Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology
Page 6
An hour later, John called me on the intercom and said, “Is that letter ready to be signed?”
Looking at the catastrophe that was the letter (I had used about half a bottle of Wite-Out), I knew I couldn’t show it to him. So, as I walked into his office and looked at him sitting behind his big wooden desk, I said, “John, I lied to you. I can’t type,” and I started to tear up.
“Honey, you lied about typing? Why?”
“Because you are from Chicago and I just really wanted to work for you and I…”
“Leah, you are too cute.”
John fired me.
As his secretary.
He did offer me another job as his personal assistant. My first task was to go up to his house on Mulholland Drive and bring his shirts to the cleaners. Easy enough. But I was bewitched by his Greek wife, Valerie, with her blond hair and her long, pretty nails. Valerie was also from New York, and she laughed at everything I said. She was always pinching my cheeks and saying, “You are so cute.” Who wouldn’t be smitten? It was hard to believe hours had gone by.
John fired me.
As his assistant.
And hired me as his accounts receivable person, where I was given a crash course in getting people to pay their bills. While I may have failed him as a secretary and an assistant, I quickly learned the art of manipulating people into paying their bills on time, all the while using church tactics to find their weaknesses and prey on them.
When I wasn’t working I would hang out with a bunch of kids around Nic’s and my age whose parents were Sea Org members, but who themselves no longer wanted anything to do with the Sea Org and Scientology. As mentioned, in Scientology, minors are considered spiritual beings and not children in need of protection and guidance. You are the only one responsible for the condition of your life, regardless of your age. The Sea Org members believed that their kids could make up their own minds. As a result, these kids could no longer live with their parents, most of whom had berthing in the Blue Buildings. Even if that meant they ended up practically squatting, or sleeping in a stranger’s apartment, their parents felt that it was the child’s decision to make. They weren’t running away from a home where a mother and father worried about them.
Nicole and I were compassionate and we hung out with these kids. They got us—meaning they knew the ways of Scientology even if they chose to leave it—and we, like them, had basically said “Fuck you” to Sea Org, if not to Scientology. Shouldn’t we be friends with these people and set a good example for others?
So with everyone basically left to their own devices, some kids lived with other regular Scientology parishioners in the neighborhood. Others buddied up and moved into their own apartments with one Scientology kid or kids old enough to sign a lease. Or kids lived with complete strangers if need be.
We spent our days working, our evenings going on course, and our nights together smoking, playing gin rummy, and scrounging for jobs, even food. Hanging out in front of Hannon’s (which was a local mini-mart) at the corner of Edgemont and Fountain, we formed a tight-knit community.
We were children trying to be adults. Whenever we met someone who was struggling in his or her life—be it with drugs or alcohol or other addictions—we were convinced we could save them with Scientology. It didn’t matter if they were twice our age or battling demons we couldn’t begin to understand; we thought we had the knowledge and skills to help!
During this time I wavered between acting like a typical teenager and like someone who thought she was a spiritual being. I carried on with my friends and partied and drank thinking, I have all the answers in the world, nothing’s going to harm me. I would walk in at three in the morning after a night out and hear my mother say, “What the fuck? Why is it okay to come in at three a.m.?”
“Who cares?” I would say.
“I care. You still live under my roof.”
One morning my mother found me at home instead of on course. She asked why I wasn’t at church. I told her that I had been drinking and so I couldn’t go on course (Scientology policy states that you are not allowed to be on course within twenty-four hours of drinking). She started yelling at me and I laid into her about how I work, I go on course, am I a spiritual being or not? According to Scientology we are all equals. “What, are you going to wait for my body to turn twenty-one?” I tried to use Scientology against her and she responded less as a Scientologist and more as a mom: “Don’t use that shit against me, Leah. I’m still your mother.”
Later that day, she filed a Knowledge Report on me. When I showed up on course the day after that, my supervisor summoned me almost immediately, took out an Ethics routing form, and wrote my name on it. It was a printed form that directed me to proceed to the Ethics office.
I had fucked up. I was off to see an MAA, who was just one of a whole network of Ethics Officers in Hollywood, working in concert to investigate and make sure everyone was in-ethics. In other words, they were on our shit. The only thing required of us was that we stay on course, and the only people we had to answer to were Scientology officials.
“What’s happening?” asked the MAA, a heavyset woman with curly black hair. “Why didn’t you make it to course yesterday?”
“Oh, I was tired.”
But the MAA didn’t buy it, and she employed an investigative technique called “pull a string.” The piece of string sticking out represents something that doesn’t make sense—like the idea that I wouldn’t come to course because I was tired. Further questioning is pulling on the string—finding out why I was tired. And this MAA was going to keep pulling until she got to the bottom of it.
“Why were you tired?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Were you out late?”
“What’s late to you?”
“What’s late to you?”
“Um, like, two a.m.”
