Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

by Lawrence Wright

IN AN EFFORT to lighten the mood, several of the crew made up a comic skit and gave a video of it to Hubbard. He was offended; he was sure they were mocking him. “He was shouting at the TV,” one of his executives recalled. “He sent the Messengers to find the names of everyone involved.” One of the perpetrators of the skit was a cocky young camera operator named David Miscavige. Only seventeen years old, Miscavige had already been marked as a rocket within the church. He spent his early years in Willingboro, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia; it was one of the mass-produced Levit-towns built in America after World War II. He and his older brother, Ronnie, played football in a children’s league for a team called the Pennypacker Park Patriots. Despite his athleticism, David was handicapped by his diminutive size and severe bouts of asthma, which caused numerous trips to the emergency room.