Sophia Maddox knew nothing about Charles Manson when she was listening to the Beatles’ double album known as the White Album, 10 years ago when she was a teen. She loved the group but couldn’t understand the meaning of the song “Helter Skelter.”
“I Googled it and the first thing that came up was Charles Manson,” she recalled after reading that Manson had interpreted the song as his vision of a race war. “I remember thinking, ‘That doesn’t make sense. How do you get that from that song?’ He just felt distant.”
She gained more context years later after seeing Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood,” learning that Manson was the devious mastermind behind the brutal murders of actor Sharon Tate and several others, which horrified the nation in 1969.
About 10 years after first reading about Manson, she made a discovery that chilled her to her core: She was not only related to Manson — she was his granddaughter.
That devastating revelation and its overwhelming emotional impact is the focus of “My Grandfather Charles Manson,” which premieres Wednesday on Hulu and Disney+. Directed by Maddox and Alexandra Orton (“Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal”), the film is a sharply personal standout in the massive Manson canon, which is already populated by multiple films and books, both fiction and nonfiction.
“I come from a murderer,” Maddox tearfully declares to a therapist in the opening minutes of the film. “Who the f— would accept me?” Later she laments how the revelation brought her to a low point in her life: “How could my blood do something so atrocious? How could my blood be the cause of other people’s bloodshed?”
Confronting her intense fears about having blood ties to one of history’s most notorious criminals, Maddox embarks on an exploration into Manson in an effort to understand his pathology and gain insights into her own heritage.
Her investigation includes interviews with former members of Manson’s “family” of followers, associates, scholars, former Manson prosecutor Stephen Kay and others.
The documentary traces Manson to his troubled childhood and almost constant incarceration in youth facilities and jails. There is also extensive archival footage of news coverage surrounding the murders and trials. Manson is featured in several interviews, including his bizarre 1981 jailhouse conversation with NBC’s Tom Snyder.
Manson orchestrated his followers to kill Tate, the wife of director Roman Polanski, and others inside her Benedict Canyon home on Aug. 9, 1969. The following night, cult members killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca inside their Los Feliz residence.
Manson died in 2017 behind bars at the age of 83.
At the heart of the documentary is Maddox’s relationship with her father, Daniel Arguelles. The divorced aspiring actor “filmed every second of my life” when she was a youngster, noting that the two were inseparable.
Growing up, he did not know who his real father was. Arguelles discovered as an adult that Charles Manson was his father through a DNA test, which sparked a downward mental health spiral that intensified as the documentary moved forward. He becomes more combative with Maddox, and he lashes out during an interview with Manson friend Nikolas Schreck. The film also shows Maddox and her father in a vicious argument inside her car that illustrates the fracturing of their once-close bond.
The revelation “shattered our world,” Maddox says in “My Grandfather Charles Manson.”
Still, Maddox, who is now 26, said she is proud of the documentary and has no regrets: “I think I was raised to do this movie and discover who my grandfather was. It was going to be me all along. It felt like destiny.”
In a joint video interview with Orton, she discusses the impact of Manson on her life and where things currently stand with her father. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Sophia, can you compare the gut feeling you had when you found out Charles Manson was your grandfather to how you felt when you finished the documentary?
Maddox: The first gut feeling was complete disempowerment, devastation and anxiety. Is this real? Is there a mistake in the DNA? I felt tethered, and felt I would be tethered to this for the rest of my life.
But with the completion, I just feel empowered by all of the knowledge I’ve gained in the process of discovering. I live my own life now. I’m not tied to it anymore.
When did you feel things started to change?
Maddox: It was because of therapy. It was also researching and interviewing lots of different people. I was really lucky that so many subjects were so kind to me and affirmed I wasn’t my grandfather and that I didn’t need to carry historical or generational burdens. Hearing that validation in therapy and from really wonderful subjects helped me get there.
Alexandra, we hear you occasionally talking to Sophia during some rough moments? Were you also stepping in as sort of a therapist?
Orton: I do not have a degree in therapy. But anytime you make a documentary, you’re asking people to be especially vulnerable on camera, and they are often telling you about the worst moments of their life but from a somewhat safe distance. Sophia was processing this all in real time, both as a subject and a co-director. I just tried to be as helpful to her with that role. That is a huge ask for anyone, even people who have been dong this 20 or 30 years. Sophia started this on her own. I mean, she’ll never make a harder movie than her first movie.
Maddox: Allie really did help me switch from subject to director, and just helped me feel supported in every way.
Orton: I’ve done a lot of documentaries with people who learn hard things or process hard things on camera, and it can get sticky. The team on this project was uniquely dedicated to doing things with as much kindness and thoughtful support of Sophia as possible.
So did this project start out as a chronicle of discovery and processing this information with your dad? And did it take a shift? It seems like the deeper you got into the investigation, it became more dark and complicated.
Maddox: The movie unfolded right before my eyes, especially when it’s dark. I had an idea of what I wanted. I wanted to know who my grandfather was as a human being. My dad didn’t know he was biologically related to this man for 62 years of his life. I was 22 when i found out. So I wanted to know what would that mean for our relationship. It’s always been rocky in the past. Does this explain why my dad told me we were cursed growing up? He always had an idea, like “Honey, our family is cursed.”
My dad loved me as a child, and and he raised me strong enough to be able to do this thing. That is where we break generational cycles and traumas. With each generation, it gets better. I knew I had to find something to do with this information. I couldn’t just sit with it in my head where there’s no physical manifestation of it. It was stressing me out.
Orton: I also think you and your dad are artistic spirits. So everything you process goes into you making art. So for me, it’s the most natural thing in the world that you would do this. It’s like Taylor Swift writing about a breakup.
When we’re introduced to you and your father in the documentary, we see the way he loved you and photographed you as a child. And then we see this shift in him, and ultimately abandonment. How did taking on this project impact your relationship? Did it damage that bond?
Maddox: I was trying to get my dad to see a different perspective. It’s easier when you’re 23 or 24 years old and you’re malleable. It’s harder when you’ve lived a longer life and things are built in a certain way and it’s hard to have that crumbling down.
I wanted us to be a banded unit and not be driven by conspiracy. But this film is my perspective. It’s my story. It’s not his. I didn’t think about this, but there was going to be a natural decline in the relationship because I got to lean into my perspective and my voice. He could have been more involved, but he declined. He can process in his own way. I don’t regret a bit of it. The tools I had in my life are so much different.
What is your relationship with your father now?
Maddox: I haven’t spoken to him since that fight in the car. But my door is always open.
Do you think he would watch this film?
Maddox: I don’t know. It would be a tough watch, knowing him. He doesn’t like to watch sad things.
What do you hope viewers come away with?
Maddox: I’ve been listening to Disney music, which emphasizes that no matter where you come from, or who you come from, there’s no reason why your life shouldn’t be worthy if you do your best. There’s no reason why your dreams can’t be valid.
Orton: It means for me that history is not your destiny. You should absolutely learn where you come from, but you can make your own choices. Learning that can be your superpower and help you break cycles you might not have escaped otherwise.
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