Curt Gentry (born 1931) is an American writer. He is best known for co-writing the book Helter Skelter with Vincent Bugliosi (1974), which detailed the Charles Manson murders. Gentry lives in San Francisco, California.

Helter Skelter won a 1975 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book.^{[citation needed]}

Vincent Bugliosi ( /ˌbuːliˈoʊsi/; born August 18, 1934) is an American attorney and author, best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and other defendants accused of the Tate-LaBianca murders, and for defending Stephanie Stearns in the Sea Wind murders of 1974. His most recent books are Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (2007), The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (2008), and Divinity of Doubt: The God Question (2011).

Bugliosi, who is of Italian ancestry, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota. Bugliosi is a graduate of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, which he attended on a tennis scholarship. In 1964, he received his law degree from UCLA, where he was president of his graduating class.

He is married with two children: Wendy and Vince Jr. He often refers to his wife, Gail, in his books, referencing her understanding and patience with him. He has also stated that he is an agnostic, although open to the ideas of deism.

As a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, he successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and several other members of his "family" for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others. He lost only one of the 106 felony cases he tried as a prosecutor, which included winning 21 out of 21 murder cases. He later wrote, jointly with Curt Gentry, a book about the Manson trial called Helter Skelter. The book went on to become the biggest selling true crime book in publishing history with over 7 million copies sold.

Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934) is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy's objective.

Manson believed in what he called "Helter Skelter," a term he took from the song of the same name by The Beatles. Manson believed Helter Skelter to be an impending apocalyptic race war, which he described in his own version of the lyrics to the Beatles' song. He believed his murders would help precipitate that war. From the beginning of his notoriety, a pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence and the macabre. The term was later used by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi as the title of a book he wrote about the Manson murders.

Roberta Lee Streeter (born July 27, 1944), professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is an American former singer-songwriter notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material. Her songs typically drew on her Mississippi roots to compose vignettes of the Southern United States.

Gentry shot to international fame with her intriguing Southern Gothic narrative "Ode to Billie Joe" in 1967. The track was fourth in the Billboard year-end chart of 1967 and earned her Grammy awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1968. Gentry charted eleven singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and four singles on the United Kingdom Top 40. Her album Fancy brought her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. After her first albums, she had a successful run of variety shows on the Las Vegas Strip. She lost interest in performing in the late 1970s and has since lived privately in Los Angeles.

Gentry was born Roberta Streeter and is of English and Portuguese ancestry.^{[citation needed]} She was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, to Robert and Ruby (Bullington) Streeter. She has an older brother, Robert Streeter, Jr. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth, and her mother moved to California. She was raised on her grandparents' farm in Chickasaw County. Her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, and seven-year-old Bobbie composed her first song, "My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog". She attended school in Greenwood, Mississippi, and began teaching herself to play the guitar, bass, banjo, and vibes.

Glen Travis Campbell (born April 22, 1936) is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.

During his 50 years in show business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums. He has sold 45 million records and accumulated no less than 12 RIAA Gold albums, 4 Platinum albums and 1 Double-Platinum album. Of the 74 trips up the country charts, 27 landed in the Top 10.^{[citation needed]} Campbell's hits include John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind", Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston", Larry Weiss's "Rhinestone Cowboy" and Allen Toussaint's "Southern Nights".

Campbell made history by winning four Grammys in both country and pop categories in 1967.^{[citation needed]} For "Gentle on My Mind" he received two awards in country & western, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" did the same in pop. He owns trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year from both the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM), and took the CMA's top honor as 1968 Entertainer of the Year. In 1969 Campbell was hand picked by actor John Wayne to play alongside him in the film True Grit, which gave Campbell a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. Campbell sang the title song which was nominated for an Academy Award.