The story of Mr. Moviestar and Mr. Moviemaker and where it all went wrong…

[sprynkles]

The third event that I found particularly chilling was the case of a woman by the name of Nan Herst Bowers. When it was leaked to Janet Charlton that Tom was a Scientologist in 1991, a witch-hunt began for the person responsible.

I don't understand this at all. I knew he was a scientologist many years before 1991.

[judejack]

Will Smith boosting Scientology

Wednesday, January 9th 2008, 4:00 AM

Pizzello/Reuters Will Smith and Tom Cruise



Will Smith has joined the ranks of Hollywood power players actively recruiting for the Church of Scientology.
Big stars traditionally distribute "wrap presents" to crew members after completing a film. His recent gift after wrapping next summer's comedy "Hancock" was a card good for a personality test at your local Scientology center.

Fun!

Never mind that such tests are given free by the church anyway. The quiz is designed to convert people to the religion by identifying personality flaws that - surprise! - Scientology can fix right up for you.

For a fee, of course.

Smith, who is best buddies with Scientology booster Tom Cruise, has never confirmed that he joined the church. But he told "Access Hollywood" last month: "I was introduced to it by Tom, and I'm a student of world religion. I was raised in a Baptist household. I went to a Catholic school, but the ideas of the Bible are 98% the same ideas of Scientology, 98% the same ideas of Hinduism and Buddhism."

Presumably the other 2% is the part about the evil space emperor who put the hydrogen bombs in the volcano.
Smith's rep was traveling with the actor on Tuesday and unavailable for comment.

[SweetPea]

Originally Posted by sprynkles

The third event that I found particularly chilling was the case of a woman by the name of Nan Herst Bowers. When it was leaked to Janet Charlton that Tom was a Scientologist in 1991, a witch-hunt began for the person responsible.

I don't understand this at all. I knew he was a scientologist many years before 1991.

This I don't get. Why is he so vocal about it now but didn't want anyone to know then. Running low on members perhaps?

[lane]

Originally Posted by sprynkles

The third event that I found particularly chilling was the case of a woman by the name of Nan Herst Bowers. When it was leaked to Janet Charlton that Tom was a Scientologist in 1991, a witch-hunt began for the person responsible.

I don't understand this at all. I knew he was a scientologist many years before 1991.

and

This I don't get. Why is he so vocal about it now but didn't want anyone to know then. Running low on members perhaps?

According to Wikipedia (lol not trustworthy, i know, but still), Cruise joined the Co$ in 1990. And the Co$ didn't become an officially recognized religion until 1993. Back then it still had the stink of "selling secrets to the Russians" on it.

So in 1991, I don't think Cruise would have wanted it spread far and wide that he was a Scientologist. I mean, even now Will Smith is pretending he's not [STRIKE]gay[/STRIKE] a Scientologist. But Cruise is pot-committed, and both he and the church kind of need the church to be seen as legitimate at this point. They really want to expand into Germany and the rest of Europe--with being taxed and hounded as a cult/pyramid scheme.

My two cents on it.

[feedthepilot]

New York Times review of Morton's book. They weren't that impressed... Says GMD is in fact an MD but not G. That "gearshaft" comment will haunt me today. Yuck.

Tom Cruise and His Bully Pulpit

By JANET MASLIN
TOM CRUISE


An Unauthorized Biography


By Andrew Morton
Illustrated. 344 pages. St. Martin’s Press. $25.95.

