There exists a long list of individuals associated with the massive story that is TLB, both primary and secondary. There also exists another list of individuals, probably equally as long, that is comprised of those best described as peripheral. One of those on the periphery is novelist Jerzy Kosinski.
Kosinski was born on June 14, 1933 in Lodz, Poland. He survived the Nazi occupation of Poland, and graduated from the University of Lodz with a degree in sociology. He emigrated to the United States in 1957, where he began work on his doctorate in sociology at Columbia University in New York City. Kosinski began to write also during this time about his experiences during the war under a different name, and his writings became very popular in America, as they introduced the West to the literature of a writer from communist Poland.
Jerzy Kosinski
Kosinski went on to publish novels, notable among them: The Painted Bird(1965); Steps(1968); Being There(1970); The Devil Tree(1973); Cockpit(1975); Blind Date(1977); Passion Play(1979); Pinball(1982); and The Hermit of 69th Street(1986). He spent the rest of his life in America, principally living in New York City, becoming an educator at several colleges and a very visible public intellectual. Ever popular, Kosinski made many appearances on TV programs such as, The Dick Cavett Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and David Letterman. Kosinski married steel heiress Mary Hayward Weir in 1962. They divorced in 1966. Kosinski subsequently married his longtime girlfriend, Katherina "Kiki" Von Fraunhofer in 1987.
Kosinski biography book cover
Author James Park Sloan wrote an excellent biography of Kosinski, and in it he details the childhood connection of Kosinski to future actors in the story of TLB: Voytek Frykowski and Roman Polanski. "...Kosinski had retained a connection with a few old school friends in Lodz, among them Wojtek Frykowski, with whom he regularly exchanged letters. Frykowski, a sometimes coarse but witty young man--and a famous raconteur--was possessed of a charismatic personality. He had been married already to Agnieszka Osiecka, an aspiring writer, who would make her name in the future as Poland's best-known writer of satirical song lyrics and who, living in Boston, also drifted into Kosinski's circle of Polish friends at this time. Frtykowski had also been involved with a young woman named Ewa, whom Kosinski had photographed as a teenager and regarded as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen."(James Park Sloan, Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography. Plume/Penguin, 1977. p. 251-252).
Voytek Frykowski
"Unlike Kosinski, Frykowski never quite found the vehicle for bringing his magnetic personality and storytelling skills to bear in a substantive career. He was now living in Paris, and Kosinski's letters urged him to come to America. Finally, with his friend's guidance in a new career, he took Kosinski up on the offer and arrived in New York [in the spring of 1967]. The guidance provided by Kosinski took the shape of an introduction to Abigail "Gibby" Folger, a coffee heiress and recent Radcliffe graduate who lived at the fringe of New York's floating literary-artistic circle...at about the same time, Kosinski renewed his contact with Roman Polanski, who made it big in America with his film Rosemary's Baby. They met in New York as two homeboys from Lodz..." (Sloan, p. 251-252).
Abigail Folger
Roman Polanski and Jerzy Kosinski
BEING THERE?
Students of TLB know that the chief relationship of Kosinski to the story was his introduction of Voytek Frykowski to Abigail Folger. But even as Voytek and Abigail left New York together in August of 1968(after the death of Kosinski's first wife, Mary Hayward Weir), Kosinski was still an active part of the life of the couple, and Roman Polanski, even though he lived in New York.
Kosinski wrote the famous novel, Being There, but what follows is an extension of his involvement in TLB. That is, could Kosinski have "been there" at Cielo on Friday night, August 8, 1969? In his biography of Kosinski, Sloan describes a trip that Kosinski and his girlfriend, Kiki, made to Paris in July of 1969. From there, the couple travelled to the home of Clement Biddle Wood and his wife on the Greek island of Spetsai. Wood was a member of the same circle as Mary Hayward Weir.
As Sloan describes it, "[I]n late July, Kosinski received a letter from Wojtek Frykowski and Gibby Folger, who were staying at Roman Polanski's home on Chielo Drive in Los Angeles. Kosinski left with Kiki for Paris, from which they were to fly to the United States on August 7. Clem Wood, their host at Spetsai, left for Los Angeles, where he was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel while working on a film script. It was agreed that the Woods would get together with Kosinski and Kiki in Los Angeles."(Sloan, p. 273-274).
The Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles
"What happened next became a small, but enduring controversy. As Kosinski told it, both as a casual account and as an episode that happened to George Lavanter in [Kosinski's novel] Blind Date, the pivotal factor was the misrouting of part of his luggage in Paris. It was his intention to go directly to Los Angeles without leaving the airport, accompanied by three bags of warm-weather clothes, while three bags of cold-weather clothes were to be held in storage in New York awaiting his return. In the version told in Blind Date, the dispute with the French airline clerk has to do with the New York address. She insists that he list a return address in Paris. In irritation at his refusal, the clerk routes all his baggage to New York, which necessitates his stopping over at his New York apartment for the night." (Sloan, p. 274).
"Kosinski clung to this account tenaciously over the years, and it gains in plausibility if one shifts the emphasis slightly to note that he was trying to get the airline to perform an unusual and complicated favor, and that routing all the luggage to New York may have been a simple mistake...In any case, he arrived in New York in the late afternoon of August 8 and found that his luggage had been off-loaded. Deciding to stay in New York, he called Clem Wood at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "I told Sharon you were there," he said, "and she says to come over." As he did not know Sharon Tate, Wood spent the evening with other Hollywood Friends." (Sloan, p. 274).
"The following afternoon around 5:00 P.M. Kosinski rang Elizbieta Czyzewska, a Polish emigre stage and film actress who was married to journalist David Halberstam [see my post on this blog, Abigail Folger: A Time In New York, about Abigail's association with Elizbieta in Abigail's personal letter],and asked if she had been listening to the radio. "Something has happened in Los Angeles," he told her. Put on the radio." (Sloan, p. 274).
Elizbieta Czyzewska
According to Sloan, Kosinski and others would assist the Frykowski family with a memorial for Voytek. "In the immediate aftermath, Kosinski's major role was in offering, along with Elizbieta Czyzewska, to arrange for Frykowski's funeral. In the course of making arrangements, he spoke with Victor Lownes, who had accompanied Polanski home from London, not bothering to mention that he planned to visit. At the same time, he mentioned to several reporters that he had been on his way to Cielo Drive when a luggage mix-up at the Paris airport caused him to stay over in New York." (Sloan, p. 275).
"By then Frykowski's mother had been reached in Lodz and was on her way to New York with Frykowski's brother to claim the body. Instead of a burial, Elizbieta Czyzewska held a memorial gathering for the Polish emigre circle, at which Kosinski again does not mention that he had been en route to Polanski's house." (Sloan, p. 275-276).
Interestingly, Victor Lownes, in his assessment of the violence in Kosinski's novels, actually became suspicious of Kosinski of being involved in the murders. To Lownes, Kosinski's story was "irregular". According to Sloan, "[O]n August 22, back in London, Lownes sent a letter to the Los Angeles Homocide Division suggesting that they investigate Kosinski. It concluded: "I know that the suggestion is extremely far-fetched, but surely it is worthwhile to check on the mix-up luggage story, the change in plans on the funeral of Voityck, and Kosinski's whereabouts over that terrible weekend." Kosinski, in short, struck Lownes as a suitable candidate to have performed the deeds of Charles Manson." (Sloan, p. 276).
The investigation into the Tate/La Bianca murders continued intensely from August into the autumn of 1969. Friend to Abigail and Voytek, artist Witold-K, was in hiding immediately after the murders, thinking he knew who committed the crimes, but as Sloan continues, had "been brought forward with the mediation of Elizbieta Czyzewska's husband, David Halberstam. [Witold-K], who was close to Frykowski in Los Angeles, was apparently the first to argue that Kosinski had not been expected that night and was just seeking publicity. He shared this view with Czyzewska, who recalled that Kosinski had not mentioned any plans to be there, either when he first called to report that "something has happened in Los Angeles" or at the memorial for Frykowski." (Sloan, p. 276).
Sloan goes on to say that on December 18, 1969, Kosinski was interviewed by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. In the interview, Kosinski lashed out at the press for what Roman Polanski called "killing them [the victims] a second time".
