One morning in February, I was nursing when the phone rang. The twins were turning five months old, and I was beginning to get back on my feet. The caller was Lindsey Sutton, a Scientology friend who worked in the entertainment business. Lindsey was with the musician Chaka Khan, who had performed at church functions. “I’m sitting here with Chaka and her manager, Tammy, and we want to talk to you about something, Michelle,” Lindsey said. “We heard you put a lot of money behind Dror’s film, and we want to talk to you about our project.”
Chaka was looking for investors for an album being developed by a promising new artist who also happened to be a Scientologist, Lindsey explained. I thanked them for thinking of me but said I didn’t know a thing about the music business—maybe I could recommend some people who might be interested.
Lindsey urged me to at least agree to meet with the producer of the album, a really talented woman, she said. I demurred. “I’m sorry, guys,” I said. “I’m already drowning in commitments and I can’t take on one more thing right now. Let me try to come up with some names of people who might be more open to this kind of project.”
A week later, they called again. I agreed to meet Lindsey for coffee.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Lindsey said. “But the woman lives in your neighborhood.”
“What woman?” I asked.
“The music producer. She lives in Valencia, near you.”
“Where in Valencia?” I asked, more out of politeness than any real desire to know.
“A place called the Woodlands,” Lindsey said.
“The Woodlands? That’s where I live. I don’t think any famous music producers live in the neighborhood. What street?”
Lindsey named my street.
“Oh my gosh! That’s my street! Tell me her name again?”
“It’s Charley Harper,” Lindsey said.
How did I know that name? It sounded so familiar. Charley Harper . . . Charley Harper . . .
Lindsey said Charley was a big deal, a famous songwriter and record producer. All of a sudden it hit me. Charley Harper was the neighbor I spent the evening talking to at the neighborhood birthday party exactly one year earlier—that handsome lesbian from Mississippi who lived across the street. As much as we’d monopolized each other’s time that night, neither of us talked about what we did for a living.
“Oh my gosh!” I said. “Charley Harper! Wow! Please tell her it’s me—Michelle! The woman she talked to a year ago at the birthday party.”
It wasn’t ten minutes later when the phone rang again.
“Girl, where have you been?” the voice with the sweet Southern drawl asked.
“Charley! How are you?! It’s been a long time,” I said.
“I thought you had fallen off the face of the earth,” she said. “But then I saw two storks in your front yard and I heard you had twins. You and your husband must be excited!”
“Well, yes, I had twins,” I said. “But, no, there is no husband. We’re going through an ugly divorce.”
“Oh, Michelle,” she said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “It was the best decision of my life. It’s a very long story and not a pretty one, but I have four amazing children and life is good. So tell me what you are into with Lindsey, and how do you know her.”
Charley asked if I had time to meet with her, and we committed to breakfast the following morning at the Marmalade Cafe in Burbank.
We’d set aside an hour for breakfast, but three and a half hours later we were still talking. Charley was genuine and kind. I told her a bit about Sean and the marriage, and she told me that she and her wife, Maria, were also having problems. Charley had a daughter, Jaime, from a previous relationship who was grown and lived in Texas and they were very close. I could tell how much she loved Jaime. When we finally got down to business, she told me more about the music project and the singer that Chaka was grooming.
I asked, “If I invested in this, what would my rate of return be?”
She laughed out loud.
“Rate of return? This is the music industry. There is no rate of return!” I appreciated her honesty. “No,” she said. “This isn’t a good one for you.”
It was lunchtime when we parted ways, and both of us had missed other appointments. I left with butterflies in my stomach. I felt like Charley was my new best friend. It felt good to connect with someone who wasn’t a Scientologist.
By the time I got back to my office, she had already texted me.
“I really enjoyed our breakfast. Let’s do it again soon.”
* * *
My mom was pestering me about returning to Flag to complete my divorce negotiations. “If you don’t handle this divorce with the proper tech [auditing], then you will find yourself in a very bad place or, worse, very sick again,” she said.
Sean had been acting up, so I decided it was time to finish what I’d started and return to Florida. Mary Mauser called Sean and convinced him to meet me there. If he refused, she said, she would no longer counsel him. Begrudgingly, he agreed to go.
I packed up the kids and my assistants and we flew to Florida. A limo was waiting at the airport to take us to the Fort Harrison Hotel. We were greeted at the hotel by our own personal butler and escorted to the fifth-floor penthouse. The penthouse was huge and breathtaking, with a grand piano in the living room and a private entrance for those who didn’t want to be seen. I was told it was where Tom Cruise stayed when he was in town.
I hadn’t even settled in when the butler announced that Charmaine was on her way up with a bouquet of flowers. I knew why she was there. She stayed four hours and left with another check. If it hastened my divorce, I was all for it.
Three days later, I returned home with a tentative divorce settlement. That same week, I closed the biggest deal of my career.
