Marine Corps veteran Mark Ross managed to scratch out a dwelling in Hollywood during the last 50-plus years of his life, working in small character components in motion pictures and tv. Earlier than he died in Might 2022, he did an interview with the Hollywood Reporter and shared the small print of his life with the Charles Manson Household and the way he escaped from Manson’s affect.
Ross was born right into a rich household that lived within the unique enclave of Brentwood in west Los Angeles. Impressed by President John F. Kennedy’s “ask what you are able to do on your nation” speech and the truth that his circle of relatives members have been killed in Nazi focus camps throughout World Conflict II, Ross enlisted within the Marine Corps.
He by no means noticed responsibility in Vietnam throughout his service and was primarily based at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Orange County close to Los Angeles. He says he took benefit of the army’s commuted rations coverage to pay for an condominium in Westwood throughout his service, dwelling with a girlfriend and making the almost two-hour drive to El Toro when he was on responsibility.
After he accomplished his Marine Corps service, Ross was dwelling in Venice in 1969 when he encountered two younger ladies panhandling for change. He informed them he did not have any money, however that they have been welcome to crash at his home. Susan Phyllis Bartell and Madeline Joan Cottage have been members of a gaggle they referred to as The Household, led by ex-con Charles Manson.
A number of Relations have been dwelling with him that fall when John Philip Haught died in the home in November 1969. The police referred to as it a suicide by Russian roulette, however Ross puzzled if it might’ve been homicide when he later realized that his new mates had been behind the Tate-LaBianca murders the earlier August.
Ross then moved to Spahn Ranch with the Relations and commenced to go to Manson in jail. The cult chief had been arrested on grand theft auto costs in October. “Charlie and I bought alongside properly from the second we noticed one another, we actually did,” he informed the Hollywood Reporter.
After Manson and several other Relations have been indicted for the August 1969 murders, Ross used his van (nicknamed “The Nice White Whale”) to chauffeur supporters from Spahn Ranch to the courthouse every day.
Ross started to determine simply what sort of individuals he was coping with when he wakened one morning to seek out his beloved van gutted by hearth. Nobody had a proof for what occurred. When somebody from the group requested him to assassinate prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and Choose Charles Older (a Marine veteran of each WWII and the Korean Conflict), Ross determined it was time to separate. “All of the scales from my eyes fell,” he mentioned to the Hollywood Reporter. “I am going, ‘Wait a minute. They need me to kill these individuals?’ That was the end-all, be-all. Goodbye, yeah. I did not final a day previous that.”
Despite the fact that he’d moved away from the Manson Household, he determined there ought to be a documentary that confirmed what the group was actually like and launched the Household to Robert Hendrickson and Laurence Merrick, the filmmakers behind “Manson.”
The completed movie was nominated for a Finest Documentary Oscar, however Ross was sad with the completed outcome. “All the pieces was sensationalized,” Ross mentioned to the Hollywood Reporter. “The entire thought of constructing a film was to offer these individuals humanity, and it gave them none. It was 180 levels from what I had in thoughts.”
Ross says he drifted to India, Afghanistan, Laos and Thailand for a few years earlier than touchdown again in Los Angeles. He then promptly bought concerned with The Supply Household, a cult led by a person going by the identify Father Yod who was really a Marine Corps WWII veteran named James Baker.
Baker and his crew had rock bands and ran The Supply on Sundown Boulevard, a well-liked vegetarian restaurant maybe finest remembered for the scene in “Annie Corridor” the place Woody Allen orders a plate of mashed yeast. Whereas this cult by no means took on a homicide spree, it was bizarre enought to encourage its personal compelling documentary characteristic.
Whereas concerned with Father Yod, Mark Ross modified his identify to Aesop T. Aquarian (the “T” stands for “the”), however left the group when he began working in Hollywood. Ross appeared on the comedy sport present “The Gong Present,” taking part in “The World’s Shortest Cowboy Tune.” He made a quick however memorable look within the 1976 model of “A Star Is Born” because the recording engineer within the scene the place Barbra Streisand sings a jingle for a cat meals industrial.
Ross/Aquarian’s greatest second got here in 1977 throughout season two of the massively common cop present “Starsky and Hutch,” the place he performed a cult chief referred to as Simon Marcus within the episode referred to as “Massacre.” Marcus is on trial for homicide when Starsky disappears. Did Simon’s individuals take him hostage?
Between appearing gigs, Aquarian supported himself making jewellery that had a tiny spoon on one finish, items that have been very talked-about throughout the cocaine period in Hollywood. Over the many years, he additionally made appearances on “Energy Rangers,” “Iron Man 3,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s Finish,” “You Do not Mess with the Zohan” and “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.”
Ross might not have had a typical post-military profession, however not less than his Corps coaching gave him the instruments and sense to bail on the Manson Household once they requested him to kill a fellow Marine. Semper fi, Aesop.
Hold Up With the Finest in Navy Leisure
Whether or not you are in search of information and leisure, considering of becoming a member of the army or maintaining with army life and advantages, Navy.com has you coated. Subscribe to the Navy.com publication to have army information, updates and sources delivered straight to your inbox.
© Copyright 2022 Navy.com. All rights reserved. This materials will not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
