Lawrence Wright and Sam Wasson: Two Unique Perspectives on Hollywood

Every other week this fall, we will be airing some of Alec’s favorite episodes from our archives. This week features two incredible authors: chronicler of Hollywood legends, Sam Wasson, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning The New Yorker writer, Lawrence Wright. Sam Wasson tackles distinctive creators and seminal moments in Hollywood history, from Blake Edwards and Paul Mazursky, to Audrey Hepburn and the history of improv. Alec loved Sam Wasson’s book, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood. In this fascinating conversation, Wasson tells the story of the four men behind the 1974 film: producer Robert Evans, screenwriter Robert Towne, director Roman Polanski, and star Jack Nicholson  - and how the film was a turning point in each of their lives. Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. Filmmaker Alex Gibney directed an HBO documentary based on Wright's reporting in Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Unbelief. In his in-depth and varied reporting, Wright has documented the Jonestown massacre, explored allegations of Satan worship, profiled brimstone-tinged gospel preachers, and tracked the histories of al-Qaeda and the Church of Scientology.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from I Heart Radio. This week we're featuring two
incredible authors, Sam Wasson, Observer of Hollywood and its artists,
and the Pulitzer Prize winning New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright.
Here's my interview with Sam Wasson. From My guest today

(00:31):
is author Sam Wasson. Whether he's writing about directors such
as Blake Edwards, Paul Mazerski, or the history of improv,
a consistent theme running through Wasson's books is the perseverance
and talent required to make art in Hollywood. His latest book,

(00:51):
The Big Goodbye, is about the seminal film Chinatown. How
Much You Were? How Much you Want? I just want
to know what you're worth? Over ten millions? Yes? Why
are you doing it? How much better can you eat?
What can you buy that you can't already afford? The future?
Mr Gitts the future. This is the love theme from

(01:19):
Chinatown by the film's composer Jerry Goldsmith. In The Big Goodbye,
Wasson chronicles the friendships of the four men at the
heart of the nineteen four classic producer Robert Evans, screenwriter
Robert Town, director Roman Polanski, and the movie star Jack Nicholson,

(01:40):
and what was at stake for each one in making
this definitive film. Sam Wasson grew up in Los Angeles
and fell in love with the movies. Early on. I
was a movie love. It was actually Bullets over Broadway.
I went nuts. I thought, oh, film is not just
dialogue and performance. It's visual component. It's a complete sensual experience.

(02:04):
That Bullets was so beautiful and so funny. It knocked
me out when I saw it. That was the end.
It's the ultimate art form, combining all the other art forms.
You finished film school, yeah, USC First I went significantly.
I went to Wesleyan for film school in Connecticut and
studied with Janine Basinger, who's the Hollywood historian on the planet.

(02:24):
Knows more about Hollywood than anyone ever has I think
ever ever will have. And it's just obvious when you
talk to her, and she really teaches a tour theory
of Hollywood. So I got a deep, four year long
survey of the greatest and there was no deconstruction, there's
no you know, film theory. It's film as film. And

(02:48):
that was my film education. And then I went to
USC which was kind of a bust for what for
film production. I directed one film myself and I just
wouldn't say hate it, but I didn't care for at all.
You know, being responsible for cajoling the work, especially actors.
It's a lot of managing, isn't it. I mean it's

(03:09):
it's as a much managing as art. Whereas if you're acting,
or if you're starring, or if you're writing, there's very
little bullshit that you have to deal with. It's purer.
I think, well, when I was acting and mid that
I directed a film, I remember that when you're when
you make films and you're starring in films, you know,
years ago for me, you could be in your trailer

(03:31):
and they would knock on the door and say, well,
the producer I would like to talk to you, or
the head of the studio is here visiting, he'd like
to talk to you, and I'd say tell him I'm
asleep and just and you could hide in the trailer,
as opposed to when you're directing. You can't do that.
You can't. You have to. They come to work and
they're like, let's let's talk about how you're over over schedule. Here.

(03:53):
That's an amazing thing about directing is that you're you're
really in reality. You're interfacing with reality all the time,
and other art forms you don't. You can be in
your imagination, but when you're making a movie, there's so
much ship that you have to do. You're making a
building from scratch. So you finished, you did four years
at Wesleyan. Yeah, and then you wanted more film school.

(04:13):
And then I and everyone was said, oh, you want
to make movies, you gotta go to film school. You
gotta go to USC. And so I thought, oh, yeah,
at USC. Of course, that's where you know, you go
to Juilliard. If you want to do Lincoln Center, you
go to USC. If you want to do you know,
Man's Chinese. So Wesleyan was more film theory, and USC
it was about film production. Yeah, it was film study.

(04:34):
I mean it was filmed. It was watching movies and
talking about filmmaking. But at what point do you stop
and see you I don't think I'm gonna make movies.
Well I'm not totally convinced that I'm not going to,
but at that moment it was a combination of two things.
I looked around and I saw that my fellow classmates
were completely invested in the Hobbit thing, and I felt

(04:58):
instantly lonely and realized that I was experiencing a microcosm
of what it was gonna look like out in the
real working world. And I thought, you know, maybe the
Hollywood that I grew up in is no longer the Hollywood.
That is the Hollywood that I grew up outside of.
And I was right. And then the book thing just happened.

