backgrounder
Andrew Morton, best-selling biographer of
Tom Cruise, says some Scientologists believe the actor's daughter with
Katie Holmes carries the spirit and maybe even the DNA of the sect's founder, L. Ron Hubbard. What else do adherents believe? Despite the fuss around Tom Cruise's manic Scientology video,
published here, I didn't have the patience to go through all the background material. (Some of Scientology's critics are even more rabid, and paranoid, than the sect's zealots.) But there's a solution: the
South Park's episode, in which one character is briefly lured into the cult, is still up on the web, although Tom Cruise forced the cartoon show's owner Viacom to stop airing the episode on television.
In this excerpt, Stan learns Scientology's extraordinary doctrine: that human beings are haunted by the souls of frozen aliens, captured and brainwashed by the evil galactic overlord, Xenu. Bonus fact: Mark Ebner, the Hollywood investigative reporter who first leaked the Tom Cruise video, consulted on this South Park episode. Though it's a cartoon, and mocking in tone, this is a pretty accurate summary of Scientology's far-fetched central narrative.
And, blessedly, it's short.
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tom cruise
The Church of Scientology, and
Tom Cruise, the organization's most prominent evangelist, are both notoriously litigious. The sect's founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, wrote in a 1955 magazine article, "The purpose of a lawsuit is to harass and discourage rather than to win." At the peak in the 1990s, according to the St. Petersburg Times, the organization spent $30m in one year on legal action, in part to win tax-exempt status as a religion, but also to parry and tire its many critics. So it's hardly surprising that the Scientologists' lawyers would at least threaten a huge lawsuit against the author of
this week's controversial new biography of Tom Cruise, which also exposes many of the sect's most embarrassing secrets. Nor that Gawker Media has received a copyright infringement notice. Below, the request to remove clips posted to Gawker and Defamer as part of our coverage of the Tom Cruise biography; and, after that, Gawker's refusal to comply. (
And here's the video the Scientologists want to suppress, of the Hollywood star's wild-eyed claims that Scientologists are "the authorities on the mind and.. the way to happiness".)
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books
The Church of Scientology has disseminated a detailed response to
Andrew Morton's unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, the Hollywood star and, according to Morton, the sect's number two in all but name. Let's look at the Scientologists' strongest contention. "For the last two years, the Church of Scientology requested to be interviewed or be presented with any allegations so we could respond. Morton refused despite our insistence in offering our cooperation. At no time did he request interviews nor did he attempt to get any information from us." True?
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quote of the day
"To understand
Tom Cruise, you have to understand Scientology. I've done it not in a way that is adversarial, but as a biographer. I want to understand what makes Tom Cruise tick. I am doing no more than responsible journalism, responsible writing." (Oh, and Cruise biographer
Andrew Morton also threw in a story about Katie Holmes' impregnation by L. Ron Hubbard's sperm.)
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andrew morton
Andrew Morton hits the talk shows today to promote
his unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, the actor and Scientology pin-up boy. Excerpts from the book are up on MSNBC but — more interesting — are the
Church of Scientology's talking points. The release rebuts Morton's most sensational claims: that the Hollywood star is the number two of the church, or cult (whichever you prefer); that the church planted a field of flowers for Cruise and his new wife, Katie Holmes, to run through; or that Katie Holmes may have been impregnated with the sperm of L. Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics and the bizarre religion's founder. Whom to believe?
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biographies
Andrew Morton's new "
Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography" is filled with interesting tidbits about the maniacal Scientologist and professional short person. What are some of the salient plot points? Well, for one, Tom Cruise Is Not Gay. Or so Morton's sources say. One class-act whom Miss Cruise dated in high school says "I was black and blue from the gearshift." (Ew.) But more enlightening are the eyewitness testimonies that, gasp!, Tommy was uncomfortable around gay men! He stormed out of a production of the musical
La Cage aux Folles! And he apparently wasn't too keen on hanging out with ex-wife Nicole Kidman's geigh friends, "much preferring the company of jocks," Morton says. Ahem.
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