“What do you do until two a.m.?”
“Hang out.”
“Does hanging out mean doing drugs?”
“No.”
“Is anyone who you are hanging out with doing drugs?”
“I don’t know.” I was starting to grow more anxious.
“Well, because you can’t be connected to that, right? So if you’re connected to that, see how that has a domino effect in your life? You didn’t make it to course, right? Things don’t just happen. Everything has a cause and effect.”
“I didn’t do drugs. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Good, because they are the single most destructive element to a person’s spiritual and mental well-being.”
“I drank!”
The MAA sat back and looked me straight in the eye. It wasn’t accusatory but instead kind of calming.
“Good, so who else was involved?” she asked.
I quickly reverted from peaceful back to worried; I didn’t want to get my friends in trouble.
As if she could read my mind, the MAA said, “It’s not about tattling, Leah. You know what the policy says. You’re not narcing on them; you’re helping them. Is it great that they’re staying out and getting drunk till two in the morning?”
“No, I guess not.”
“So what’s the greatest good here? It’s to tell the truth. And if we all did that, we’d all be helping each other to live a better life. It’s about not being a wog” (a term for non-Scientologist, short for “Well and Orderly Gentleman”). Wogs are considered to be ignorant and unenlightened and to be avoided for their lack of priorities.
The MAA scribbled as quickly as the names rolled off my tongue. She was connecting the dots for a Knowledge Report. Every person I mentioned would be routed to Ethics. But I didn’t feel guilty. Not only had I given up what I had done, but I was helping my friends. I made a vow to myself to be a better person.
I’m going to be good.
I’m going to be on course.
Chapter Five
IT DIDN’T TAKE LIVING IN L.A. for long before I realized that you didn’t need actually to be in anything to say you were an actor. I would meet people all the time who said, “I’m an actor.”
“What are you in?”
“Well, right now I’m in the fry station at McDonald’s.”
I got it: You didn’t have to do shit to be an actor. You didn’t even have to necessarily believe in yourself. You just had to have the confidence to say it out loud.
An acting job represented a way out of poverty for my family and me. It’s a dream a lot of people have when they come to L.A., but I felt particularly responsible to change our living conditions for the better. After we slept on my mom’s friend’s floor in Hollywood for a while, we moved into a house on Los Feliz and Edgemont that looked like a mansion from the outside but inside was a dump. Nicole and I had to sleep in the dining room. We had no money for furniture. My sister had two jobs—everyone was working so hard to contribute toward our food, housing, and Scientology. It was an exhausting life, and all I could think about was moving us up and out. I also felt I had to be something bigger than a Sea Org member to ever regain respect after being a deserter, so I thought the only way to do so was to become a celebrity, or what Scientology calls an Opinion Leader (one who is persuasive and whose opinion matters).
If I wanted to do more than just call myself an actor, I needed an agent. Even I knew that. So I talked to Sherry, who was now dating actress Juliette Lewis’s brother Lightfield, about getting me an agent.
Sherry had left Flag and the Sea Org about a year after I did, returning home to D.C., where she got a part-time job at a copy shop and did some door-to-door sales. She wasn’t in school, and she and her mother weren’t getting along. We kept in touch and I knew how unhappy she was, so I told her to come meet me in New York when I went back to visit my dad, and once there, I convinced her to come live with us in L.A.
George, whom my mom had now married, partitioned off a room within our living room for her, and I got her a job waitressing at New York George’s and then at John’s printing company.
Sherry was eager to help me, and as promised, Lightfield introduced me to an agent, albeit a children’s agent.
Natalie Rosson was everything I expected her to be. An older lady with coiffed blond hair, a lot of bracelets, and an office in the valley.
“So, do you have any experience?”
“Nah. Zero, but I was taw-king to my friend who…”
“Well, you need to lose that accent.”
“Totally.”
“I’m not going to sign you just yet because you’re a little…right-off-the-boat. I’ll send you out on a few auditions to see how you do. But don’t run around saying I’m your agent.”
“No problem, Nat!”
“And don’t call me Nat.”
“Yep.”
My first audition was for a soap opera. Lightfield talked to me about what to expect. He knew a lot about the business from his family. His sister would later go on to success with films such as Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers. Their dad, Geoffrey Lewis, was a veteran TV and film character actor and a big Scientologist. Lightfield explained that I needed to get the “sides”—the portion of the script I would be expected to perform at the audition—so that I could familiarize myself with the material.
In the soap opera audition, one of my lines was, “Do you think I’m a whore?” In my Brooklyn accent “whore” sounded like “hoo-wha.”
Pointing to the line, the casting director asked, “What is this word you are saying?”
“Hoo-wha?” I asked.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a girl who has sex with guys for money.”
“No, I’m asking in what language are you attempting to speak?”
I laughed. She did not.
My non-agent Natalie called and had these words to say: “It is not going any further.”