(05:21):
How it was actually Janine Basinger Wesley and said why
don't you write a book? I never thought of it.
And I picked Blake because I wanted to pick who
I thought was the greatest writer director of comedy alive
who had not been celebrated. Now Blake. My ex wife,
Kim Basinger did a man who loved women with Blake,
and that's when I first met Julie. And you know,

(05:42):
you're so right. I mean, he's so under a pre
I think Victor Victoria is one of the ten funniest
movies I've ever seen in my life. Ever. I love
Victor Victoria. I loved ten. I love a movie he
made that a lot of people probably don't know about,
called What Did You Do? In the War Daddy, Dick Sean,
Dick Sean, and Dick Sewn. I'll just say this, Dick

(06:03):
Seawn is a drag scene in the movie. I mean,
if I don't know what else you need, but but Blake, Blake.
I I always thought that Blake was people look at
slapstick somehow, with the exception of Chaplin, who is revered
as poetic because he is, everyone else looks at slapstick
as this low form. You know, slapstick is dumb, it's

(06:26):
for children, it's childish, And so I think Blake got
a bum rap because of that, and I wanted to
elevate him and say this is sophistic. Someone can fall
off a fucking chair and it's still be nol coward
and that's what Victor Victoria is. Okay, So then you
do after Blake your next book Fifth Avenue five AM. Yeah,

(06:47):
So fifthven and five M is your next books? Why Missurski,
what did he do to you that made you want
to write a home Because to write a book, as
you know, you spending a lot of time in your
life with that person. Yeah, Missouriski was just just love
for the work, enthusiasm for the man who I had
met a couple of times, and actually it ties to Blake.

(07:08):
As much as I loved the work, Blake left me
with such a scar in my heart. Why why he
personally was so sadistic to you? Yeah, sadistic to me,
and he was that way to you as his as
his boswell here it was astonishing. I was young. I

(07:28):
don't know. You could probably tell me how old I was.
I don't remember. I was young. And he would cancel
on me, and I'd be in the car on the
way over and he would cancel on me with not
giving any reason. And then he would call me up
and he would say, you know, get in the car,
come on over. And I would get in the car
and he would cancel on me. It was a real

(07:49):
dance of death. And I finally got in there a
couple of times. But um, it was open hostility. It
was like nothing, and it was a real abusive codependent relationship.
So Missourski is platformed off of Blake. How why? Because

(08:09):
I we're getting into the therapy portion of the conversation.
But of course I blame myself for the way I was,
you know, and I guess I wanted to make sure
I knew how to do this, and then it wasn't
going wrong because of me. And so I wanted to
be with someone that I was comfortable with and obviously idolized,
and those two things dovetailed perfectly. And Paul was nothing

(08:33):
like Blake I take it. Oh, no, Missour's keys. You know,
it turns out people are like their movies. Blake edwards
movies are sadistic and we love them for it, and
Paul's movies are loving and warm and we love him
for it. But because comedy is finally about rage, to

(08:54):
find a nurturing director of comedy and Nichols wouldn't be
would qualify in this case is a rare thing. And
so I'm interested in funny people, and funny people and
good people don't always go together. So to find in
Missouriski funny and mench to the core was a beautiful

(09:16):
thing and is what what his movies are about. Wells
interesting you mentioned Nichols because Nichols is a very good example.
A lot of these big directors I worked with and
had very small parts, you know, Stone, Marty, Woody, Nichols.
I mean, I didn't have leading roles in these films.
And when I worked and I did the movie Working Girl,
one of the first films I did, and I worked
with Mike. You could tell that Mike was someone who

(09:37):
had come through a gauntlet. He had worked his way,
and I don't I don't mean this as a criticism.
He had come through a gauntlet where in the way
that you move through the film business, and you have
and Polanski reminds me of this as well in your book.
Mike was someone who had in the way that you
You'll take the good ideas wherever they come from. You'll
take the good advice wherever it comes from, and you're

(09:59):
going through the jungle if you will. And eventually you
realize that the person you can rely on, the person
has that typically not always maybe, but who typically has
the best ideas is yourself. And you grow to rely
on yourself and you don't want anybody to talk you
out of what you're keen on. That's improvising. That's because
Mike is an improviser. I mean, does that think that?

(10:21):
Why did you write that book? Why did you write
about improv Well? Two reasons. One, I do believe it
is the great American art form. I do believe that,
and the other reason I wanted to meet Elaine. I
wanted to know Elane. I wanted to celebrate Elane because
she created this. She's a national treasure. You're referring to
Elaine May. Yes, she is, as you know, you know,

(10:45):
tough to get a hold of. I wanted to do it.
I didn't do it, and my heart is still not whole.
There's still a dark Elaine part in the heart. It
belongs to her. Describe for me with the relationship between
you spend a good amount of time in the book,
and the relationship between Town and Polanski. So the film
of Chinatown, the shooting script, the scenes that were shot,

(11:09):
and I'm assuming that eventually a script is compiled and
is and is bound if you will, Then is the
shooting script is that more Polanski than Town? Well, Town
obviously generated it, and then Polanski for years he was
generating it. And Town is a very slow writer and
a very expansive writer. I mean he writes big and

(11:31):
then struggles to cut down to structure. So when Polanski
comes in in the last two or so weeks or
a month or whatever it was, Polanski really structures it.
So I guess the answer is yes. So the structure
is Roman, no question about it. But the material is Town.

(11:53):
Now Town who had his writing partner Edward Taylor? And
Taylor was someone described that relationship. Taylor was someone who
did a lot of work uncredited, I think nearly all
of it on Was he ever credited? Did you mention
that in the book? What did he get a credit anywhere?
And not on a Town movie? He got a credit,
a writing credit on a movie called w I Warshowski

(12:15):
Kathleen Turner picture. Edward Taylor got credited for that. Um,
but he never got a writing credit on a Robert
Town movie. UM, never wanted one. Why do you think
that is when you have a guy, here's four men
who are fairly um, I'm not obsessed with success, They're
obsessed with greatness, their legacy. I mean you could you

(12:37):
could find tune all four men. What did they had
something in common? But there was a little bit distinctive
what Nicholson wanted Evan so forth. But for Taylor to
be in the rooms with these people and writing these
seminal films, why do you think he didn't want any credit?
What was it about? Well, there's stated reasons and then
there's unstated reasons. And the stated reasons were, and this
is Taylor either from his own writing or or what