If Andrew Morton’s “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” is published peacefully next Tuesday, one of its basic assertions will be undermined. That is because if Mr. Morton is right about the litigious fervor of either Mr. Cruise, who is the book’s ostensible subject, or the Church of Scientology, which is its real one, the publication will be met with dirty tricks, messianic anger and relentless harassment. If Mr. Morton is wrong about that, there will be fewer fireworks. After all, among this biography’s revelations is the fact that Tom Cruise was a cute kid.
Mr. Morton, “a leading authority on modern celebrity” (according to this book’s jacket copy) and the mouthpiece for 1992 payback to the royal family by Diana, Princess of Wales (“Diana: Her True Story”), is best equipped for one thing: treating the travails of the famous as matters of earth-shaking consequence. He has gravitated to subjects who either appreciate (Monica Lewinsky) or wield (Madonna) some form of intoxicating power.
In the case of Mr. Cruise, Mr. Morton sees a domineering, aggressive character who has joined forces with Scientology to catapult his activities beyond the realm of mere glitter. “More than any star today,” Mr. Morton writes, “Tom” — naturally he’s on a first-name basis — “is a movie messiah who reflects and refracts the fears and doubts of our times, trading on the unfettered power of modern celebrity, our embrace of religious extremism and the unnerving scale of globalization.” The book asserts that “the relentless expansion of the organization and its front groups has been made possible by the charm and persuasiveness of its poster boy, whose modernity, familiarity and friendliness mask the totalitarian zeal of his faith.”
It goes without saying that biographers do not ordinarily assail their subjects’ religious beliefs with impunity. Nor do investigative reporters seize on Scientology as frequently as they might. Yet Mr. Morton has found a number of former Scientologists who are willing to speak freely, and in some cases vengefully, about the group’s purported inner workings. Mr. Morton’s eagerness to include their voices leads him to push the limits of responsible reporting. In the absence of any hard information whatsoever, for instance, he notes that if Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, now his wife, fed their daughter Suri the barley-based baby formula recommended by L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology’s founder, “they kept it secret.” And that despite Mr. Cruise’s legal victories over publications that have described him as gay, that assertion lives on in the form of widespread Internet rumors.
The Tom Cruise of this book is emphatically, unremarkably heterosexual throughout its tedious opening chapters about his boyhood. “I was black and blue from the gearshift, I can tell you that,” says a high school girlfriend who spent time with him in a car. Mr. Cruise is also said to have collected model airplanes, impersonated Woody Woodpecker and done a standout job of playing the Sun in a fifth-grade pageant. “Even 30 years later it still gives me goose bumps,” one of his schoolteachers recalls about the budding star’s performance.
“The film will never sell and Tom Cruise will not be an important actor,” a Fox executive once memorably said. Still, the book describes Mr. Cruise’s speedy rise from walk-on obscurity (“Endless Love” in 1981) to the Hollywood stratosphere (“Top Gun” in 1986 ) while placing more emphasis on the evolution of his private life. By 1985 he had become involved with Mimi Rogers, his first wife, who provided entrée into the world of Scientology. Even though Scientology abhors psychiatry, Mr. Morton plays doctor by speculating that Mr. Cruise made an especially receptive recruit because he is “an uncertain child waiting for an undeserved blow from his father.”
Although Mr. Morton is readily assailable for making such facile remarks, he is in some larger sense an astute observer. His overall impression of Mr. Cruise makes sense. He provides a credible portrait extrapolated from the actor’s on-the-record remarks and highly visible public behavior. This book describes a controlling, fervent figure (“He was like a walking light bulb,” recalls one observer) whose personal needs dovetailed with the strict hierarchical structure of his newfound faith and who, at some point, decided to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to proselytizing spiritually, emotionally and politically on its behalf. The book surmises that it was a small leap from this outlook to jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa.
Among the pivotal players in this slow-starting but eventually scalding book are Stanley Kubrick, whose manipulative treatment of Mr. Cruise and his second wife, Nicole Kidman, during the marathon filming of “Eyes Wide Shut” is made to seem especially damaging here; Ms. Kidman herself, though her troubles with Mr. Cruise have been dissected by other biographers; and David Miscavige, the Church of Scientology’s powerful leader. Mr. Miscavige is presented as someone whose outlook and gestures Mr. Cruise has visibly appropriated and who himself shares Mr. Cruise’s gung-ho proclivities.
It is the nature of this book to depict Mr. Miscavige also as a kind of mustache-twirling villain, complete with the requisite B-movie dialogue. After Mr. Cruise agreed to visit the church’s heavily guarded Gold Base compound in the California desert in the summer of 1989, the book says, Mr. Miscavige “gleefully announced to his closest staff, ‘the most important recruit ever is in the process of being secured. His arrival will change the face of Scientology forever.’ ” Mr. Morton would be on much more solid ground had he backed that quotation with direct or even second-hand attribution.
If “Tom Cruise: The Unauthorized Biography” attracts as much flak as it does interest, the fuss will be less about blind quotations than about interpretation. The terminology and precepts of Scientology (“Teegeeack,” “Xenu,” “MEST”) can be treated as exceedingly weird. And at times the book seems to go out of its way to misunderstand them. The phrase “merchant of chaos” has been used by Mr. Cruise to excoriate his father, and Mr. Morton treats it as a sinister epithet. Maybe it is. But it is also used by the literature of Scientology to describe those who profit by promulgating disturbing thoughts. Authorities on celebrity are not immune to this accusation.

