Bryan Cranston Recalls Chilling Encounter With Charles Manson: "I Was Within His Grasp"

Actor tweeted "luck was with me" on that day in the late '60s

By Jess Cohen Nov 20, 2017 8:07 PMTags
Charles Manson, Bryan CranstonMichael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. Getty Images Entertainment.

Bryan Cranston's tweet about his close encounter with Charles Manson will give you chills.

The 61-year-old actor took to Twitter Monday to share his response to Manson's death. He also gave his followers details of when he saw Manson in 1968, when Cranston was about 12 years old. 

"Hearing Charles Manson is dead, I shuddered," Cranston wrote. "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."

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Back in 2016, in an interview posted on YouTube, Cranston was asked about his time at the ranch and he shared even more details about the experience.

"I didn't actually meet Charles Manson," Cranston said, but he explained he was in very close proximity to him. "Where I grew up in the San Fernando Valley was an area called Santa Susana Pass that goes from one valley to another. And in the middle of this pass was the Spahn Ranch where they rented horses, you could go horseback riding."

Cranston went on to say that he and his cousin were renting horses when someone yelled, "Charlie's on the hill!" People then took off on their horses.

Not knowing what was going on, Cranston and his cousin got on their horses and began riding. Then, about a half hour later, they saw a trail of horses coming toward them.

"In the middle of the pack was a guy holding the reins of the horse behind him," Cranston recalled. "On the horse behind him was this little bearded guy with big, dark eyes and wild hair and his eyes were wide."

The cousins passed Manson, looking at him, but Manson didn't look over at them. They realized that "must be Charlie," who everyone was talking about. 

A year later when they saw his picture in the paper after the murders, they realized that was the man they saw.