The Kosinski side of the possibility of being at Cielo never quite died. In 1984, "Polanski stated in his biography that Kosinski had not been expected that night. Sharon had never cared for Kosinski, the story went, and would never have invited him. As the publication followed upon a more important crisis of credibility in Kosinski's career, the reviewer for the Sunday times of London singled the statement out for comment. In response, Clem Wood wrote a letter to the editor giving an account that strongly supported Kosinski's version. Yet in Polish emigre circles, the view persisted that Kosinski had seized upon the event to assert a piece of personal melodrama that could not be disproved." (Sloan, p. 277).
"Taking the various witnesses together, there can be little doubt that Kosinski and Kiki had originally planned to be in Los Angeles that night. The core story of a luggage mix-up in Paris is well supported, too, in that Clem wood heard the story in outline before it would have any value as part of a fabrication. Whether Jerzy and Kiki would have arrived, specifically, at Polanski's house on Cielo Drive is less certain. In the atmosphere of the household, however, it is quite possible that Frykowski might have invited them, notwithstanding Sharon's dislike of Kosinski. The doubts of Elizbieta Czyzewska and Witold Kaczanowski appear, like the suspicions of Victor Lownes, largely circumstantial. As for Polansky, who had been in London, he was the least likely to have been well informed." (Sloan, p. 277). In sum, Sloan would ultimately say of Kosinski that "the story he told seems to have been essentially the truth." (p. 278).
To be "essentially the truth," it could be the case that Jerzy and Kiki were never intended to sleep at the Cielo house, and frankly, how could they? When we consider the sleeping arrangements at the house, we see that Sharon occupied her own bedroom, while Abigail and Voytek occupied another. Meanwhile the maid's bedroom was being painted as the new nursery, and in addition to smelling of fresh paint, would have had no furnishings in it. The only other place to possibly sleep at Cielo would have been the loft above the living room, and this seems highly unlikely for world-class travelers such as Jerzy and Kiki.
The couple conceivably could have stayed at Abigail and Voytek's rented house on Woodstock, in the company of Witold-K, but the artist never volunteered this possibility. The most likely scenario would probably be that Jerzy and Kiki would have stayed in a private room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In that way, they would have been in close proximity to their friend Clem Wood.
Yet, had the Kosinski luggage incident not have happened, the likelihood that Voytek may have invited Jerzy, Kiki, and the Woods to Cielo for a few hours is a distinct possibility. To be sure, Voytek did take liberties at Cielo, inviting people there, even in the presence of Roman and Sharon. One example of this is when he invited Billy Doyle to the housewarming party that spring.
If we allow for the possibility that two more men and two more women could have visited Cielo on Friday evening, and stayed late, what ultimately may have happened could have drastically changed the story of that night there. Tex Watson and company would have encountered Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Jerzy Kosinski, Kiki Von Fraunhofer, and Clem Wood and his wife.
But in the end, of course, we know that did not happen. Nevertheless, Voytek still called Witold-K Friday night repeatedly, asking him to come up to Cielo, and his refusal of his friend's invitation may well have saved his life. Witold-K also wrote on his Facebook page that Voytek was constantly lonely at Cielo, and frequently called people, inviting them up to the house to keep him company.
It is probably safe to say, then, that Jerzy Kosinski should not necessarily be on the list of posers, phonies, liars, and the like, who said they were "invited" to come to Cielo Drive that Friday night. We know that they could not have been there. Jerzy Kosinski's being there entertains a distinct hint of possibility, if only for the fact that he and his party could have accompanied the inhabitants of Cielo for dinner, visited for a couple of hours, then drove away that night through the gate before midnight. Jerzy Kosinski died by suicide in his apartment in New York, on May 3, 1991.
ReplyDeleteRoman by Roman Polanski
pg313
...no one was expected that night, not even (author)Jerzy Kosinski, who later said that had it not been for a piece of luggage going astray at an airport, he would also have been among the victims.
How would he know? He was 6009 miles away banging a starlet and looking forward to not being tied down anymore
DeleteStar, yes. This is a famous quote by Roman. The interesting thing about it is that it stands in direct contradiction to Clem Wood in his letter to the editor. I think the important thing to remember is that Jerzy and Kiki were to be in LA that night. If they would ever had made a connection with the inhabitants of Cielo is uncertain. But like I said in the post, if true, it raises the possibility that events at Cielo may have been drastically different.