CHAPTER TEN
Deal Broker
While I was at Flag, Charmaine had introduced me to a fellow Scientologist named Beth Linder. Beth was cofounder and chief executive of a large software company, and she was active in the church’s human rights efforts. I knew the name, but hadn’t met her before. She was one of the church’s top donors. She’d been in Charmaine’s office when I walked by one day. “Michelle!” Charmaine cried when she saw me pass. “Michelle, come in here! I want you to meet someone! Can you sit for a minute?”
No one said no to Charmaine. After the usual greetings, Charmaine explained that Beth was interested in moving up from a Gold to a Platinum Meritorious member, but she was $600,000 short of the $2.5 million minimum donation it took to get to that level. Charmaine boasted about my success in the insurance business. She asked Beth if she had a good estate plan and said I was very creative with insurance and had just closed a huge deal with another very successful businessperson. Perhaps there was a way I could sell Beth an insurance policy and give her a percentage of my commission, which she would then donate to the church to qualify for the Platinum Meritorious.
As a tax-exempt religious organization, the church was prohibited from brokering business deals, but they always found ways around it. Charmaine was clear that the church could not be involved in the actual business transaction, on the record, yet it would gladly be the beneficiary of Beth’s additional “donation.” I explained that selling Beth a policy—if she even needed additional insurance—would be a long process and I couldn’t just “give” a client my commission anyway. Beth and I agreed that the unorthodox approach Charmaine had suggested wasn’t something that either of us was interested in. But that didn’t stop Charmaine from pursuing her mission.
After I returned to my room, she called my suite. She said she was with Flag’s Commanding Officer. They wanted to meet with me “for just a minute.” A few minutes later, the three of us were sitting around the grand piano in my living room. When the butler arrived with a pot of steeping tea an
d a tray of cheese and crackers, I knew it wasn’t going to be the brief meeting that Charmaine had promised.
She began by complimenting me on always being such a good “team player.” She quickly switched subjects to Beth Linder and how I could help her achieve that Platinum membership. My part, she explained, would be selling a policy to Beth and donating the bulk of my commission directly to the church. Wasn’t that perfectly legal? The church would help Beth secure a short-term loan to cover what I would be donating over time. That way, we could close the deal that same week, the Commanding Officer said. I agreed to meet with Beth only if she truly needed a policy.
The next morning there was a knock at my door. When I opened it, the butler was standing there. He informed me that all the things I needed for work were on the way up to the suite. He had arranged for a laptop, a printer, a calculator, a fax machine and all the office supplies I might need.
We spoke to Beth’s attorney and accountant and everyone agreed that the plan should be put in place. By the time I left for Los Angeles, Beth had signed all the necessary paperwork. In short order, Beth got her coverage (and her loan) and the church got its donation.
* * *
My life now moved with a powerful momentum. My divorce settlement was in the hands of Scientology lawyers, my insurance business was booming and Dror’s regular reports to me indicated the Not Forgotten film project was right on track.
Charmaine soon contacted me with another opportunity. The actress Kirstie Alley had a business proposal she thought I might be interested in. As with Beth Linder, the church saw an opportunity that would benefit it as well as me. My big donations were paying off.
I was excited to meet Kirstie. I knew her from the television show Cheers, of course, and had met her in passing at the Celebrity Centre. I knew she was highly respected in the church. Charmaine and I arrived at her 1920s Mediterranean-style estate in Los Feliz on a warm weekday morning that spring for breakfast. The home was set atop a magnificent rolling lawn of green velvet grass and surrounded by an eight-foot-high wall covered in blooming bougainvillea. It screamed Old Hollywood, grand and mysterious. We announced ourselves at the gate and Kirstie’s assistant, armed with a smartphone in each hand, clumsily opened the door to greet us. As she chatted on one phone, she motioned for us to follow. We passed four lemurs bouncing around in a cage the size of a Los Angeles apartment.
We wended our way through narrow hallways decorated with antiques and stepped into a warm, inviting kitchen that had been featured on Oprah. Kirstie was seated at a small kitchen table with a woman named Peggy Crawford, a Sea Org member who had been given a leave of absence from her duties to help Kirstie launch the new business. I was surprised when I saw “KA,” as everyone called her. She looked as if she had just rolled out of bed. A rumpled white cotton nightgown covered her considerable frame, her hair extensions were tangled in knots and she wasn’t wearing a drop of makeup. Still, she was beautiful and intimidating. She exuded fierceness, a businesswoman who didn’t care what anyone thought of her or her appearance. There was nothing inviting in her piercing green eyes, but she was captivating.
I listened as Kirstie launched into her sales pitch, with Peggy and Charmaine chiming in like minions. I was impressed with the thoroughness of her research and her presentation. The project was a weight-loss program and fat-burning supplements. She had financial projections, pictures of the products, ideas for a marketing campaign and a name: “Organic Liaisons.” It was an interesting venture, and I was flattered that I was being asked to be a part of it, but it seemed risky to me, and not something I would recommend to my clients.