(13:00):
he told to other people, were one, he didn't want
to deal with the bullshit of show business. He just
wanted to punch in, punch out right the scenes, do
the creative work, and not have to deal with the
haggling of the negotiations and and egos and despair and
all that stuff that comes with having your name on something.
There's a certain amount of freedom that you get to say,

(13:21):
no one's going to know that I was here. So
there was that. Then there was the long term friendship
that he had with Town, going all the way back
to their years at Pomona when they were in college.
So he felt a kind of loyalty to Town, which
manifested as subordinating himself to Towns, you know, quite obvious

(13:43):
need to be a star. And then there were all
these speculative secret reasons about secrets that they might have
had on each other. Uh. Then there was of course
Edwards alcoholism and Town really being a support to take aller,
you know, because Taylor got paid for this, and Taylor
in his heart really did believe, you know, these are

(14:06):
Towns movies which they were in so far as town
generated them, and I'm just helping Robert with his movie.
He convinced himself of that that it really was more town.
And also there are people like that who what they
convinced and they have a certain kind of personality. I've
known a couple of myself where through attitude is better
the crumbs off your table than nothing at all. That's it.
That's it. So there's deep pathological stuff that we can't

(14:28):
even get into. But that's the type that you're describing.
But the one thing that you see in this movie
is the death of that studio executive like Evans. You
mentioned a piece of very well known history, the advent
of Jaws and what Jaws does to marketing and films
and how the business old changes in the wake of that.
But you tell it so well, I mean, you tell

(14:50):
it really wonderful. You you make everybody really see the
impact that that once these guys knew there was big
money in them, there are hills. Everything changes. What was
it a about Evans that he wanted to have great
films that made money and one awards. He loved it.
He loved it, He loved show business, He loved movies,
he loved people, he loved talent. It's actually that simple.

(15:15):
I asked him this question. I said, Evans, is it
as simple as you bet on talent? Do you have
an easy job? And he said, you goddamn right. That
was and and and it's true. I mean, if you
have the courage, that's the question. Do you have the
courage to say, yes, I believe you are talented. Here's

(15:38):
the check. Then you're a great studio executive because even
if the movie fails, even if it is a steaming
piece of ship humiliation to everyone on the planet, at
least you go to bed thinking I picked a good guy.
I picked the right people to do that. That's a
pride that what executive can now go to sleep saying that?

(16:00):
You know the Evans is and you mentioned Zanek and
people like that who are running with the studios. Back then,
some of them were people who knew how to make movies.
But they knew people who knew how to make movies,
and they knew how to bring them together, and they
seduced them into communion to join them on this venture. Yes,
I mean Goldman's maxim turns out to be right. I
believe nobody does know anything. I believe nobody knows anything.

(16:23):
Those people who end up being the most successful are
the people who have the who are the strongest to
adhere to their great taste. And those guys Zane, all
those great guys had exactly that. Now, Evans, of course
you you you do a wonderful job in the book.
This is a prism through which you learn a lot

(16:46):
about the movie business, in the history of the movie business.
It's a great, great, great book. And you also learn
what a seminal year of this is in nineteen for
so many great movies. May and Evans is someone who
you know, is that white hot period in the seventies,
the studios are making Paint Your Wagon and Finnian's Rainbow
and all that stuff is tanking, and then along comes

(17:07):
and Robert Osborne said this to me when we co
hosted TCM together. He said, you know, I just hate
Easy Rider, because Easy Riders, the movie that comes along
and just changes everything. The movie is becomes so real
and so ugly and so and and and so nasty
and so and they're they're like documentaries. Nicholson becomes a star,
if you will, on the back of that movie. In
sixty nine let me get into the seventies and what happens, Well,

(17:31):
you know, just like Hollywood being Hollywood, Easy Rider is
a hit. So then they all fall over themselves trying
to get the next one now, unlike today where they
fall over themselves trying to get the next one. Back
then making a movie was relatively inexpensive enough that they
could understand the next one being well, let's try another

(17:54):
little movie based on a you know, based on a
couple of guys. You know, the modesty of the Easy
Rider project could be replicated, and that is a recipe
for creativity. And so that's what they did after that
absolutely cynical undertaking insofar as Hollywood is doing what it's

(18:15):
always done, But because the economics of the system are
conducive to creativity and the people calling the shots are
genuinely interested in art, it can flower Polanski's wife. He
makes the movie Rosemary's Baby, which I can't say enough
about that movie. And the more I watched that movie,
that's one of the ones I've downloaded on my computer

(18:37):
because of that remarkable balance he has. You have Ruth
Gordon in this like right up to her toes are
right on the line of camp in that, and yet
they're Sydney Blackmer playing her husband who's his velvety, and
the cast is Alicia Cook. You have the creepy and

(18:58):
the sour and the sweet and the yeared in the
pleasant everything harmony, and the same is true for this movie.
The same is true. Polanski is a master of casting master.
I'm so glad you brought definitely down to I mean,
who is Bert Young in Chinatown? Talk about juicy? I mean,
there's so it's an embarrassment of riches that we never

(19:18):
get The movie is so fertile in talent that we
never get down to the Bert Young of it all. Yeah,
we do obscure Bert Young. Diane Lad how about that
dead on the floor and just a perfect, perfect portrait
of a nervous actress all the way through performing, down

(19:40):
to the very end when he pulls out the sag card,
And that is an l that is also inside. That's
a little gift to an Angelino to see that, Oh yes,
she was an actress. Of course she was, And you
play it back in your mind and and the whole
psychology of the actress just kind of harmonizes with what
you've seen. Fucking Polanski casting that movie. I mean, how

(20:04):
do you do you can't tell. How do you teach
the ability to cast? That has to be one of
the things like like, yeah, you don't have you have
to have you have to sense that that person can
do even if you have to push them, even if
they have to dig down, you know, you know. Gary
Oldman became a star doing Sid Nancy. Gary Olden became

