Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography (22 page)

With or without Clearsound,
Days of Thunder
—and its leading man—was given a tempestuous reception from the critics when it was released at the end of June 1989. “He is
Cute and he’s Great at Something,” wrote David Denby in
New York
magazine. “But he’s also Cocky and he Shows Off. He is Reckless, Callow, Stupid. He is Out for Himself and he Goes Too Far. He must Mature. . . . There is a Crisis. He is Alone, Confused. Crestfallen. He seeks a Father Figure.” What was dubbed a “minor film with major pretensions” by
Boxoffice
struggled to break even. At the final reckoning, Tom’s first venture in orchestrating a big-budget film squeaked into the black, making just $89 million in ticket sales against costs of more than $70 million.

After years of back-to-back filming, Tom needed a break, he and Nicole spending a couple of weeks scuba diving in the Bahamas when the movie wrapped. That summer the couple organized their new home in Pacific Palisades while undertaking intensive Scientology courses at their own VIP bungalow on the Gold compound. It was not all study, the couple enjoying the freedom to be themselves away from prying eyes and long lenses. For her birthday in June, for example, a flatbed truck arrived at the base carrying a brand-new Mercedes as a gift from Tom. “They were like teenagers running round the base having fun,” recalls one ex-member.

While Tom was now taking advanced Academy-level Scientology courses, Nicole was gently being introduced to Hubbard’s writings and basic Scientology tenets. Ironically, she shared one common denominator with Tom’s former wife—a troublesome father. Just as Mimi Rogers was seen as a Potential Trouble Source because of the cult’s animosity toward Phil Spickler, so technically Nicole had to be treated with grave suspicion. Not only was she a practicing Catholic, but her father, Dr. Antony Kidman, was a clinical psychologist. By definition, he was deemed an enemy of Scientology, a member of a profession responsible for all the ills on Earth, including the Holocaust in Germany and Stalin’s purges in Russia.

The destruction of Dr. Kidman’s profession was Scientology’s stated aim. For Nicole to be truly adopted and accepted by the sect, she should “disconnect” from her father—that is, never communicate with him again. It posed a genuine
problem for the Scientology hierarchy. As Jesse Prince recalls, “It definitely counted against Nicole, having a psychologist as a father. She was always considered a Potential Trouble Source inside Scientology. But the leadership figured they could handle it. It was a balancing act. They had Tom in their pocket, so they thought they would worry about Nicole later.”

Not for the first time, it seemed that celebrity Scientologists lived by different rules than regular members, following Scientology Lite rather than the hard-core faith. And Tom Cruise was a law unto himself. As far as the Scientology leadership was concerned, nothing was too much trouble to keep him happy. So when the secrecy surrounding Tom’s membership in Scientology was exposed that summer in an article written by Janet Charlton in the
Star
tabloid in July 1990, the cult leadership went into overdrive, both to soothe the irritation of their most prized member and to find the source of the story. They used the notorious private investigator Eugene Ingrams, a former Los Angeles cop who was fired for misconduct after allegedly running a brothel, to find the culprit.

During his four-month investigation, journalist Charlton was harassed and people impersonated her, trying to get copies of her phone bill. Eventually, after a series of subterfuges, Nan Herst Bowers—longtime Scientologist, sometime Hollywood publicist, and friend of Janet Charlton—was fingered as the perpetrator. When she faced a Scientology court, she pled not guilty to eight media-related charges, including “engaging in malicious rumor mongering” and “giving anti-Scientology data to the press.” She was found guilty and formally listed as a “Suppressive Person Declare,” the equivalent to being excommunicated.

The ruling meant that she was not allowed to have any further contact with anyone inside Scientology, including her ex-husband, her three sons, Brad, Todd, and Ryan, and her grandchild. Her family subsequently sent her letters of “Disconnect,” which confirmed their refusal to have any contact with her. Within a week, Nan had gone from being a happily
married mother and grandmother to being entirely cut off from her friends and family. Sixteen years have passed since the trial, and she has only occasionally seen her three sons and her six grandchildren since. “I was made a scapegoat for the story after Tom Cruise complained. As far as I am concerned, Scientology broke up my family,” she says. “They kept my sons and their children from me. We were a nice close-knit Jewish family before this. I have not been able to lead a full life as a mother and grandmother because of this incident.”

