Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Everyone would work in a frenzied state to get it done, often through the night, not stopping for
meals and praying it would be right and that they would not get into trouble. When he arrived to
begin shooting he invariably decided he didn't like it. It had been altered; he wanted it blue, not
green. Some of the crew would be sent to the RPF and others would be running around trying to
find some blue paint. Then he'd want to know why it was blue and not yellow.
'When I was trying to be an actor I'd have to do the same line over and over again. It was never right.
It was too loud, too quiet, too intense, not intense enough. Then he'd scream, "Why aren't you doing
it enthusiastically?" He'd end up stamping off, screaming that it was all impossible and that no one
would do what he said. One of the main reasons why he got sick, I think, was that he had so many
failures and so much frustration and upset over the movies. Everyone was tip-toeing around
waiting for explosions.
'One incident was quite dramatic and revelatory. During a period when things had got very, very bad,
some of the crew tried to lighten things up by making a little video recording intended as a joke. It
was a humorous skit on an incident that had happened a couple of days earlier. They thought it
would amuse him and sent him the video tape. I was standing outside his office waiting to see him
when he played it. There was a tremendous explosion. He started yelling and screaming and
messengers began running in and out. He was literally shouting at the television. He didn't think it
was funny at all. He thought he was being held up to ridicule and that the crew were mocking him
and he was furious. Messengers were sent to find the names of everyone involved and they were
all sent to the RPF. Then he thought that there were people who were not directly involved but might
know about it and he wanted their names and they were sent to the RPF as well.'
Cine Org members assigned to the RPF were sent to work on quarter pay - $4.00 a week - at a
recently acquired property about forty miles from La Quinta which was to be the Commodore's
'summer headquarters'. Gilman Hot Springs was a faded resort straddling Route 79 between
Riverside and Palm Springs. Its 550 acres boasted a yellowing golf course, a decrepit motel, the
Massacre Canyon Inn, and a collection of miscellaneous buildings in various states of disrepair,
one of them a house satirically named 'Bonnie View'. The entire property had been purchased for
$2.7 million cash and local people were told it was going to be used by members of an
organization called the 'Scottish Highland Quietude Club'.
Hubbard had not seen the place but declared an ultimate intention to move into Bonnie View and
the RPF was toiling to prepare the house for him, ripping out the vents, tiling the floors, painting and
decorating and vainly attempting to create a dust-free and odourless habitat. It was honest labour
much preferable to the stress and hysteria prevalent in the Cine Org, which by then employed
around 150 people.
Like almost every episode in Hubbard's life, the Cine Org ended in sudden collapse and farce. The
Hartwells, the stage-struck ballroom dancers who thought they were breaking into show business,
had disentangled themselves by the end of 1978 and returned to Las Vegas, poorer but wiser.
Ernie Hartwell did not particularly want to stir up any trouble but he thought that the church was
trying to entice Dell back and break up his marriage. He was a straight-talking Navy veteran who
worked in a casino and was not the kind of guy to be cowed by 'kids running around in sailor suits',
which was his favourite description of Scientologists. He began threatening to go to the FBI and the
newspapers and telling everything he knew. Actually he did not know much, other than the bestkept
secret in Scientology - the whereabouts of L. Ron Hubbard.
Ed Walters, the agent who had 'handled' Quentin's suicide, was ordered to 'handle' Hartwell. 'I'll
never forget sitting in the local Guardian's Office the day I brought Ernie in,' said Walters. 'These two