Here is the biography of Bobby Beausoleil:
Bobby Beausoleil was born on November 6, 1947, in Santa Barbara, California, to a large working-class family. He was christened Robert Kenneth Beausoleil. Despite his creative output, Beausoleil is often overshadowed by his association with Charles Manson in the late 1960s.
As a young boy, Beausoleil was a good-looking boy with a pronounced musical talent. However, his curiosity and rebelliousness led him into minor scrapes with the law. At 14, he was sent to a camp for wayward boys for truancy and running away from home. He left home again at 15 and drifted down to the Los Angeles area, where he played guitar in rock bands and became immersed in the early development of the counterculture movement.
Beausoleil's interest in film began at an early age, and he has worked in film and related media in various capacities. His first film appearance was in the art film classic Mondo Hollywood, at age 16. He made acting appearances in several films and composed musical scores for film and produced short films of his own during his imprisonment.
In late 1965, Beausoleil moved to San Francisco, where he formed his own psychedelic band, The Orkustra. He met and became creatively involved with underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger, who asked Beausoleil to star in his film Lucifer Rising. Beausoleil agreed on the condition that he would compose and record the film's soundtrack.
Beausoleil was involved in a drug transaction with members of the Straight Satans motorcycle club, who were associates of Manson, leading to his being sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Gary Hinman. Despite this, Beausoleil continued to create music and film while in prison.
In the mid-1970s, Anger resurrected the Lucifer Rising film project, and Beausoleil was asked to produce the film's soundtrack from prison. The Freedom Orchestra, Beausoleil's prison band, supported him in creating the recordings of the score. The film debuted in New York in 1980.
After completing the film soundtrack, Beausoleil continued his studies in film production, videography, sound design, and creating various types of media for film. He has released eight albums, seven of them recorded while in prison, and has also created a significant body of visual art, paintings, and drawings.
Beausoleil married in 1982, and his wife Barbara was instrumental in keeping him connected with the world at large until her death in 2012. His wife's website, bobbybeausoleil.com, is now maintained and kept up to date by close friends and family.
