Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

CHAPTER 10
It was Michael LaForte’s thirty-ninth birthday, and normally he took the day off
to play golf or go fishing. For once he decided to head into the office. He
ordered his usual large coffee—milk and one sugar—from Bill Schamber’s stand
on the train platform in Middleton, New Jersey, before the hour-long ride into
Manhattan. As Bill poured the coffee, they chatted about the wonderful weather.
It was such a glorious morning that Bill had already decided to shut his stand
early and go fishing. Michael was tempted, but kept to his plan—to leave work
early and have a birthday party with his two young children and pregnant wife,
Fran, at their home in Holmdel, New Jersey.
He never made that birthday party. At 8:46 on the morning of September 11,
2001, Michael was in his office on the 105th floor of the North Tower of the
World Trade Center when American Airlines Flight 11 ripped into the building,
some fifteen floors down from where he was sitting. At 8:51, Michael phoned
home, leaving a farewell message on the answering machine. He told his wife,
who was dropping the children at school, that there was no way out. “Franny, I
love you. I love you and the kids. A plane hit the building. I don’t know what’s
going on. I will talk to you. Love you, bye.”
Although his voice was tense, Michael wasn’t the type to panic. Not only had
he spent four years as a captain in the Marine Corps, he had been inside the
World Trade Center during the 1993 bombing. Of the thousands who faced their
fate that day, few would have battled harder to survive than Michael LaForte. He
was an easygoing but totally driven, competitive man who had worked his way
up to the position of vice president at his brokerage firm, Cantor Fitzgerald.
It was an aggressive spirit that Tom Cruise knew well. He and Michael had
been friends since the Glen Ridge days, staying in touch long after his other
high-school buddies had gone their own ways. As young men they had gone
barhopping and carousing together, and when Tom became famous, he took his
friend to the Super Bowl, film premieres, and other Hollywood events. Every so
often, Michael and his wife, Fran, had joined Tom and his then-wife, Nicole, for
dinner, even though Nicole preferred more glamorous friends.
As Michael’s older brother, Sam LaForte, joined Fran in looking for Michael,
he thought about the times when his kid brother and Tom had come running to
him after getting themselves in some scrape. This was different. Like thousands
of others, Sam and Fran walked around New York, looking in hospitals and

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handing out flyers, searching for anything to end the uncertainty. A heavily
pregnant Fran even appeared on NBC TV appealing for information: “You just
want to die. I don’t know where he is. And I know if he made it out of that
building he would have called me up immediately because that’s what he did the
last time. So I know he’s hurt somewhere.”
Days later, Sam LaForte got a call saying that they had found Michael. “They
said he was okay, in the sense that they had found his body intact. It was a kind
of awful closure.”
On September 21, Cruise joined a host of other celebrities in front of 89
million viewers on the “Tribute to Heroes” telethon to raise money for victims of
9/11. Before the program, he nestled on a sofa with his lover, Penélope Cruz.
When his slot came, Cruise delivered a tribute to Father Mike, the New York
Fire Department priest who died during the rescue mission, but made no mention
of his good friend Michael LaForte.
For people who knew Tom, this was a surprise. During the same telethon,
Sting dedicated his song “Fragile” to his friend Herman Sandler, who had been
killed in the attacks. Tom’s failure to make a similar public tribute to Michael
LaForte baffled and angered many in Glen Ridge. His high-school buddy Vinnie
Travisano knew how close Tom and Michael had been. “I soured on him a lot
after that. We watched, waiting for the moment when he would talk about the
loss of his good friend Michael. He never said a word. That blew us all away, all
of us from Glen Ridge who knew him. It would have brought it home for a lot of
people. For Tom not to say anything was so hurtful.” Although he sent flowers
to Fran LaForte and his mother, Mary Lee South, and attended the funeral, Tom
has never publicly acknowledged the loss of his friend.
That said, Scientologists view death in a cold, matter-of-fact way. They call it
“dropping the body,” believing that an individual’s spirit will inhabit another
body at some point in the future. As far as they are concerned, Ron Hubbard,
who died in 1986, will return any day now, hence the construction of lavish
homes around the globe for the dead leader.
While the showman in Michael—his catchphrase was “Life is a cabaret”—
would have loved the fame of a televised tribute, the trauma of 9/11 had
apparently woken something deeper inside Tom. As Sam LaForte reflects, “I
look at life 200 percent differently now; a lot of people do. It doesn’t surprise me
that Tom Cruise was changed.” The feelings of helplessness, confusion, and
disbelief that people around the world experienced after 9/11 did not sit well
with the self-assured conviction by which Tom had always led his life. “After
9/11, I was so angry. I was devastated. I thought, ‘What can I do to help?’ ” he
said later.