In August 1990, a month after the investigation was launched to find who had outed Tom, hundreds of Sea Org disciples faced the wrath of their leader after the actor’s VIP bungalow at Gold Base was badly damaged in a mudslide caused by heavy rains. It was an act of God, but as Scientologists don’t believe in God, David Miscavige blamed the Sea Org for not having proper flood procedures in place. He placed hundreds of Sea Org disciples in a severe ethics condition of “Confusion” as punishment, with gangs of Scientologists working around the clock to repair the damage. “Quite a few people left as a result because they thought he was crazy,” recalls Shelly Britt.

At the time, Tom was probably unaware of the severe punishment meted out to fellow Scientologists, just as Nicole would not have been enlightened about Scientology’s unbending hostility toward men like her father. As Sea Org disciples worked day and night to restore Tom and Nicole’s luxury quarters to its previous pristine condition, the couple flew by private jet to Sydney to meet her father and other family members. Vainly, Nicole tried to dampen the inevitable speculation about wedding bells. “All that talk about us being engaged is just nonsense,” she told one Australian magazine. “I’d like to get married one day but I think it would be very foolish to do so at this stage of my life.”

A month later they announced their betrothal, Tom buying her a diamond engagement ring costing a reported $260,000. His proposal was in keeping with the way he had wooed the Australian actress, Tom leaving a note on the pillow in her
bedroom that said: “My darling Nicole, I chased you and chased you until you finally caught me. Now will you marry me?”

Almost immediately Tom’s assistant Andrea Morse and sister Lee Anne DeVette were dispatched to locate a suitable wedding location, eventually finding and renting a $2 million, six-bedroom timber house with spectacular views over the Rockies in the town of Telluride, a former Colorado mining town turned winter playground for the stars. On Christmas Eve 1990, with the house filled with flowers, including a willow arbor laced with white lilies and red roses, Nicole, wearing a 1930s antique brocaded gown she bought in Amsterdam, joined Tom for a simple Scientology wedding service. His auditor, Ray Mithoff, officiated; Nicole’s sister, Antonia, was maid of honor; Dustin Hoffman was best man; and guests included David and Shelly Miscavige, Gelda Mithoff, Greg Wilhere, and Nicole’s friend, actress Deborra-Lee Furness. The event was choreographed and orchestrated by Miscavige, who arranged for two Scientology chefs and other Sea Org disciples to cater and care for the newlyweds and their guests. While the wedding planning had been cloak-and-dagger, Tom and Nicole were keen to let the world into their little secret, the actress calling a radio station in Sydney two days after her wedding to say that she was now married and “blissfully happy.”

A few weeks later, the imperious über-agent Mike Ovitz, head of Creative Artists Agency, and Tom’s agent, Paula Wagner, hosted a celebration dinner in honor of Tom and Nicole. Alongside the movers and shakers of Hollywood at the DC3 restaurant in Santa Monica were the upper echelons of Scientology. Here was Mike Ovitz, then the most powerful man in Hollywood, rubbing shoulders with the most powerful man in Scientology, David Miscavige. Sandwiched between this collision of entertainment and religion sat Tom Cruise. It was a symbol of sorts.

The wedding gift from Dustin Hoffman and his wife, Lisa, was unusual but appropriate—his-and-hers tenpin bowling balls. Ever the competitive couple, Tom and Nicole had recently developed a passion for the game, but it was a while before they could continue their sporting duel. As with his first marriage to Mimi Rogers, there was no opportunity to enjoy a honeymoon; four days after her Christmas Eve wedding, Nicole headed to North Carolina to finish filming
Billy Bathgate,
a period gangster movie in which she was starring alongside Tom’s best man, Dustin Hoffman.

It was also some time before Nicole was able to enjoy the wedding gift from David and Shelly Miscavige. When Tom confided to the Scientology leader about the couple’s fantasy of running through a meadow of wildflowers together, his friend apparently decided to make his dream come true. A team of twenty Sea Org disciples was set to work digging, hoeing, and planting wheat grass and wildflower seed near the Cruises’ bungalow. Former Scientologist Maureen Bolstad recalled working until early in the morning in the mud and pouring rain. “It was an emergency project so that Tom could have his fantasy come true. I felt it was strange that we were doing a special favor for him—I was supposed to be a religious worker.”