(20:26):
a star doing Sid Nancy and won an oscar playing Churchill.
Talk about that journey as an actor in terms of
the disposition of the character. Now, Polanski, his wife is killed,
he does Rosemary's Baby. It's it's released in sixty eight.
His wife is killed in sixty nine. He comes and
does this movie I guess in seventy three. It's released
in seventy four, correct, And what Polanski is showing up

(20:48):
now to shoot Chinatown? Which Polanski shows up Now he's changed,
how from the horrors of what happened to his wife.
He's been devastated, He's been devastated, and he's he left town.
And it should be said, not just because his wife
and child and friends were murdered by them, not just
because of the emotional residue of the grief but because

(21:11):
the town turned on him in a way, the town
in the panic around figuring out who the killer was.
We didn't know who the killer was. There was speculation that, well,
maybe it's Polanski. His movies are enough from you. I
learned that from your book. And it's a tribute to

(21:34):
his friends, Dick Silbert, Jack, Warren Batty Evans, the people
who were really his friends, who stuck by him and
supported him in that. I mean the grief to compound
on top of the grief, the paranoia of the town
closing in on you. I can't even make a word

(21:54):
to come out of that. We were They put him
back together again, so to speak, his friend, They put
him back together. He's got a bunch of friends. And
that's kind of also what this book is about, secretly
for me, is a good bunch of friends, because that's
what I dream of, That's what a good Hollywood should
feel like. One thing that was just really assaulted me
from the book was that idea that back then and

(22:15):
it never crossed my mind. It never occurred to me
that Polanski was someone who people he was a suspect
and some people's and now the whole and now the
whole town. The whole community lived in terror in the
way that lived in terror. And I should add to
compound to make this even fucking worse. He didn't know
who the killer was, so he's suspecting his friends. Maybe

(22:38):
it is Warren, Yes, maybe it is Warren. You know
he's trying to get sampled. What was he trying to get?
Like blood samples off of steering wheels in the carpeting
cars and all this ship. That's an amazing part of
the book. I mean, it's enough for an opera right there.
I mean people say it's a Greek tragedy, I mean
Roman Polanski. That's to say nothing of what we all
know is coming, but just that incident right there, unimaginable.

(23:04):
Author Sam Wasson, If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. When we come back, Wasson talks
about the reception of the film's shocking ending and it's

(23:25):
remarkable score. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to
Here's the Thing Because Chinatown was Jack Nicholson's first real
turn as a leading man. He paid attention to every

(23:46):
last detail, down to his wardrobe, to inhabit Jake Giddis.
I mean it was deep in him too, because Town
wrote it for him. Town observed Nicholson. They were in
Jeff Corey's acting class, and and improvised improvisation was heavy
in that class. And so Jack is a great improviser.

(24:07):
So Town really became a master of Jack, whatever that means,
and so learned learned how to just hit it right
to him. Sometimes I think the guy that can nail
Chinatown and especially that ending and that in that last line,
the guy that can nail that ending you right with

(24:30):
great detail and great insight into the shooting of that
final scene and the car driving off in that long shot,
and the actor that pulls the gun and shoots her.
You know, they're the whole kind of existential on wi
of the whole thing. At the end, Uh, forget about it.
Jacob's Chinatown, I thought to myself, that's Polanski. In the

(24:53):
wake of his wife being butchered that way, Yes, like
his mother's killed. His father says to him, how you
have it in there? Move it, move it, the prompt
from the father, But you just keep moving, just keep moving.
And Polanski was certainly primed to nail because of all
the horrors he'd been through. And it's hard to imagine
a more horrific ending to a major Hollywood movie. It's

(25:17):
hard to imagine. And when the film was screened for
the executives, what was there you write about this? What
was their response to the film? You know, you tried
your best, Evans, you know, Sue Manger's was like, what
are you? What were you Connie? What were you thinking?
I can't do Sue, you can do it. You know,
they're filing out in the director's guilt. Um was it
Freddie Fields who had a sort of shiit eating grin

(25:39):
on his Freddie Freddie and Evans were never sympathical. But
then it got good reviews. Yeah, yeah, then it did well.
It did Yeah, and I won a lot of awards.
Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. Who
won that? You? Oh? Oh? Art Carney arc from from Missourski,
from Missoursky, even Missoursky. When I Jack's oscar and hands

(26:02):
it not so fast, Jack hands it to Art Carney. Yeah.
I think even Paul was a little embarrassed of that
was it going in style. No, it was Harry, Uh huh.
Let's see Chinatown. Let's see Wow. Okay, it sounds like
an SETV sketch from the makers of Chinatown. From the

(26:25):
comes a story of a man and his cat. You know.
One of the things that I love the part of
the story because I'm obsessed with musical score. Describe how
there was the path with the score for Chinatown. One
composer who then what happens? His name was Philip Lambro,
and um, he wrote, I don't have the language to

(26:46):
even describe what music I mean. You can actually find
the score on YouTube. And it was an atonal, edgy, expressionistic, weird,
you know, not melodic, not what you think of his Hollywood,
certainly not what you think of his forties glamour Hollywood.
And it didn't work. And this was like in the
final moments before you know, scoring comes in at the

(27:07):
very end. And what happened was Evans called Goldsmith and
said you got to save my life and and Goldsmith
said all right. And ten days later and and ten
days sounds like a legend, you know, sounds like fable
fiction stuff. I got ten days confirmed all over the place.
It really was ten days. I mean, if it wasn't

(27:28):
ten it was eleven days. You know, he turned around
a masterpiece in no time. This is another reason why
Evans is Evans only people like Evans can pick up
the phone and get somebody like Goldsmith to write a
score for one of the greatest movies in the world
in ten eleven days or wherever the funk it is.
And it also tells you that Evans was beloved on
a personal level. Yes, you know you could make those calls.