Story link

[t13nif]

^^Methinks the reviewer is a Sci?

[feedthepilot]

^^ Ooh. Good theory!

[AveDementia]

I don't see anything about her that makes me suspect she's a Scieno (though it is a strange review), but this website is listing Stephen Spielberg as an ex-boyfriend.

Janet Maslin

[sprynkles]

They like to change facts to suit their needs.

When did Tom Cruise join Scientology?
Cruise joined Scientology in the late 1980s. (Sources cited in the Scientology Celebrities FAQ show him stating various years.)

http:///www.scientology-lies.com/faq...om-cruise.html

[judejack]

This is a case filed against Scientology in 1994 by a former member alleging abuse of their non-profit status. It has quite detailed information about Tom and Miscavige. It's a very interesting read.

[From the case Church of Scientology International vs.
Steven Fishman and Uwe Geertz, US District Court, Central
District of California, Case No. CV 91 6426 HLH (Tx),
dismissed by CSI against themselves with prejudice.]

[David Miscavige is the current leader of scientology]


DECLARATION OF ANDRE TABAYOYON

I, ANDRE TABAYOYON, declare as follows:

(...)

115. I witnessed money from various non profit Scientology
organizations, and labor provided by various non profit Scientology
organizations being used for the personal benefit it of Miscavige, Tom
Cruise, other Scientology senior executives and other Scientology
celebrities (such as John Travolta, Chick Corea and Priscilla Presley).

116. I also saw monies and/or personnel from various Scientology
non profit religious organizations being used for the personal benefit
of Miscavige. We constructed a music room for him, a lounge, a dressing
room, a personal exercise room and personnel storage rooms. The
approximate cost of this was between $250,000, $300,000. This does not
include the cost of labor since RPFers, or slave labor was used on these
projects for personal enurement of Miscavige.

117. Miscavige, other senior Scientologists and certain
celebrities would also use the movie theater we constructed on the base
to view first run movies provided to him by his acquaintances in the
movie industry. The cost of this was easily $150,000. This cost does
not include labor (again slave labor) or expensive film projection
equipment.

118. During the 1980's, Miscavige befriended the actor Tom Cruise
and they spend a lot of time together on the Hemet base. Their special
chef, Sinar Parman, would prepare them fancy meals. Often they would
hang out alone in the space designated for L. Ron Hubbard on the Clipper
Ship we built in the desert. This space had a small kitchen, a little
dining room, a little bar and a bed. They also had the exclusive use of
the officers lounge. On other occasions Miscavige and Cruise would work
out in the expensive gym we built for exclusive and restricted use. No
one else was allowed to talk to Tom Cruise when he was on the base. One
time one of the gardeners spoke to him and this caused a major flap on
the base. At Gold, Miscavige is known by his initials DM and Tom Cruise
by his initials TC. From the late 1980's until I left the Gold, Tom
Cruise was provided a personal and exclusive apartment and storage
facilities by the Scientology organization and at Scientology's expense.
Tom Cruise kept two Yamaha motorcycles, a Mercedes Benz automobile and a
large motor home at Gold. These were stored in what used to be
Hubbard's garage and parking lot. Obviously, Miscavige and Cruise have
developed a special relationship. One is a young world domineering
celebrity. The other is a young domineering cult leader who seeks to
'clear' the world and to rule it according to Scientology beliefs and
practices.

119. When Tom Cruise got married to Nicole Kidman, they and David
Miscavige went to a Colorado Ski Resort for the marriage ceremony. A
Sea Org staffer (Sinar Parman) was taken along to do personal cooking
for Tom Cruise and Miscavige at the expense of Scientology not for
profit religious organizations. This left only 3 cooks at Gold to cook
for 800 people three times a day.

