” Charles Manson said . “ I am not a spoiled person , I am a secure person . ”
Now that you ’ve caught up on Wojciech Frykowski ’s tragical death in the Manson Family killing , learn about Manson follower and would - be presidential assassinSqueaky Fromme . Then , take the horrifying story ofRodney Alcala , the serial killer whale who went onThe Dating Game , during his murder spree .