(27:51):
You make those calls and someone says yes and turn
and turns it around, and Evans supervised the score. You know.
Music was so important to Evans, so important to Evans,
even though he's fucked up on on Godfather by not
you know, Nino wrote a pushing back on Rits. Okay,
But Evans loves music because he's finally in his heart
just a romantic and a softie. And also music is

(28:15):
a major part of post production, and that's where Evans
can come in and get his hands in there. Sometimes
he gets his hands a little too much in there,
as as as copal and Knows and suffered by but
that's the shadow side of Evans. But music allows him
to allow him to do that. Author Sam Wasson, and

(28:38):
now from our archives, my interview with Lawrence Right from
two thousand fifteen, My guest today. Author Lawrence Right thinks
a lot about religion. He wants to know why people
choose one faith over another, especially when what they choose
seems quote absurd or dangerous to an outsider. This question

(29:01):
has led Right to investigate some of the world's most
complicated and secretive organizations, from the People's Temple in Jonestown
to the Church of Scientology. His book on Al Qaeda
won the Politz Surprise in two thousand seven. Lawrence Right
has a unique firsthand experience as to the power of belief.

(29:23):
I grew up in Dallas and the Methodist Church, and
there was despite the fact that Methodism doesn't have a
reputation as being kind of a you know, hell fire
and Brimstone, the first of the churches that we went
to in Dallas really was that. And then we graduated
to the Methodist Church downtown. My dad taught Sunday school
for many, many years. You know, Dallas back at that

(29:46):
time was the most pious city in America. We had
the largest Methodist Baptist I think, the largest Episcopal church
and one of the largest Catholic churches in the entire country.
And at the same time we had the highest murder
rate and the highest divorce rate, you know, all the
things that go along with excessive piety. Yeah, so it

(30:10):
was and I was very pious as a teenager. I
was in a group called Young Life and m genuinely
or you were responding to pressure, No, I was. I was, well,
there was part of those things. It was you know,
I had moved around a lot as my dad was
a banker and we moved, uh, quite a lot, and
it was hard for me to establish roots. So when

(30:31):
I got to Dallas and this, you know, Young Life
came out. It was a social club for me. But
also it was the first time I understood the you
can binge yourself into the shape of the organization the
way it wants you to be. And also the more
pious you are, sort of the higher you climb, the

(30:52):
more important. So I got to be part of it. Yeah,
well you just say those things and it's and you
want to believe him. I was not consciously trying to
deceive anyone. At the same time, you know what to
say your your heartfelt, andy, but at the same time
you realize that there's there's an approval system here. Yeah,
and I think that that experience um was formative in

(31:15):
some ways for me to be so interested in religious
matters and why, you know, I people are always, you know, reporters,
especially fascinated by politics. But you can have strong political
views and it doesn't affect your life at all, But
if you have strong religious views, they probably dictate much
of your behavior. Is puzzling to me. Why with most

(31:37):
journalists it's just embarrassing to ask about what people believe
because it's not supposed to matter. Due to leave the
area to go to college, I went to Tulane in
New Orleans, which was a city least like Dallas that
I could find and you could buy beer and woolworth
and you could drink at eighteen and uh there you
know a lot of things of very pious theory. At

(31:59):
that time. I kind of shed that, but I was
actively looking for a way to live a more bohemian life.
I felt very constricted in Dallas. Was writing something that
was on your mind even at an early age. Yeah, Yeah,
I took a creative writing class, you know, I was
not a discissed school paper. Now. I used to like

(32:19):
doing that stuff though. And then um, after I graduated, Um,
you know, the Venom War was going on, and uh,
I became a conscientious objector and spent two years of
alternative service teaching in Cairo. And that's where I became
involved for the first time with the Arab world. And
when the boy from Dallas becomes a conscientious objector, how

(32:44):
did that go off? Back home? You know, I my
dad was a war hero, and I wanted to be
like him. I was in our otc. I expected, you know,
to to follow in his footsteps. But you know, there
was this parallel problem going on, which was the Vietnam War,
which was despicable different and it was. It was a

(33:05):
bad war. And you know, for a person, a young
man like me who wanted to serve his country but
did not want to kill people for the wrong reason
or risk my life for something I didn't believe in,
it just was a terrible My father and I had horrible,
horrible fights about Vietnam. Do you have any brothers? No,

(33:26):
I had two younger sisters, so you were you were
the scion. Did you ever make peace with him? About that. Yeah,
you know, I wrote a memoir about growing up in
Dallas during the Kennedy assassination and in America during the
Vietnam Era. And in the process of doing that, I
talked to my parents a lot, and I let them

(33:46):
read the manuscript and it was a very healing experience
for all of us. I think I first became familiar
with you, and you're writing in the Olympia Washington story.
He was entitled Remembering Satan, which you wrote as a
book as well. These were excerpts in the book. There
was a two part lengthy excerpt in the edition of

(34:09):
The New Yorker. And I first became familiar with you.
And I mean I was just supposed, you know, like
knocked out by this piece. I thought, you know, how
on earth is this possible? Had you written pieces like that,
I mean the scientology piece, the book and Going Clear,
which we're gonna get to that obviously, and this piece, uh,
there's uh, there's some fascinating people either putting themselves or

(34:33):
putting other people through some living hell. Here was this
the first such piece you wrote? The Olympia piece. No,
I think I had written about you know, a lot
of different even wrote about Satanists and you know, people
of all sorts of I mean, if you're a reporter
and you have a passport to write about anybody, um,

(34:55):
and I took full advantage of that. But that remembering
satan is kind of uh stereotypical type of article that
I like to write about, which is um. For one thing,
it's a discreet world. You know, in this case, it
was you know, this world inside Olympia, Washington that had
been infected by these hysterical memories of Satanic ritual abuse