120. I personally participated in the construction of an apartment
at the Gold base, using extensive funds from various non profit
Scientology religious organizations, for the personal and exclusive use
of Tom Cruise. This was done on the orders of David Miscavige. Even
though Miscavige has claimed to be Chairman of the Board of RTC, here he
is directing the expenditure of CSI money and the deployment of CSI
labor -- both paid and slave. Other apartment cottages were built for
the use of John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Edgar Winters, Priscilla
Presley and other Scientology celebrities who are carefully prevented
from finding out the real truth about the Scientology organization. The
labor used to construct Tom Cruise's apartment was provided by Gold, a
division of CSI, and persons from a myriad of Scientology organizations
serving time in the RPF. The RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force) is the
Scientology gulag or concentration camp. Using RPFers to renovate and
reconstruct Tom Cruise's personal and exclusive apartment at the
Scientology Gold base is equivalent to the use of slave labor for Tom
Cruise's benefit. The Tom Cruise apartment at the Gold base is located
at the golf course end of the Gold base, closest to State Street. When
Tom Cruise visits the Gold base, and stays in his personal apartment, he
is cared for by a Sea Org steward.

121. We also had to renovate the Tom Cruise apartment at the Hemet
Base after it was damaged by a mud slide. The repairs had to be
performed on an emergency basis. Both the Gold crew and the RPFers were
placed on extended hours to restore the apartment. Again, Tom Cruise
was benefiting from the use of what is essentially prison slave labor
being worked almost around the clock.

122. Tom Cruise also enjoyed use of facilities constructed on the
Gold base that were not available to any Scientology staff except the
senior most Scientologists on the base, particularly Miscavige and his
lieutenants. For example, I saw Tom Cruise use the exercise room which
was off limits to at least 98 percent of the staff. Tom Cruise also had
unrestricted access to the Ship which has a sauna, jacuzi and a large
Olympic sized swimming pool. With regard to the Miscavige/Cruise gym
this was built in conjunction with the estates facility in approx. 1989.
The gym building cost approx. $150,000 (again using slave labor) and
contains a complete lineup of the most modern weight training equipment.
It is one of the most incredible gyms imaginable and is for the
exclusive use of Tom Cruise, David Miscavige and other specially and
specifically approved by him. It also has an incredible shower area.

123. To assure that Tom Cruise's stays at the Hemet base were
enjoyable, special provisions were made for him and restrictions were
imposed on the staff at the Hemet base. Millions of Church dollars were
spent so that millionaire Tom Cruise could regularly visit the
Scientology base and be friends with Miscavige. For example, Tom Cruise
received special meal services, special room services and the Hemet base
staff was restricted in its access to Hemet base facilities. Indeed, a
girl by the name of Jennie Matsamura was assigned to take care of him
and his renovated cottage. The Hemet base staff was barred from going
where Tom Cruise might be present. Construction and renovation work
that was done on the base for Tom Cruise's benefit often had to be torn
up and redone because the coloring was slightly off or there were a few
inches of group that didn't quite match in color. Once we had to pour a
concrete walkway so that Tom Cruise would not have to walk on the desert
soil. Before the concrete dried it rained. The concrete was spoiled.
Miscavige went into a fury over that.

124. On one occasion, prior to a Cruise/Kidman visit, Miscavige
decided to redo the meadow in beautiful flowers; Tens of thousands of
dollars were spent on the project so that Cruise and Kidman could romp
there. However, Miscavige inspected the project and didn't like it. So
the whole meadow was plowed up, destroyed, replowed and sown with plain
grass.

125. Tom Cruise also received his upper level auditing at the Gold
base. All of his auditor training was provided under the auspices of
RTC and delivered by RTC. Officially, RTC has no auditing service
delivery capability. It exists solely to enforce the Scientology
trademarks. This is yet another example of how the purported corporate
compartmentalization exists only for the "WOG" world and has no meaning
within Scientology. At the time I left Gold, Tom Cruise had completed
Dianetics, Level O-IV, the Key to life course, the Life orientation
course and he was audited up to OT III.

