Please Don’t Call Him a ‘Playboy’

The life and death of Manson Family victim Wojciech Frykowski

Shortly after midnight on Saturday, August 9, 1969, four members of a ‘hippie commune’ and cult scaled the fence of a property in Benedict Canyon, a prestigious neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills. The home at 10050 Cielo Drive was being rented by Polish film director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate.

Tate and four of her houseguests were brutally murdered that late night. This is the story of one of the victims.

Wojciech (VOY-tek) Frykowski was born December 22, 1936 in Lodz, Poland. He was one of three sons born to Jan Frykowski, a textile printer and Teofila Stefanowska.

The Nazis came to power in nearby Germany in 1933 under the dictatorial rule of Chancellor Adolph Hitler who was obsessed with German birthright over land and resources. That obsession led to his pursuit of reclaiming land formerly part of the Austro-German-Prussian landscape, and eradicating anyone (political enemies, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled) that marred his vision of a perfect, utopian, Aryan Germany.

When Wojciech was three years old, the Nazis invaded Poland and soon war began across Europe. The Americans joined the fight against Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan (the Axis) after the December 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor.

During the war, Jan Frykowski struggled to maintain his business and fought with the local Nazi forces to maintain control over his…