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Danny Trejo describes how he met Charles Manson in new memoir
Danny Trejo has seen a lot in his day, including Charles Manson.
In his new memoir, Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood, the 77-year-old actor recounted his 1961 meeting of the infamous cult leader and serial killer while serving time in Los Angeles County Jail.
Trejo wrote, as relayed by Page Six, that he thought Manson was "greasy, dirty, scrawny" and "so poor, he didn't have a belt, and instead used a piece of string to keep his pants up." They would pass the time by Manson using "guided meditation" to convince his fellow inmates that they were high off heroin or weed.
"By the time he described it hitting my bloodstream, I felt the warmth flowing through my body," the Heat, Spy Kids and Machete star recounted. "If that white boy wasn’t a career criminal, he could have been a professional hypnotist."
Manson was paroled in March 1967 after serving seven years, but it didn't take long for him to resume his life of harrowing crime. In August 1969, Manson ordered four of his cult followers to carry out the Tate-LaBianca murders. Manson was given the death sentence in 1971, which was reduced to life in prison in 1972, and he died in prison at 83 years old in 2017.
Trejo spent eleven years of his youth in and out of the California prison system, including San Quentin, due to drug-related and robbery charges. He has admitted that he began using heroin as a young kid, but he has been sober since August 1989.
The '80s changed Trejo's life in more ways than one, as he unexpectedly pivoted toward Hollywood.
"The movie was 1985's Runaway Train, an action-adventure vehicle starring Eric Roberts and Jon Voight," Marc Malkin wrote for The Chicago Tribune in November 2019. "One of the screenwriters, Eddie Bunker, happened to be a former inmate whom Trejo knew from his final incarceration. Remembering that Trejo was a champion boxer in prison, Bunker asked him to train Roberts for his fight scenes. Director Andrei Konchalovsky went on to offer him a role as a boxer who spars with Roberts."
Trejo has since become one of the most prolific character actors in the industry, and he has found additional success as a restauranteur.
Watch Trejo discuss his memoir on CBS This Morning and Good Morning America below.
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