Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

parts. Clearly his dyslexia was not that “mislabeling” by a psychologist that he
would now have the world believe.
Although he was diagnosed with a learning difficulty early in his academic
career, by the time he was a teenager he seems to have been coping well enough
not to need any special help. The care and support that he received from his
mother and the special-education teachers at Robert Hopkins had helped him go
a long way to overcoming his problems—a full twelve years before L. Ron
Hubbard became a part of his life.

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When he reached the seventh grade, Tom moved from Robert Hopkins to
Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa. His homeroom teacher, Byron Boucher,
taught him in a variety of subjects, including English and math. Now retired,
Boucher remembers all the children in that year, and, as far as he is concerned,
Tom Mapother had no special learning difficulties. He was certainly never
classified as needing special services. If he had struggled with reading and
writing, Byron, who later became a special-needs teacher, says that the school
principal would have been informed and necessary remedial action taken. “He
was just an average kid with no learning disability. The description ‘functional
illiterate’ does not fit with my recollection. I can’t believe that story. An illiterate
is someone who cannot read or write, and that is not the case with this student. It
is not true, simply not true.”
According to Boucher, Cruise was at neither the top nor the bottom of the
class, but right in the middle. He was not a special-needs student, simply an
average student. Boucher’s is a common assessment. From middle school to
high school, fellow pupils like Glen Gobel and others use exactly the same
phrase, “middle of the road,” to describe Cruise’s modest academic ability.
Certainly his girlfriends like Nancy Armel and Diane Van Zoeren, who sat
with him at his kitchen table and did homework, never noticed any problem with
reading or writing. When he read scripts with Kathy and Lorraine Gauli, there
was no indication that he was having difficulties. This was, after all, a young
man who could stand in front of his drama coach and his friends and declaim
from the script in front of him.
Perhaps more accurately, the actor’s reading trajectory conforms to scientific
research that has discovered that while dyslexia cannot be cured, it can be dealt
with if caught at a sufficiently early age and a program of remedial education put
into effect. This is precisely what he received at his elementary school, Robert
Hopkins. By the time he reached Henry Munro Middle School, he was no longer
considered to have special needs. As dyslexia is caused by “miswiring” in the
brain, it can effectively “rewire” itself while the young brain is growing. This
process is more difficult when the brain is fully mature—certainly in one’s
twenties, which is when Tom said that Study Tech helped him.
Rather than floundering for years among teachers who “didn’t have the tools
to really help me,” Cruise seems to have been fortunate to encounter a series of
dedicated teachers—as well as a caring mother—who intervened early and
effectively, so that he was able to cope on his own from middle school on.
Of course, the plain fact that conventional teaching works does nothing to
help the cause of Scientology or further their applications for tax breaks and
government funding for their educational programs. Therefore, history had to be

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rewritten: Tom owed everything to Scientology.
The new gospel according to Cruise has not gone without criticism. The
International Dyslexia Association has publicly attacked the actor’s assertions.
As executive director J. Thomas Viall commented, “When an individual of the
prominence of Tom Cruise makes statements that are difficult to replicate in
terms of what science tells us, the issue becomes what other individuals who are
dyslexic do in response to such a quote unquote success story. There is not a lot
of science to support the claim that the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard are
appropriate to overcoming dyslexia.”
Once again, Cruise brushed aside such criticism, utterly convinced of his
superior knowledge. As he was to say time and again, he had done the reading.
But that reading was invariably works by L. Ron Hubbard; to explore further
would have been heresy. In the hermetically sealed universe beginning and
ending with LRH, no other worldview or even point of view is tolerated. It is the
North Korea of religion.
Clearly Tom was comfortable in this country of commitment. In January
2004, not only did he become a gold-level “Patron Meritorious” for donating $1
million to his faith, he reached the exalted level of Operating Thetan VII, where
Hubbard promised that man would become his own god. It meant that several
times a day Tom clutched his E meter and scoured his body in search of dead
spirits. The questioning routine was similar to earlier levels, except that the
spirits were harder to discover and eliminate.
The process puts practitioners into a self-induced hypnotic trance that can
disconnect them from reality. As former Scientologist Peter Alexander, who
reached OT VII, observes, “You believe that all your problems are due to these
thetans. So when you come back into reality, you’re like, ‘Wow, this is a nice
day, my dog’s been killed but that doesn’t matter, I realize that I am a being who
has lived endlessly contacting all these long-lost body thetans. So nothing is
really a problem.’ That is the behavior that you can see in Tom Cruise.”
Cruise was seething with Scientology, totally immersed in his faith. He was
physically surrounded by Scientologists, intellectually and emotionally
cocooned, seeing the rest of the world through Hubbard’s ideological prism. Not
only did he know all the answers, but in his universe there was no room for
nonbelievers, dissenting voices, or even the mildest criticism. Writer Neil
Strauss from Rolling Stone magazine, which always gave him flattering
coverage, was taken aback by the ferocity of Tom’s response when he asked him
about his faith. “Some people, well, if they don’t like Scientology, well, then,
fuck you.” Then, his face reddening, he rose from the table and jabbed a finger at
the imaginary enemy: “Fuck you.”