ReplyDeleteKosinski was a very fine writer, who, if "Painted Bird" is to be believed as an actual memoir, engaged in some rather sordid and criminal behavior as a young man. As memory holds, he had some odd personal habits too, like preferring to sometimes hide at a party, enabling him to watch and listen without being seen. Memory holds that he wrote of a prior visit to Los Angeles and driving around Los Angeles with Frykowski. Upon seeing a group of hippies on a street corner, Frykowski referred to them as, I can't remember the exact word, but as some type of insect. The phrasing reminded me of the Mansonista reading of the Bible's locusts in Rev. 9. It made me wonder of Kosinski was implying that Frykowski knew of the Mansonistas and the Bibical locust self-reference.
ReplyDeleteToadstool Shadow, yes, I admire Kosinski's writing, too. The biography of him by James Park Sloan depicts Jerzy as devilishly funny, witty, and a remarkable practical joker. He did indeed hide from people at parties as you say, and enjoyed slowly pouring hot tea into peoples shoes--while they were wearing them!
ReplyDeleteKosinski was also a notorious womanizer, who, after inviting them to his apartment, would chase them around the place.
The incident of driving around L. A. with Voytek is to be found in Kosinski's novel, Blind Date. On page 174 of the Grove Press edition, Voytek called hippies, "crabs". As Voytek would have it, "I call them Crabs of Sunset. But they're not like nature's crabs, because Crabs of Sunset are out of balance with their world. I think they may be the missing link between man and robot."
Also in Blind Date, the relationship between Voytek and Abigail, and his relationship with them, commands quite a few pages. This also includes a detailed reference to the murders.
Kosinki always struck me as a self-promoting, arrogant tosser but yeah... he was a good writer. Being There was a wonderful movie. Well researched, Torque. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBrownrice, thanks. Yes, I loved the movie Being There, too. I also found the biography on Kosinski by Sloan to be excellent, and would highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteI think he was essentially a plagiarist operating away from where he would have been immediately called out. At best, his writing was highly derivative. Plenty of writers back in the old country believe he lifted large chunks from their work.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, Polanski's rat pack Polish contingent are/were vastly overrated in their field in my opinion. Very subjective output, high reliance on naive patronage, inveigling with heiresses, extremely low fidelity and loose with the truth about their backgrounds. Frykowski wins for ticking most of that bingo card.
Polanski directed SOME good movies, but was highly inconsistent and the plaudits for him are way overboard. As for Kaczanowski's 'art', please.
I think they were fortunate to land in a liberal environment bizarrely hungry for some false sense of European sophistication and war background street cred. And they milked it.
Tragical History Tour, as always I appreciate your well-articulated comments. By way of coincidence, I have always called Kosinski, Polanski, Voytek, Witold-K, et al, the "Polish Contingent," as you have here in your comment. To me they represent a unique subset of individuals within the totality of the discourse that is TLB.
ReplyDeleteAs to the success of these guys, I think it comes down to how we valorize their work. To be sure, Kosinski was in the right place at the right time, as American audiences were eating up literature from communist Eastern Europe as soon as they could get their hands on it.
Speaking of literature, Kosinski's stuff was dark, violent, oppressive, and sexual. Abigail would have no doubt been well read on Kosinski. Sharon, on the other hand, had a copy of Huxley's Brave New World & Brave New World revisited on her bedside table during the murders; hardly sunny and light reading there. Also, David, in his series on Abigail, points out that she was reading another author(who's name presently escapes me), and that literature was also exceedingly dark in nature.
This kind of reading appealed to these women, and evidently so did the men in their lives, who were in many ways dark, fatalistic, and from a world so very different than the American culture that these woman grew up in.
Certainly the work of Witold-K falls within the category of the modern. His paintings of the solitary human figure with large head and upraised knees, was directly influenced by seeing a homeless man on the streets of New York when he was living with Abigail and Voytek in her Manhattan apartment. Additionally Witold-k's large red paintings were the product of his reaction to the murders, which he calls the "Red Period".