Photo: Marvin Shaouni

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Best candlelight creepy-crawly that connects Southfield to Charles Manson, Hollywood and the death of the '60s

Jay Sebring Gravesite
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, 25800 W. 10 Mile Rd., Southfield; 248-350-1900

It was America's crime of the century, one that absolutely horrified the country, killed its innocence and any idea of peace-and-love utopia. It said: You're not safe, not even in your own home. The murders also terrified Hollywood's music and acting elite, many of whom thought they were next.

Early morning on Aug. 9, 1969, at the behest of the 5-foot-2 Charles Manson, four fucked-up all-American kids — Susan Adkins, Charles "Tex" Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian — scaled the fence at Roman Polanski's rented Beverly Hills house and remorselessly murdered Southfield's Jay Sebring, along with Polanski's pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, socialite coffee heiress Abigail Folger and her beau, and supposed drug dealer, Wojciech Frykowski, plus a teenager, Steven Parent, who happened to be leaving after visiting the groundskeeper.

Doris Day's son, Byrds producer Terry Melcher, had recently moved out of the house and has long been rumored to be the Manson family's original target. Melcher, at one point, offered to help Manson's budding music career at the behest of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, but had pulled out.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., Oct. 9, 1933, Sebring (real name: Thomas John Kummer) grew up in Southfield with his parents, two sisters and a brother, and graduated from Southfield High. After a Navy stint in the Korean War, Sebring moved to L.A. His hairstyling skills soon transformed how people looked at the barber shop, and Sebring became the first male to ever open his own men's salon, which quickly expanded to Sebring International, with hair care boutiques in San Francisco, New York, London and West Hollywood.

Sebring set male coif standards, which became high-art in his hands, and he singlehandedly invented the idea of the hairstylist as international Playboy (he lived in Jean Harlow's old mansion, where Harlow's hubby Paul Bern had committed suicide), while fashioning the dos of Hollywood's who's who, including Warren Beatty, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Robertson and myriad others. He's the one who shaped Jim Morrison's mane into total rock-star perfection.

Sebring worked hair on film sets (including Spartacus) and helped launch Bruce Lee's career (Sebring introduced the unknown martial arts expert to TV producer William Dozier, who then cast him to star in TV's Green Hornet). Sebring even played himself once (as Mr. Oceanbring) on a Batman episode.

He married and divorced once (Cami, a model), and was later engaged to Tate, until she met Polanski on a Euro film shoot (The Fearless Vampire Killers). Sebring and Tate stayed close — it's said she was the love of his life.

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