The legendary actress Angela Lansbury once revealed a startling personal story of how she took drastic measures to save her daughter from the influence of notorious cult leader Charles Manson in the 1960s.

The Situation in Hollywood

While living in Malibu, California, in the late 1960s, Lansbury’s then-teenage daughter, Deidre Shaw, and her son, Anthony Shaw, became involved in the burgeoning hippie counterculture. Unfortunately, this scene quickly led them to drug use, starting with cannabis and progressing to hard drugs like heroin.

Lansbury later recounted that Deidre fell in with a dangerous crowd. In a 2014 interview, she revealed the terrifying truth: “It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson.” Lansbury described Manson as an “extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways,” noting that he and his followers would use impressionable young people like Deidre to steal money and take out credit cards for the “Manson Family.”

The Drastic Escape to Ireland

Fearing for her children’s lives and knowing she had to remove them from the harmful environment of Malibu, Lansbury made a life-altering decision. She told her husband, Peter Shaw, “We have to leave.”

In 1970, Lansbury put her successful Hollywood career on hold for a year, packed up her family, and moved them to a remote house in County Cork, Ireland, the birthplace of her mother. She chose Ireland for its “simplicity of life” and as a place where her children would not be exposed to any more “bad influences.”

The Outcome

The move to a completely new and simple environment proved to be the family’s salvation. Lansbury credited the change with giving her children a fresh start, allowing them to overcome their drug dependency and escape Manson’s orbit just before his cult committed the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969.

Lansbury reflected on the experience with relief, stating she had “no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two” had they not moved. Both Anthony and Deidre went on to lead successful, stable lives, a powerful testament to a mother’s fierce, protective love.