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As Tom approached the dark heart of Hubbard’s universe, there was
absolutely no place for those Scientologists deemed Suppressive Persons or
Potential Trouble Sources. Just as many ordinary Scientologists had sacrificed
their personal relationships, shunning wives, husbands, children, brothers, and
sisters for their faith, so Tom had little hesitation in disconnecting from his
longtime publicist, Pat Kingsley, and his girlfriend Penélope Cruz when it
became clear that Penélope could not bring herself to join his organization.
Significantly, the ax fell on Pat Kingsley on March 13, 2004, the anniversary
of L. Ron Hubbard’s birth, the Hollywood actor replacing her with his sister and
ardent Scientologist Lee Anne DeVette. Like so many of his partings,
professional and emotional, it was cold and clinical. “If I don’t feel that [my
people] are doing what I need from them . . . hey, I fire them!” he later
commented. For fourteen years Kingsley had been his shield and iron fist,
ruthlessly protecting him from overexposure and unnecessary intrusion. What
Slate magazine had called his “Teflon-coated persona” was almost entirely due
to Kingsley.
It is commonly believed in Hollywood that the first cracks in their relationship
came in the fall of 2003 when Tom, fresh from his lobbying work in
Washington, was gearing up to publicize his latest movie, The Last Samurai.
Feeling that his proselytizing was harming his image and detracting from the
films he was supposed to be selling, she came to an informal agreement with
CAA, his management agency, and one of Tom’s close friends that they would
sit him down and let him know that they thought he had gone too far. When they
did eventually sit down, it was only Kingsley who spoke out. As one Hollywood
insider observed, “From that moment she was doomed.”
Kingsley paid the price for saying what many in Hollywood had privately
thought for some time. As a senior entertainment industry executive observed,
“When he started to use his platform to spew personal opinion, he immediately
allowed himself to be questioned. You can’t have it both ways. Suddenly
everyone has the right to lash back.
“Pat Kingsley did a fantastic job; she sheltered him, his public persona was
carefully crafted, but now that the veneer is down and he strongly believes in
something the rest of us think is odd, he comes off as self-righteous.”
At the same time that he was dissolving a professional partnership, he was
saying good-bye to the woman widely thought to be his future bride. Much as he
had tried to woo the Spanish actress to join his faith, his three-year love affair
with Penélope Cruz came up against an unexpected roadblock—her father,
Eduardo. In the early days of their romance in 2001, Eduardo had given the
couple his blessing. But it was a mixed blessing, the Madrid retailer telling local

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journalists that he had to be “110 percent sure” that the twice-married actor
would stick around. “Tom is a nice guy, but I have to make sure he loves my
daughter enough for life.”
While Penélope studiously read Scientology texts, attended auditing courses,
and, according to at least one report, even took the Purification Rundown, she
was never entirely committed. “I have great respect for all religions, but I do not
intend to join any of them at the moment,” she said tactfully. She did, however,
join Tom’s diplomatic mission to spread the Scientology gospel in Europe and
was by his side during his lobbying campaign in Washington during the summer
of 2003.
It seems that Eduardo Cruz became increasingly alarmed by his treasured
daughter’s involvement with a group that concerned the Spanish government.
Eduardo’s alarm over his daughter’s well-being was entirely in character. For
example, when a Spanish TV host announced that Penélope was pregnant out of
wedlock with Tom’s baby, he was quick to defend her reputation and that of her
family. Now he spent time trawling the Internet for information about
Scientology but did not know where to turn for advice. He was concerned that
his famous daughter could be drawn into what he considered a cult—and, like so
many others, be lost to him and his family forever. Eventually he e-mailed an
organization devoted to helping cult members and their families. It was only
after a long exchange of correspondence that officials realized that they were
dealing with Penélope Cruz’s father. Even today, they are reluctant to identify
themselves publicly, lest it discourage other families or those who are trying to
escape from Scientology from making contact.
Family versus faith. It is an implacable dilemma that many committed
Scientologists have confronted with much heartache and sorrow. For Penélope,
family had always come first. A ring given to her by her grandmother is one of
her most prized possessions, and the actress returns often to Madrid to see her
family. “We are very strict about that, about not letting anything interfere with
having time for the family,” Penélope has said. “We are always here for each
other, all of us. We know we can count on the rest so we always find the time.”
Whatever family sentiment—or disapproval—was expressed about Penélope’s
attachment to Tom Cruise and Scientology, it became immaterial in December
2003. While Penélope was filming the Italian movie Non ti muovere, her father
suffered a heart attack, his daughter rushing to his bedside in Madrid. The six
weeks she spent in Spain as her father recuperated seem to have grounded her
again in her family and her Catholic faith. In the new year she was noticeably
absent when Tom attended the Golden Globes, where he was nominated for his
performance in The Last Samurai, and later in January 2004 when he appeared

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on Inside the Actors Studio, a TV show intended to showcase the interviewee’s
achievements in front of an adoring audience. It seemed that the most important
man in her life was in Madrid.
The couple announced their breakup in March 2004. It was an “amicable”