(35:20):
which never occurred. But a man was convicted of these crimes.
He confessed to them because he remembered them, and there
was other than his memory. There was no evidence, if
I remember correctly, no one else was sentenced to prison.
Only Paul went to prison. What's this relationship with his
family now? Or do you even know? It's very broken

(35:40):
as far as I haven't talked to Paul in a
couple of years. But you know he's married again. You know,
he's he started another life. And but you know, it's
an example of how the mind can be so persuaded
of you know, a fall reality that and I think

(36:02):
everybody is capable of that. I don't you want to
know if I would say that not capable of that,
but creating a false reality. One of the things that
has been an education to me as a reporter when
I'm out interviewing people that have been, for instance, in
al Qaeda or you know, people that have come out
of you know, I've interviewed the children of Jim Jones,

(36:24):
and you know, as talk to people who went into scientology,
they're not crazy people. Then they're not stupid, and you
know they're they're often you know, if there's a commonality,
there's idealism. Uh, you know, they're a longing to make,
you know, change history, makes something of yourself and uh

(36:44):
that's you know, maybe that's one of the most dangerous
elements of our human nature, is that we it's the
better parts of our nature that sometimes lead us into
real dangerous areas. With the better parts of the natures
of Jones is children, Well, you know they were they
were essentially captive to him. So but and they survived,

(37:07):
thank god. They were all playing basketball in a tournament
and Georgetown, Guiana, so they weren't a killing when the
killings went down. But the it's always to me, it
is always uh underscored the danger of these kinds of

(37:27):
fanatical belief systems. Uh. There were these three boys U
two adopted. UH. Stephen was a natural son and he
looked very much like his father, Jim Jones, with the
kind of Cherokee cheek bones. And he's very tall and striking,
handsome man. And M. Then there was Jim Jones Jr.

(37:48):
Who was black. UM and Uh adopted. And then the
third adopted son was Tim. Who is this big red
headed guy. Tim. These boys when I talked to him,
Waco was going on at that time, the Branch Davidian episode,
and Tina Brown was the editor of the New Yorker,
and she wanted me to go to Waco. And I said,

(38:10):
they're more reporters and Waco than there are Branch Davidians.
I just but I was. I was convinced that this
must you know, I had seen the children, some of
the children that were sent out. I thought that must
have happened before. And I found these three boys who
had never then grown men, never told their story before.
And I don't know why they were willing to talk

(38:31):
to me. But Tim, when I got to him, UH,
he's he demanded that we do it in a restaurant,
in a public place, because he didn't want to cry,
and he had never told his wife, his current wife,
what had happened. Man, he wanted to say this story
one time. Now, bear in mind, Tim Jones is a
massive fellow. He can he can press a hundred pounds

(38:54):
with either arm. You know, he is a immense physical presence.
And we went to the restaurant and within a few
minutes he was pounding the table and sobbing because Tim
is the one who had to go into the jungle
and identify nine people his real parents, his adoptive parents,
his wife at the time, and his children, everybody lying

(39:18):
on the ground and U It makes an impression. Did
he ever confide to you or or even just discussed
to you what he thought was going on there? What
he thought? Joy? They all knew that their dad was
crazy and that he had what was he doing there?
You know, he was giving these suicide drills regularly. You know,

(39:40):
they break out the what was the purpose of jonestown?
Oh well, they stated purpose was two they were Jones
was intensely paranoid. He had the feeling that the government
was persecuting him, which was not really true. At all
but one night, the entire which disappeared. You know, they

(40:01):
all went secretly to this little South American country with it,
you know, in the in the middle of the jungle.
They've been preparing it, the boys. Yeah, and it was
just a you know, it's like a you know, a
little summer camp type of thing. They built quanset huts
and so on, and they were living near a river
and they built an air strip. I remember reading on

(40:23):
this thing online where they said that Jonestown was this
training ground where they were breading MK ultra operatives who
were capable of committing murder on behalf of the government
and then they'd have a memory of it. Well, you know,
I'm not saying that that's true, but I remember reading
that once. I was fast when I was writing about
remembering Satan, when I was doing the you know, the
multiple personalities were supposed to be the product of Satanic

(40:44):
ritual abuse, and there was a big rise in multiple
personality disorder, and one of the theories was that the
multiples had been created by the CIA in order that
one personality could become a spy and you know, deliver
messages that other personalities inside the same human being wouldn't

(41:04):
know about Lawrence, writes New Yorker article The Orphans of Jonestown,
came out for the fifteenth anniversary of the V eight
massacre that killed over nine people. Listen to more conversations
with writers who take on complicated issues, like David Simon,

(41:25):
who wrote the TV show The Wire but started out
as a beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun. I think
it was very fair as a reporter. You know, some
of poverty is about personal responsibility, and some of it
is not. Some of it is systemic and a result
of societal forces that are profound. Take a listen in
our archives that here's the thing dot Org. This is

(42:07):
Alec Baldwin. You're listening to. Here's the thing. My guest.
Lawrence Wright prefers taking notes on index cards over using
a computer. You can only imagine the number of cards
right used for his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood, and
the Prison of Belief. After it was published in two
thousand thirteen, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney asked right if he

(42:30):
considered an adaptation. We'd worked together before. You know, I
had done this book about al Qaeda called The Looming Tower,
and I had just my little acting venture. I Um,
I didn't more travel with it. You know, I just
hate touring, you know, doing the book tour thing. Yeah.

