“That’s improving civilization,” Archer added.
“Is there some other religion on the horizon that’s going to help mankind?” Jastrow asked. “Just tell me where. If not Scientology, where?”
ANNE ARCHER BEGAN STUDYING with Katselas in 1974, two years after her son Tommy Davis was born. She was the exceptionally beautiful daughter of two successful actors. Her father, John Archer, was best known during the 1930s and 1940s as the voice introducing the radio drama The Shadow. (“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows,” he said at the beginning of the program.) He went on to appear in more than fifty films. Her mother, Marjorie Lord, played Danny Thomas’s wife on the popular television show Make Room for Daddy. With such a bloodline, it might be expected that Archer would be aiming toward stardom, but when she entered the Beverly Hills Playhouse she was coming off a television series (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) that she didn’t respect and that had been canceled after a single season. She was a young mother in a dissolving marriage and an actor with diminishing career prospects.
Katselas had a transformative effect. Like so many others, Archer was magnetized by this ebullient Greek, with his magnificent beard and his badgering, teasing, encouraging, and infuriating personality. He was one of the most inspiring people Archer had ever met. Where had he acquired such wisdom? Some of the other students told her that Katselas was a Scientologist, so she decided to try it out. She began going two or three times a week to the Celebrity Centre to take the Life Repair Program. “I remember walking out of the building and walking down the street toward my car, and I felt like my feet were not touching the ground. I said to myself, ‘My God, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I’ve finally found something that works!’ ” She added, “Life didn’t seem so hard anymore. I was back in the driver’s seat.”
When Tommy was old enough, Archer would bring him to the Playhouse while she was taking lessons. He would wander around the theater, venturing into the light booth and watching his mother learning her craft. Jastrow recalled being struck by Tommy’s poise even as a five-year-old child. “I am a really good dad, and he taught me how,” Jastrow said. He gave the example of a visit from his own parents, who had flown out from Midland, Texas, to meet Terry’s new family. After Jastrow had driven them back to the airport, Tommy said, “I notice that your dad was pretty strict with you.” Jastrow agreed that his father had been very stern when he was growing up. Then Tommy continued, “I was noticing that you’re pretty strict with me.” Jastrow pointed to that as a defining moment in their relationship. “I realized I wanted to be his friend first,” he said. “He was the senior being in that relationship.”
Anne and Terry soon found their way into Scientology, but Tommy was initially raised in his mother’s original faith, Christian Science. His father, William Davis, is a wealthy financier and real-estate developer who was once reported to be among the largest owners of agricultural property in California. He was also a well-known fund-raiser for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and personally contributed an estimated $350,000 a year to Republican causes. Although Tommy grew up in an environment of money and celebrity, he impressed people with his modesty. He longed to do something to help humanity. Scientology seemed to offer a direction.
Paul Haggis met Tommy at the Celebrity Centre in 1989, when he was seventeen years old—“a sweet and bright boy.” Their meeting came at a critical moment in Tommy’s life. He had just broken up with his girlfriend. Archer had taken him to the Celebrity Centre for counseling, where he took a course called Personal Values and Integrity.
Tommy’s presence immediately caused a stir inside the church. The president of the Celebrity Centre, Karen Hollander, fixed on the idea that Tommy should be her personal assistant. He was young, very rich, and handsome enough to be a movie star himself. He had grown up mixing with famous people. It would be a perfect fit. Whenever celebrities came in, there would be Anne Archer’s son. But that required coaxing Tommy to join the Sea Org. Hollander called in the younger members of her staff to woo him. “You can either go to college and get a wog education, or you can join Sea Org and be doing the best service you could ever do for mankind—and for yourself,” John Peeler, Hollander’s secretary at the time, would tell him.