Dame Angela Lansbury once uprooted her whole family in order to save her daughter Deidre after she became swept up in Charles Manson's cult.
The Murder, She Wrote star — who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 96 — moved her family from their home in Los Angeles to Ireland, where her mother's family were from.
Deidre, now 69, fell in with a crowd led by the mass murderer in the 1960s, when she was just a teenager.
Recalling the scary time, Angela once said her daughter's troubles started when she and her brother Anthony, now 70, fell victim to the sway of drugs.
"It started with cannabis but moved to heroin," the mum-of-two said.
"There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits. It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson," Angela said in a 2014 interview with DailyMail.
Like some of Manson's followers, Deidre was said to have been drawn in by the cult leader's charm.
Angela said: "She was one of many youngsters who knew him — and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it."
Fearing what might happen to her daughter if they stayed in America, Angela told her husband Peter Shaw that they had to leave. The actress found a house for her family in County Cork.
She said: "I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences."
Angela turned down job offers for a year to care for her family.
She said Anthony escaped his bad habits "quite quickly" and after a little while Deidre did the same, getting married and relocating to Los Angeles where she and her husband opened an Italian restaurant.
Angela said she often thought about the frightening things that could have happened to her children had they stayed in America.
"I have no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two if they hadn't been removed to a completely different milieu," she admitted.
Angela's family announced on Tuesday the actress died peacefully at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 96.
"The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 a.m. today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday," they said in a statement.
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