(42:51):
I had seen Anna Davere Smith do fires in the
mirror at the Public Theater and I was the first
time I could see the journalism and he could be married.
And I fascinated by that. So I did a one
man show called My Trip to al Qaeda, and I
did it off Broadway for about six weeks and in

(43:11):
a few other cities, and Alex saw me do it
in Washington. We decided to make it into a documentary,
which we did for HBO. We hit it off. Alex
Is is a is a his nickname from childhood as
Tiger and his well chosen name. And he's a very
skillful storyteller. And it takes those qualities to take something

(43:35):
as complicated about an organization as vindictive and litigious as
the Church of Scientology. It takes somebody like Alex to
put together a movie like he's just done. One of
the things I thought when I saw the film, and
I mean all my friends and people who know me personally, Uh,

(43:56):
it wasn't lost to my friends with it. About a
week after that I was back on a plane to
London to go shoot a film with Tom Cruise. And
Tom is a friend of mine, and um, I mean
I consider him a friend in the business sense, but
we don't get to see each other then often. But
he's always very kind and as people who know Tom know,
he's a great person to be in the trenches of
movie making with. He's very hard working and very very

(44:17):
um passionate about the work. But when I saw the film,
one thing I didn't get And maybe it's there, maybe
it was in the book and maybe it's in the film,
but I it was I mean, I watched this film
with intense scrutiny. There wasn't any sense to me of
what are the people who are in scientology and remain

(44:38):
in scientology and who are dedicated this, What do they
perceive they're getting out of it? Because I have some
opinions about that what people have told me, Well, what
does it do for them? And why are they there?
Especially when people go into scientology, they don't you know,
they don't go into it because it's a cult. They
go into it oftentimes because they're looking for something as well,
you know, sometimes they are spiritual seekers or there. You know,

(45:01):
you might be one of those people that goes down
on the subway and someone says, would you like to
take our personality tests? You know, and um, sure, Oxford
capacity analysis. It sounds like, you know, might be and
you know, well if we see that you have a
little trouble of communicating with people that's true, well we
you know, we can say we can help you with that.
Or in the case of Paul Haggis, um, you know,

(45:23):
he had a girlfriend that he was having trouble with
and say we we have a course that can help
you in your relationships in pain. And the truth is
oftentimes they can help. It's like going into therapy. People
do benefit from it. So this initial exposure to scientology
is often very positive to people. What about the people

(45:46):
like Travolta, people who seem to have the world on
a silver platter and everything is going their way, Well,
that wasn't true. When he got in. He was a
you know, troubled young man who was in his first
movie in Mexico. He confided to an actress who was
on the set. You know, he's having these difficulties and

(46:06):
she was a scientologist, and she gave him some auditing
which is what scientology calls his therapy, and gave him
a copy of Dinetics and so on. He had an
experience which happens to a lot of scientologists when they're
being audited. He went exterior. In other words, he had
an out of body experience. He had a sense that

(46:28):
he had left his corporal being and could look around
the room and you know, see things behind him and
so on. At the time he was taking a course
when he tried out for this Welcome Back Carter, the
teacher had everybody in the class turned their direction. I
think it was CBS Studios, you know, but telepathically send

(46:50):
the message to the executives that the John Travolta is
right for the role. And he got the part. And
so he always credited Scientology was putting him in the
big time, as he said, so you know, in that sense,
he really did feel that it had changed his life.
But it's one thing to get into it and it's
another thing to get out of it. If you are

(47:12):
a star like Travolta was at one time the biggest
star in the world, and uh, you have put your
name down again and again and again. As a scientologist,
you're identified with it and they have tapes of you, yes,
discussing your moments, right like if you and I were
sitting in a Scientology auditing session right now, and you're

(47:33):
my auditor, and you know, and I'm holding the cans
which are attached to the E meter, and you're probing,
uh and asking me very impersonal questions about my life
and and things that I would not want to disclose
to anyone else except in this very confidential confessional atmosphereiating
material that is actually secretly recorded, sometimes videoed, And then

(47:58):
it becomes apparent to you that if you decide to
leave UM, the church may use some of that against you.
And I talk heard that. I talked to a guy
whose assignment was to go through all those old auditing
sessions on John Travolta and find stuff they could use
against him because they were worried that he was he
was gonna go over the wall. Right in the piece

(48:19):
in the film, The one thing I found that was
disturbing was that there are celebrities and wealthy public figures
who tie a certain amount of their money millions of
dollars to this organization, a second tier, if you will,
and this is my description the second tier if you will.
Are you know, middle Americans, middle income who often go

(48:40):
into debt, often go into dangerous amounts of debt and
unwise amounts of debt in order to pay for these
ordering courses for them to give money to the church.
And then there's people who are poor, who have nothing,
who wind up trading in kind services. They become you know,
they become like a labor force for them, and then
they get forty cents an hour, acording to the film,

(49:00):
and and and they're doing a lot of work that
benefits other people. In the film, they're saying that these
people are maintaining the hangar of cruises airplanes. Well, not
only maintained it. What they did was refurbish it. They
built all the furniture, they painted it. They you know,

(49:21):
they essentially took an empty hangar and made it into
an office in a place for his planes and all
these elaborate Have you ever been in his hangar burbank Well,
and he's got you know these you know, big the
cows and stuff like that, you know, banners hanging down.
It's it's a pretty swank environment. And they handcrafted a
limousine for him and oversaw the reconstruction of his tour bus,

(49:47):
and they, you know, refurbished his house. And these are
people who are paid fifty dollars a week. Many of
them joined as children, so you know, they're impoverished and
they there, they have no place to go they have,
you know, and if if they do, they don't know
what they were then But of course maybe it may

(50:07):
be the case that their families and all are in
the church and if they left, none of those people
would ever speak to them. And do you think the
people who were the beneficiaries of this kind of stuff,
do they know what's happening. There's no question that Tom
Cruise knows what's going on inside the Sea Org. And
I hold Tom to account. I single him out in particular.

(50:30):
And because they're only two ways that the abuses that
we chronicle in the movie and in my book, there
are only two ways that they can be addressed, and
one is that the I. R. S. Decides well, maybe
we should re examine that tax exemption that we were
bludgeoned into given them. In explain for people who don't know.

(50:51):
But this is a fascinating part of the film. It
was during the time that Hubbard was alive or was
the settlement reached after Hubbard does after he died, and
and apparently he had a brigade and had been raising
a lot of money, and he had and he had
a lot of cash at his disposal and was just
shelling the I R S and litigation to maintain their status.

