Posted on 06/05/2005 3:21:30 PM PDT by missyme
Is Hollywood's biggest male star losing it? In the past few days, Tom Cruise has been hauled over the coals for allowing his devotion to Scientology to overshadow his film career, ridiculed for a seemingly loopy appearance on Oprah Winfrey's daytime chat show and accused of conducting a sham romance with the younger actress Katie Holmes strictly for publicity purposes.
Ordinarily, such chatter would be no more than background gossip in a town that thrives on gossip, little or none of it substantiated.
But Cruise's recent behaviour has been so spectacularly off-the-wall that it has prompted senior executives at Paramount Studios to call crisis meetings and consider cancelling the third instalment of the Mission Impossible series, due to shoot next month.
One website, Arianna Huffington's newly launched "Huffington Post", reported this week that the film had already been canned. Yesterday's New York Times quoted an executive at Paramount's parent company, Viacom, saying the issue was under active discussion but no decision had been made yet.
The negative buzz surrounding Cruise began earlier this year on the set of his blockbuster, Steven Spielberg's retelling of War of the Worlds, when he insisted on having a Scientology tent on the set. Ordinarily, studios impose a strict ban on religious proselytising during filming, and Cruise only got his way after Spielberg and others intervened.
More recently, Cruise has used press interviews to promote Narconon, a drug rehabilitation programme invented by Scientology's founder, L Ron Hubbard, which has been thoroughly trashed by mainstream drug-addiction experts.
In his Oprah appearance last week, he pranced around the set like a puppy dog, fell to his knees and professed ardent love for Ms Holmes, with whom he has been linked for all of one month. He also rubbished Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants - a big no-no in the Scientology universe - to overcome post-partum depression and intimated that the real problem was the emptiness of her existence.
In all the brouhaha, it has not gone unnoticed that the poster for War of The Worlds bears a distinct resemblance to an L Ron Hubbard book cover, with a fantasy-type image of a clawed Martian hand grabbing Earth in its palm. It is no secret that Cruise, along with a clutch of other Hollywood stars, is a committed follower of Scientology. According to members of the church, he has reached the sixth of eight Operating Thetan levels - he is trusted enough to know almost all of the "secret truth of the universe".
The biggest change may not be religious but star management. Earlier this year he fired his long-standing publicist, Pat Kingsley, and his new team is led by his sister Lee Anne De Vette. After his Oprah appearance, his publicistswere reported to be bombarding him and his sister with calls begging them to "tone it down". His team has denied his relationship with Ms Holmes,who became a star as a teenager in the television show, Dawson's Creek, and is set to appear in cinemas this summer in Batman Begins, was anything other than genuine
Cruise is a strange bird.
That means Cruise can't even levitate.
On a more serious note - actors as a profession have the highest level of adherence to this joke of a religion, followed distantly by lawyers.
He's a moron.
Is this behind the upstairs door in the Zelda 64 game?
You mean you get to a level that they can levitate? themselves or others? Maybe that is the part they try LSD!
Strange hardly describes it.
See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1416912/posts -- some great posts, plus my own review of his Oprah appearance.
as I requested yesterday, I just want the women he's not using when he's trough not using them.
Tom, and for that matter Nicole too, lost me with 'Eyes Wide Shut'. Thanks, but no thanks Tom, Nicole.
John Travolta is a Scientologist. He seems to have a strong family. I at least respect that. Tom has basicly been a relationship shrew since his early career days, excepting the early years of his marriage with Nicole.
LOL! Thanks.
Scientology and Kabballah are the Cults for Hollywood who are afraid to embrace the traditional religions they come from. It truly shows there weak character.
Mel Gibson Denzel Washington-Proud to be Christians
have stable lives. Tom Cruise a nutcase that gets stranger as he gets older
Actress Katie Holmes (raised a Catholic - is talking about switching to Scientology), Cruise's religion of choice. has turned down the role of pop artist Andy Warhol's muse Edie Sedgwick in forthcoming movie Factory Girl--because the character's drug abuse reportedly goes against her boyfriend Tom Cruise's Scientology beliefs. Director George Hickenlooper had lunch with Holmes in Los Angeles last month to discuss the possibility of her replacing Jude Law's fiancee Sienna Miller as Sedgwick, who died of an overdose of barbiturates in 1971.
"Mel Gibson Denzel Washington-Proud to be Christians"
I knew about Mel, of course. Didn't know that about Denzel, I like him even more now. He is some good actor. That scene in "Training Day", where he is explaining to the newbie why it is OK to be corrupt, he really had me going. He had me CONVINCED! And I am a real authority respecting, uncorruptible person. But he was really swaying me. I'll never forget watching that scene. Great stuff.
It's not unlike those on this site who think the rest of us are interested in their religious testifying and pronouncements. Just a different forum. The tragedy is that most religions tell their followers they have to spread the word, whether or not we want to hear it.
I agree MissyMe. Take care.
Wow! That can't be a coincidence!
Some art director's idea of humor? Obedience to his new masters? Tinfoil hat time...
Celebrities are key to the crusade to clear the planet. Hubbard realized in Scientology's early days that the public adores and mimics celebs – not because they're necessarily intelligent or enlightened, but because they're rich and famous. In 1955 – five years after publishing his cornerstone text, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" – he ordered followers to bring stars into the fold, knowing their magnetism would attract ordinary pew-packers.
Nobody who reads it will ever be fooled again.
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