The Day of the Dolphin originally going to be directed by Roman Polanski for United Artists in 1969, with Polanski writing the script. However, while Polanski was in London, England, looking for filming locations in August 1969, his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in their Beverly Hills home by disciples of Charles Manson. Polanski returned to the United States and abandoned the project. The following year it was announced Franklin Schaffner would make the movie for the Mirisch Corporation. These plans were frustrated and Joseph Levine ended up buying the project from United Artists for Mike Nichols. The film was mostly shot
Charles Manson parole after California invalidated the state's death penalty statute in 1972. He served out his life sentence at California State Prison in Corcoran and died at age 83 in 2017. Charles Manson was born on November 12, 1934 to 16-year-old Kathleen Manson-Bower-Cavender, née Maddox (1918–1973), in the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was first named "no name Maddox". Within weeks, he was called Charles Milles Maddox. Manson's biological father appears to have been Colonel Walker Henderson Scott Sr. (1910–1954) against whom Kathleen Maddox filed a paternity suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937.