(51:14):
And finally the IRS just caved and said, well, here's
the situation that described would have David Muscavage found himself
in after Hubbard died. Uh he wrestled control of this organization.
And Hubbard had decided not to pay the taxes, and
so by the Church of Scientology was a billion dollars

(51:34):
in arrears and it didn't have a billion dollars. And
so this was an existential moment for the church. They
had to get a tax exemption. And moreover, the I
R S hated them because, you know, in the eighties
Hubbard had infiltrated all these you know, the Justice Department,
the I R S, Food and Drug Administration had all

(51:56):
these Scientology spies inside the government until the FBI broke
it open and what was called Operations Snow White, and
twelve people went to prison, including Hubbard's wife. So the
I R S, among other government agencies did not look
kindly on the Church of Scientology. So how do you
just imagine how you would go about getting a tax

(52:18):
exemption from the I R S. Well, the Scientology way
was to launch twenty four hundred lawsuits against the I
R S and individual agents, to hire private investigators to
follow agents around to go to conventions where they might
be drinking too much or fooling around. I don't have
a billion dollars to pay the taxes, but I've got

(52:38):
fifty million to lop some grenades. Yes, yeah, and so
and they they they they won, and they wanted. My
personal feeling it is twofold one is I think that
the I R S just did cave because the deal
that the deal on the table was, will give you

(52:59):
the exemption and and all those lawsuits will go away?
And they did. And so did they say, well, will
we'll give you the exemption to take away those lassus?
Would you have to pay us some amount of this
money in a million dollars? And that's all that's the
I R S that's fired. And moreover, there was such
an overwhelming exemption. The church has manifold different entities, you know,

(53:20):
but even Hubbard's novels are considered to be scripture and
taxes and uh, in the church now has the authority
to determine which parts of itself should be tax exempt.
Who was it in the film? If I remember correctly,
there's someone I think there's an individual use site who
says to Hubbard early in his career, the only way

(53:41):
you're going to get rich is if you start a
religious They were about ten people he said that too,
and uh, you know, I think that Hubbard really, I
think he really did believe that. But let me get
back to that question of you know, just to touch
back on Tom Cruise before we finish that, if the
if the I r S re examined after the licking
it took from from scientology, if it decided to go

(54:05):
back and re examine that, that might force change inside
the church. But I haven't seen any evidence that the
r S has the appetite to do this. Almost the
Senator on the West Coast, the Senator Ron Wyden, is
looking into this, and so you know, that's a possible.
But the other way that change and reform could come
in scientology is that some of the celebrity megaphones turn

(54:28):
around in the other direction. And demand change. And nobody
has benefited more from Scientology than Tom Cruise. Nobody is
more identified in the public with the Church of Scientology
than Tom Cruise. Nobody has brought lured more people into
the church than Tom Cruise. If you ask people name
one member of the Church of Scientology, that's the one

(54:51):
and Uh and moreover, it's a powerful I mean if
you look at you know, he was the number one
box office star, so he had volta than uh than
Tom Cruise, and you know, and also Will Smith who
started a Scientology school. Although he says he's not a scientologist,
he was one of the time he was number one.
So you have one to three the most powerful actors

(55:14):
in among the moral And if you're a young actor
standing out in central casting waiting to get maybe he's
not a bad idea. If I stopped by this center, well,
when you're standing in line, they'll be passing out brochure
saying how to get an agent, how to get ahead
and the business. Come to the celebrity center where to
make that direct link. Yes, and he also back in

(55:36):
the old days, the acting UH schools like the Beverly
Hills Playhouse was run by Yes who was my teacher.
He was apparently a wonderful teacher, and he was a scientologist.
And I think when so many of these young people
they when they come, you know, it is a young
person's game when they get into it. So many of

(55:57):
the people that went into scientology, and this is true
of anybody that tries to become an actor. Many people
who try to become an actor, they leave high school.
They don't go to college. You have to go right away.
Nearly everyone we're talking about is un education. And so
you're in your vulnerable intellectually vulnerable, and and also you
are risking everything. Your friends are going off they're going

(56:18):
to get law degrees and stuff like that, and you
are out in you know, Hollywood, eating dog food, hoping
to be a movie star. There's a sense of inadequacy
that you haven't filled in the great blanks that all
your friends are doing. And and so you alongcome scientologists,
which says, why bother none of that? Yeah, we can
you can supersede all that because well we will get you.

(56:42):
You will you will learn the secrets of the universe,
and you'll acquire superhuman powers. And that's and also just
being noticed at all at that level is, you know,
very powerful, because you know, I'm sure you've done this
a million times. But I remember once when I was
out in l a and I was a Norman Lear's
company and I I walked into a room in the

(57:05):
lobby and there were about forty guys who were blond
and six ft two and extremely handsome, and and I
felt small and brown and uh. And you know, but
there was a sign saying no actors passed this point.
And I was able to walk past this point and
all those blue eyes in my direction, and uh, and

(57:26):
I thought, one of those guys, one of those guys
is going to have his life change, and everybody else
is gonna go home and some of them become lawnmowers
or something like that. But that's the risk to have
the Church of Scientology come along, maybe in that same
room and passing out brochure is saying that we can
help you. And and by the way, on the brochure

(57:47):
that might have a picture of Tom Cruise or somebody
like that. It's a very powerful lure. If you also
appreciate lauren writes work. There's a lot more to consume.
Nine books, five plays, countless articles, the documentary film based

(58:08):
on his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison
of Belief is currently available on HBO on Demand and
HBO Go. And if you're ever in Austin you might
be able to catch him playing keyboard in the Blues collective.
Who Do Right said of playing in a band quote,

(58:33):
I decided a while ago that I would only do
things that are really important or really fun. This is
really fun. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's
the thing.