Haggis’s career was going so well that in 1987 he was approached by Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz to write for a new television series called thirtysomething. They were looking for distinctive voices. “I love the fact that you guys are doing a show that’s about emotions,” Haggis told them. “I hate writing about emotions. And I don’t like to talk about my own.” But he seemed to be looking for a chance to push himself creatively. With his first script, Zwick and Herskovitz told him, “This is really good, but where does it come from?” Haggis didn’t know what they meant. “Where does it come from—within you?” they explained. The thought that his own experience mattered was a revelation.
Zwick and Herskovitz sensed that Haggis wasn’t happy on the show; in any case, he got a lucrative offer to create his own series and left after the first season. But he had won two Emmys, for writing and producing, and the experience transformed him as a writer. From working with Zwick and Herskovitz, Haggis became interested in directing. He finally got the chance to do a brief ad for the church about Dianetics. He decided against the usual portrayal of Scientology as a triumphal march toward enlightenment, choosing instead to shoot a group of people talking about practical ways they had used Dianetics in their lives. It was casual and naturalistic. Church authorities hated it. They told him it looked like a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Then, out of the blue, Haggis got a huge break. He did a favor for a friend who wanted to create a new series that would star Chuck Norris, whose career as an action-movie hero had gone into decline. Haggis wrote the pilot for Walker, Texas Ranger, which ran for eight seasons and was broadcast in a hundred countries. Haggis was credited as a co-creator. “It was the most successful thing I ever did,” he said. “Two weeks of work. And they never even used my script.”
With his growing accomplishments and wealth, Haggis became a bigger prize for the church. He agreed to teach a workshop on television writing while he was still the executive producer of Facts of Life, and that brought a number of aspiring scriptwriters into the Celebrity Centre. Then, in 1988, Scientology sponsored a Dianetics car in the Indianapolis 500, and Paul and Diane were invited to attend. Executives from the major book chains were attracted to the Scientology reception by the presence of stars, including Kirstie Alley and John Travolta, and also by the fact that Hubbard’s books have traditionally sold extraordinarily well. B. Dalton ordered 65,000 copies of Dianetics and Waldenbooks asked for 100,000. Dianetics went back on the New York Times paperback best-seller list for advice books, thirty-eight years after it was originally published.
David Miscavige was at the race. It was one of the few times he and Haggis ever met. The organizer of the event, Bill Dendiu, recalled that Miscavige was not pleased that Haggis had been invited. Dendiu defended his decision because Haggis was now a bona fide celebrity. “He has had a string of hit TV shows and by my estimation is a very devoted member of the church,” he told Miscavige. Paul and Diane met Miscavige and other top-level members of the church for dinner. “Paul takes no shit from anybody,” Dendiu recalled. “The fact that he did not suck up to Miscavige—and in fact, had a couple of little zingers or one-liners for him while we were at the dinner—that got me some additional browbeating.” He added: “You have to understand that no one challenges David Miscavige.”
The Dianetics car crashed in the first lap. Paul and Diane flew home in Travolta’s plane, with Travolta himself at the controls.
SUZETTE HUBBARD BLEW in February 1988.
Five years earlier she had met Guy White, a Sea Org marketing executive, on the RPF running program, which at the time was in Griffith Park in Los Angeles—about fifty people running all day long, even after dinner, stuffing themselves on bread and honey to keep themselves going. Suzette was warned by an auditor that Guy was gay. In fact, Guy didn’t know if he was gay or not. When he joined the staff, he had to respond to a questionnaire that asked, “Have you ever been involved in prostitution, homosexuality, illegal sex or perversion? Give who, when, where, what in each instance.” He had never actually had a homosexual relationship and had been celibate for a decade; moreover, it was generally assumed that homosexuality was a false identity, a “valence,” in Hubbard’s language, and that such longings would disappear when he got to OT III.