Naturally the work was regularly inspected by David and Shelly Miscavige, who would ride over to the site on his
motorbike. They were apparently unhappy with the finished appearance and had the area plowed over and reseeded. These days the Scientology leadership is remarkably coy about the incident, Mike Rinder, head of Scientology International’s Office of Special Affairs flatly denying that the wildflower planting ever occurred. Other witnesses, some who have signed legal affidavits attesting to the truth of their accounts, dispute this. As Karen Pressley, a friend of both David and Shelly Miscavige, recalls, “The story of the meadow for Tom and Nicole is absolutely true. I was there.”

Perhaps thinking of the great movie pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Tom gave his new wife a wedding present money could not buy—the role of leading lady in his new movie, a rollicking romantic adventure eventually titled
Far and Away
. Even though director Ron Howard had never seen Nicole perform, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. For nine years the director of such movies as
Cocoon
and
Splash
had been nursing the project, which was based on the life of his great-grandfather, who’d left Ireland to join in the Great Land Rush of 1893. More in hope than expectation, Howard had sent Tom the script months beforehand, so he was surprised when Tom agreed to star in the story of a brawling Irish laborer who heads west to seek his fortune and finds love in the shape of a spirited landowner’s daughter.

Tom’s involvement effectively green-lighted the project, and at twenty-eight, he was not shy about imposing his authority. Just as Howard agreed to Tom’s choice of leading lady—as well as a reported $10 million fee—so did he give his blessing when Tom insisted that Clearsound, the sound system developed by Scientology, be used in the movie. The young star took Howard to Gold Base to give him a demonstration and to work on the production in peace and quiet. Producer Brian Grazer and scriptwriter Bob Dolman arrived later, flown to the compound in a private helicopter. It was an experience that left Dolman somewhat spooked. His Scientology hosts for the day were “so security-conscious,
so military—there was a car waiting for the helicopter, people wearing brown khakis.” Once their script conference was finished, they were entertained by David Miscavige.

Before they left for filming in May 1991, Tom and Nicole stayed at the base to rehearse the parts of the young lovers, Joseph Donnelly and Shannon Christie. It was perhaps as well that they were immersed in filming—the movie was shot on location in Ireland and Montana—for that same month their faith was rocked by the most devastating media broadside in its history. A cover story in
Time
magazine—the same journal that had described the actor as “Tom Terrific” in an earlier profile—accused Scientology of being a “Thriving Cult of Greed and Power” that ruined lives and was little more than a “ruthless global scam.”

In a withering eight-page article, journalist Richard Behar described the church as a “depraved enterprise” involving illegal activities, legal harassment, mental and physical abuse, and tax evasion. Scientology was a “hugely profitable global racket that survived by intimidating members and critics alike in a Mafia-like manner.” In his extensive investigation involving 150 interviews, Behar quoted Cynthia Kisser of the Cult Awareness Network as saying: “Scientology is quite likely the most ruthless, the most classically terroristic, the most litigious and the most lucrative cult the country has ever seen.” If the article was not damning enough, a few weeks earlier, members of the Church of Scientology had gone on trial in Toronto, charged with stealing documents from government offices and law firms, and breach of trust. It was the first time a church had been put in the dock in Canada’s history. The church was found not guilty of the theft charges, but guilty of breach of trust, and was fined $250,000.

The fallout was immediate and widespread. For example, Scientologist Peter Alexander, a former vice president of Universal Studios, had earlier been instructed by the church to ask a movie friend, Tom Pollock, then president of Universal’s Motion Picture Division, to remove a derogatory reference to Scientology from the movie
The Hard Way
. Pollock
reluctantly complied. When he read
Time
, Pollock immediately called Alexander and told him never to ask him for another favor on behalf of Scientology.

Realizing the damage to recruitment and existing membership, Miscavige launched an aggressive $3 million counterattack, claiming that the Church of Scientology was the victim of a bizarre and complicated plot involving the cult’s bête noire, the drug industry. A subsequent libel action against
Time
was comprehensively defeated. Nonetheless, when Miscavige visited Tom and Nicole on the film set in Ireland in July to celebrate Tom’s twenty-ninth birthday, he was prepared, if asked, to deliver a coherent rebuttal of Behar’s thesis and soothe any concerns expressed by the Hollywood couple.