126. OT III deals with body thetans ("bts") and clustered body
thetans ("clusters") . In essence, OT III deals with "the incident"
which Hubbard claims to have been the most engramic incident responsible
for the current state of man. According to OT III, 75 million years
ago, the solution to overpopulation in a space confederacy (consisting
of 26 planets) was solved. Now, each leaf on the Sea Org symbol
represents one of those planets. Each of these planets had approx.
150-200 billion citizens each. The overpopulation solution was to
disembody all the spirits ("mass murder") with the use of glycol
(alcohol and sugar) injected into the spinal cord causing an immediate
freezing up of the body and the unconsciousness of the being (soon to
become a bt or cluster) . The frozen bodies were then collected and
transported to earth (called Teegach by Hubbard) in space ships
resembling Boeing 707 jetliners. The bodies were piled up, as in the
Nazi massacres, on the top of various mountain sites around the then
earth. Inside these mountains were 17 strategically placed enormous
atomic bombs -- bigger than any built this century. After the citizens
who had been selected to be part of the solution were placed on the
mountains, the hydrogen bombs were ignited from a remote space station
(lunar moon) by the officers of Xenu who ruled the space confederacy.
After the explosions the now disembodied thetans were electronically
trapped and transported to areas now known as Hawaii and Las Palmas
where there were pre-constructed implant stations. Then there was a
long and arduous process of packaging the disembodied thetas (spirits)
into clusters with ideas, morals, social values, emotions, sensations,
pains and attitudes of what we now observe as human life. The clusters
were then dispersed over planet earth through the medium of ice. The
ice then melted and the first stage of implant command became activated.
This is known as 'Survival' in Dianetics. The bts or clusters then seek
a human body. When the bt or cluster occupies the body it will either
begin running or operating the body or the engramic commands earlier
received in the implants take place. This will occur over and over
again in what is known as the life cycle -- each time resetting the
implant and restarting its effect with a death or end of cycle.' This
technology can be used for tailor made psychosis, neurosis and general
madness. Indeed, implant technology of this sort can be used for many
purposes. Using implant technology, Hubbard teaches how you can cause
someone to do whatever you want them to do, starting at the prenatal
stage.

127. The purpose of auditing at the OT III level, such as Tom
Cruise has received, is to contact and audit the bts and clusters so
that the bts and clusters leave the body of the auditor. The purpose of
this is to free the person from the determinism of the bts and clusters.
However, the bts and clusters that are released by the solo auditor are
now back at the beginning of their implant which they received 75
million years ago. Survival then retriggers the basic implant which
then picks up a body, or attaches to one that is already occupied, and
re begins the whole cycle.

128. The ultimate goal of auditing is the return of self
determinism and abilities of the person being audited. In other words,
to return the person to the state they were in 75 million years ago
before Xenu handled the over-population problem.

129. Tom Cruise also audited Kevin Catano up to grade IV. Kevin
Catano was a member of the Sea Org security force at Gold. Usually a
Sea Org member in the security force would be audited only by a Sea Org
member -- not a public scientologist let alone Scientology celebrity.

130. Tom Cruise's p.c. (pre-clear) folder was kept in the Gold
case supervision (c/s) office which I had access to as a security
missionaire. It contains supposedly confidential information derived
during auditing sessions. However, the contents of such pre-clear
folders have been culled and used against people. it is my opinion,
based on my Scientology training, education and experience, that such
information is collected by the Scientology organization in order to be
able to exert control and influence over people such as Tom Cruise or
John Travolta should they ever attempt to leave the Scientology
organization.

131. In 1989/1990 we also constructed a tennis court at Gold for
the exclusive list of Celebrities and Miscavige. Non profit Scientology
religious organization funds were used for this inurement project. The
tennis court cost at least $200,000 to build. The rubber coating alone,
on the tennis court, cost $80,000. Then there was the landscaping and
rose garden around the tennis court.


(...)

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United
States of America and of the State of California that the foregoing is
true and correct. Executed in Los Angeles, California this 5th day of
March, 1994.

Andre Tabayoyon

[Natalie]

Originally Posted by SweetPea

This I don't get. Why is he so vocal about it now but didn't want anyone to know then. Running low on members perhaps?

Because he had a wonderful agent who told him not to push his "religious"
beliefs on the general public...he ditched her and hired his sister who
obviously had no control of the GMD

[t13nif]

It is one of the most incredible gyms imaginable and is for the
exclusive use of Tom Cruise, David Miscavige and other specially and
specifically approved by him. It also has an incredible shower area.

[Palermo]

Amazon sent me an email today saying the book is on its way

[sprynkles]

Oh goodie! Promise to share just as soon as you open that package Palermo! I so can't wait.

[feedthepilot]

OMG! Click on this link over at Gawker and check out this Tom Cruise / Scientology video they found & posted. I think it's pre-Katie (he has no ring, at least). It's 9min, but it's pretty incredible about him and Scientology...