I said, “I don’t know what that means. Are we breaking up?”
“No, I am telling you you didn’t get the part.”
Next I was sent to see Bob Corff, one of the top voice coaches in the business. After we had worked together for one session, Bob said, “You know, I’m going to go against what your agent is saying. I think you should keep your accent. Your personality is going to get you where you want to go, and your accent is part of that.”
“Bob,” I said, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
Natalie next set up a meeting with a casting director named John Levey. He would go on to cast a number of popular shows like China Beach and ER. But most importantly for me, at the time he was casting Head of the Class, the ABC sitcom about a class of kids in an honors program at a public high school in Manhattan. My plan was this: Get on the show, meet Brian Robbins, who played the character Eric, have him fall in love with me. He was from Marine Park, Brooklyn, which was just a couple of miles along Kings Highway from Bensonhurst. So it was destiny; we’d get married and be a power celebrity couple who never forgot our roots.
During this time I had been working at Survival Insurance, a Scientologist-owned company, where I assisted insurance brokers. I headed out at lunch and spent money that was supposed to be for my car payment on a cute mini and a white tee at the five-dollar store and a brand-new pair of skippies from the Payless next door. I figured that once I got the part on Head of the Class, I would make all the payments that I had missed on my new car. So it would all work out. I drove over to the Warner Bros. lot to meet John Levey. Not knowing how it worked, I assumed that once he approved me, I would be sent to the set to marry Brian—I mean, to work on the show.
This was my second audition and my agent had not given me any sides. Instead I planned to charm John with my whole tough-girl shtick, turning into a full-on cuginette as soon as I got in front of him. With my Brooklyn accent thicker than usual, my hands waving all around, and a lot of “fucks” sprinkled in, I started talking about how “this one’s a jerk-off and that one’s a jerk-off in Hollywood.”
I had this big casting director laughing at my act, and in my mind the deal was done. Get the director’s chair ready with my name written on the back. I was in!
“You’re adorable,” John said. “Go outside for a minute to look at the sides, and then come back in to read.”
“Oh, there’s more to this?”
“Yeah, honey. You’ve got to audition.”
I was confused. I thought that I had been auditioning. But I didn’t say anything. I walked out into the lobby only to return to the room a few minutes later.
As I started reading the sides with John, I became a different girl. My smile wobbled, my hands shook so badly that the script made a rustling noise, and my voice cracked. I went from sassy to loser in two seconds flat. It was like having an out-of-body experience. I could see it happening to me, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
The audition did not last long.
“You are so damned cute. You’re just a little new at auditioning, so I am not having you come back tomorrow for producers because you are very green. Don’t worry, though. I know you now, and I’m going to keep you in my pocket. I’m going to call you. I promise.”
But I did worry. I walked out of the studio defeated. I had blown it. My big chance to be an actress, marry Brian/Eric, and be a big star in my family’s eyes and to the church, to get out of poverty and live happily ever after was squashed. As well as be on TV. Oh. And make that car payment. Or payments.
—
BUT BY THE TIME I got to my car, parked across the street in the Taco Bell parking lot, I was back to being a fighter.
Fuck that.
I called
Information from the Taco Bell pay phone and asked for the Warner Bros. casting department. “Hi,” I said when I got the secretary for John Levey’s office on the line. “I was just there. I’ve got to tell John something. Can I just talk to him real fast?” Miraculously, she put me through.
“What’s up?” he asked, and I began crying.
“I’m sorry I was so nervous. I didn’t know. Like, I thought I already had the job. I can do better. Please, give me another chance, I was nervous, not prepared…”
I don’t know if it was because I was crying so hard and he felt sorry for me or what, but John said, “Okay, come back tomorrow at four. There’s a producers’ session. Maybe you’ll do better.”
Oh, I’d definitely do better. I thanked John for the second chance, told him I wouldn’t let him down, and then called my agent’s office, where I left word with her assistant about what had happened.
I was pretty pleased with myself until later that day when I got a call from my agent screaming at me.
“If you ever harass a casting director again—,” she yelled.
“Wait a minute. He told you I harassed him?”
“You listen to me. You don’t call them directly. That’s not the way it’s done here in Hollywood. Got it? If you pull a stunt like this again, I am going to drop you so fast.”
John Levey was the biggest jerk-off in the history of Hollywood. For him to call my agent and say I was harassing him after he told me how fucking cute I was? When I made it big, I was going to thank John Levey for being such an asshole. Publicly, while accepting an Emmy. I had it all planned out: “And lastly, I would like to thank John Levey, jerk-off of all jerk-offs, for being a two-faced…”
I was at work the next day when the phone rang around five in the afternoon.
“Survival Insurance. This is Leah. Can I help you?”
“Leah, it’s John Levey. Why didn’t you show up to your appointment?”
I didn’t even let him finish his sentence before I started in.