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Tom Cruise was not so much a man in mourning as a man incensed, those in
his inner circle witnessing a genuine transformation. From the smoke clouds
over the Manhattan skyline was born Scientology’s most influential advocate.
He later described the moment when he saw the catastrophe: “Once the towers
had gone down and we were faced with the aftermath of their collapse, I could
not get out of my mind that huge cloud billowing across Manhattan.”
When his close friend and Scientology leader David Miscavige called 9/11 a
“wake-up call,” Tom was certainly listening. As one Scientology insider
observed, “I have no doubt Tom Cruise had conversations with Miscavige about
what more he could do to spread Scientology, because obviously time was
running out.” Certainly the events surrounding 9/11 seemed to confirm L. Ron
Hubbard’s apocalyptic worldview. Scientology followers were urged to work
harder, run faster, to save a planet overrun by “merchants of chaos.” They sent
scores of so-called Volunteer Ministers in distinctive yellow shirts to Ground
Zero, to offer “contact assists”—a kind of spiritual massage—to rescue workers,
to recruit new members, and to interfere with the work of mental health
professionals. Such was their persistence that the National Mental Health
Association warned the unsuspecting public that Scientologists were operating at
the site.
Hubbard’s words provided clarity for Cruise, showing him the chaos and evil
in the world’s events from a broader perspective. The vision of time that
Scientology provided was inviting. It removed the uncertainty and the desolation
that presented itself, by revealing the bigger battle that had been running over
several millennia, of which these flashes of devastation were just a part. For
Tom, the days of hiding in the shadows were over; he now saw himself as part of
his faith’s larger purpose. More had to be done by everyone, but on Tom’s
shoulders rested even greater responsibility. With his fame came a duty to bring
Scientology to the masses.
On November 16, 2001, the day that Fran LaForte gave birth to the son who
would never meet his father, Tom sealed the final financial settlement in his
divorce with Nicole. He was now working from a fresh slate, withdrawing into
the intimacy and security of his own family and the family of Scientology. His
sisters and their children moved into his new Hollywood home; his mother was a
regular visitor, and, in time, like Penélope, would start taking courses at the
Celebrity Centre. There was talk that he and Penélope were on the brink of
marriage.
The evidence of 9/11 was matched by the siren calls inside his extended
family. Without any dissenting voice from Nicole, the message from Tom’s

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sister Lee Anne, a dedicated Scientologist, was to rededicate himself to the
church. Scientology had the tools to help him through his marital breakup, the
gay rumors, and the destruction of 9/11. While Tom had always been committed
to his faith, he had never been vocal, at times almost embarrassed by his
association with the organization. In fact, in 1993 his publicist, Pat Kingsley, had
attacked questions about his religion as “un-American.” At that time, he was
indeed questioning his commitment, Scientology leaders working assiduously
behind the scenes to “recover” their high-profile Hollywood star. Now the man
who had spent so long deflecting questions about Scientology was transformed
into a celebrity crusader.
The first indications of his changed perspective came in December 2001,
when Tom was promoting Vanilla Sky, interestingly a story about a wealthy
publishing tycoon who continues his life on Earth after death with the help of the
mysterious Life Extension Corporation. When the subject of 9/11 was broached
during an interview with Vanity Fair, the writer noted with surprise how
Cruise’s whole appearance seemed to change. His voice fell almost to a whisper
and his eyes were “boiling with late-night rap-session intensity,” as he said:
“Things mean something different than they did before September 11. It’s a
responsibility not only for our country but for the entire planet.” In another
conversation, Tom observed, “I think the World Trade Center has kind of ripped
the social veneer off this country.”
During the worldwide publicity for Vanilla Sky, which began in the New
Year, for the first time Tom used his star status to aggressively sell Scientology.
Noticeably, Penélope joined him as they lobbied American ambassadors in
France, Germany, and Spain—all countries hostile to Scientology—to help
advance the cause of “religious freedom.” When the couple arrived in Berlin,
they met with the U.S. ambassador, Dan Coats, lobbying him to urge the
German government, which had placed the sect under police scrutiny, to
legitimize Scientology. After their meeting, Cruise spent nearly an hour signing
autographs and talking to starstruck embassy staff.
This was not the first time Scientology had used celebrities to try to gain a
toehold in what they considered an important market. In January 1997, thirty-
four Hollywood personalities, including Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn, Larry
King, and Oliver Stone, put their names to an open letter to German chancellor
Helmut Kohl, likening the plight of Scientologists in Germany to the persecution
of the Jews under Hitler. The full-page ad, published in the International Herald