Born on April 11, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, Howard Stanton Levey moved with his family to San Francisco soon after his birth. He attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley until the age of 16 when, according to him, he quit school to join the circus where he worked as a roustabout and calliope player. He later said that during this time he was heavily influenced by the hypocrisy of men attending bawdy shows on Saturday night and then Christian services Sunday morning.
By 1948 Levey returned to San Francisco, finding jobs as an organist in bars, lounges and nightclubs. In 1950 he married 15-year-old Carole Lansing and they had one child. Levey claimed to have studied criminology at City College of San Francisco[1] and later got a job as a photographer for the San Francisco Police Department, though neither of these stories have ever been able to be verified. He and Carole divorced in 1960 and Levey began a longterm relationship with Diane Hegarty with whom he had a daughter.
Somewhere during this time, Howard Levey changed his name to Anton LaVey. He formed a group called the Order of the Trapezoid which on April 30, 1966 turned into The Church of Satan. He held Friday night lectures on the occult and performed Satanic rituals. He drew media attention in 1967 when he officiated a Satanic wedding ceremony. He would later perform Satanic baptisms and funerals, wearing devil horns.
LaVey is considered responsible for the genesis of Satanism as a serious religion.
Numerous articles were published about LaVey in magazines including Newsweek and Time. He appeared on The Tonight Show and in two feature length documentaries. LaVey wrote five books and released several musical recordings. Most of his writings are an ironic, tongue-in-cheek look at the hypocrisy of Christianity. He saw Satan as a symbol of human liberation and promoted rational freethinking and self-determination. Ironically, LaVey was quite conservative: he believed in law and order, he was opposed to drug use and he hated rock music.
LaVey’s residence and church were both located in a modest single-family Victorian at 6114 California that was dubbed Black House. The exterior was painted black and the interior had red ceilings, pentagrams, satanic statuettes, daggers and skulls. LaVey, a born showman with “considerable personal magnetism”, was over six feet tall with a shaved head and a goatee. He drove a coroner’s van and donned a black cape as he walked his pet black leopard around the neighborhood.
LaVey continued to be a local celebrity until 1971 when Charles Manson was convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of seven people. Many of LaVey’s members left the Church and he subsequently closed Black House to the public. In 1980 LaVey’s reputation was further disparaged when it was made public that he had been interviewed by the FBI in connection with an alleged plot to murder Senator Ted Kennedy. LaVey admitted that most of his followers were “fanatics, cultists and weirdos”. The FBI ultimately concluded that LaVey’s activities were strictly for financial gain and that he spent the majority of his time writing.
After a 24 year relationship with Diane Hegarty, LaVey left her for Blanche Barton, who gave birth to his third child in 1993. Hegarty sued LaVey for palimony and in 1991 was awarded the Black House, though LaVey was allowed to live there for the remainder of his life.
LaVey died on October 29, 1997 at age 67 from pulmonary edema. A private Satanic funeral was held in Colma, and LaVey’s body was cremated. Church headquarters moved to New York City and remains an international organization. Black House was demolished in 2001 and is now a duplex.
[1] City College of San Francisco: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4490