Scientology was a small world. Everyone knew everything about everyone else. So I wasn’t surprised that Kirstie knew about my partnership with Dror. She asked how I’d raised the money for his movie. I explained that Dror had a lucrative international distribution deal in place, one that promised a generous return for investors once the movie was released overseas. She agreed that she wasn’t in the position to make guarantees, but she was confident her product would sell. I said I’d have to think it over.
With that, Charmaine jumped in and asked Kirstie about her life insurance needs. I’d just assumed that someone with Kirstie’s assets would be loaded with insurance, but if not I wanted the chance to persuade her that I was the best person to represent her. I pitched her my entire life insurance spiel, about how important it was that she protect her assets and her children’s inheritance. She listened intently and asked, “Can you put something together for me?”
I spent the next few weeks putting together options for Kirstie. She was an extremely demanding client and she treated me like I was a subordinate, not the successful businesswoman I was. But I wasn’t about to complain. I was honored that she wanted to work with me, and I stood to make millions on her policy.
Our next meeting took place at her insistence at her home in Clearwater. She’d invited me to stay in her guesthouse for the one night I’d be there. I arrived in Florida late in the evening, sometime between nine and nine thirty. I checked in at the main house and was surprised when the assistant said Kirstie wanted to see me. I hadn’t expected to meet until the next day.
The house was different from the estate in LA. It was on the water and ultramodern—all white, boxy and open. The assistant led me to a back bedroom. She knocked, then pushed open the door. There was Kirstie, lying on a massage table buck naked. A masseuse was massaging her whole body using forks. Forks! As in the kind you have in your kitchen drawer. My first thought was that someone was going to pop out of the closet and tell me I was on Candid Camera. I didn’t know where to look. I was so uncomfortable. Kirstie was completely at ease. She lifted her head to look at me.
“Hey, Michelle,” she said. “Come on and sit down.” American Idol was on the TV. “Do you watch American Idol?” she asked.
I said that I didn’t. She went on to rave about her favorite contestant. I thought to myself, Who is this person? She was nothing like she’d been at our first meeting. She was so friendly, even jolly. Maybe I just needed to get to know her better, I thought.
Taking a seat on the white leather bench at the foot of Kirstie’s bed, I tried to keep my eyes on the TV. After some small talk, I excused myself and told her I needed to get some rest to prepare for our meeting the following day.
It took time, but I ended up brokering an insurance deal for Kirstie that would pay millions in commission over the next few years. It was one of the most lucrative deals I had ever closed.
Between Beth and Kirstie, I had brokered tens of millions of insurance in a few months, which thrust me into the insurance world stratosphere. I decided to invest in Kirstie’s weight-loss program. I would assume she made good on her promise to write a large check to the church in exchange for Charmaine’s success in finding her an investor.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Budding Friendship
In the fall, Dror opened his production company, Windsor Pictures. My star continued to rise in the insurance industry. Between business meetings, insurance seminars, my kids and continuing discord in my relationship with Sean, there wasn’t enough time for me to keep up with everything.
No matter what else was going on in my life, I always made time to meet with Charley. My friendship with her had begun to break down some of my Scientology beliefs. Charley hardly fit the profile of the homosexual I learned about from the church; in fact, she was the antithesis of it. And the idea that the church would deny me a friendship with such a sterling person simply because she wasn’t heterosexual or a Scientologist had come to seem ludicrous to me.
Watching Charley “be” showed me what a successful person was. It wasn’t just about how much money you made or projecting your best face. She didn’t need to create a facade. She was authentic and real and highly accomplished. She had friends from all walks of life and of all religions. She didn’t judge people, much less report them for brea
ching some arbitrary rule. My friendship with Charley made me begin to see that all my other relationships had nothing to do with genuine caring the ways ours did. Everyone else in my life was there because of our shared religion and because of my “good PR,” which made me sought after by other Scientologists.
In the months since our meeting in February, Charley and I had regularly gotten together for coffee or lunch or an afternoon glass of wine. We had so much in common, so much to talk about. I looked forward to those meetings, hearing about her career and what she was working on, and she encouraged me to talk about mine.
I told Charley about Not Forgotten, which had premiered in the U.S. to positive trade reviews and was lined up for international distribution. Dror had suggested we keep the momentum of our success going by investing in new projects, which he was in the process of looking for.
During one of our conversations, Charley mentioned Twist, a musical she was working on with a famous actress, director and producer. Might a play be something Dror and I would be interested in producing?
She gave me the script, which I read on a flight from California to New York. The play was an African-American take on Dickens’s Oliver Twist, and I fell in love with it. I shared the script with Dror. It wasn’t a movie, I said, but Charley needed investors and this seemed like something we could get behind.
It took a bit of convincing on my part, but Dror agreed that by investing in Twist we could maintain the buzz about our partnership until he found a new film project.
Our shared interest in Twist gave Charley and me more reason to get together. I loved hearing her stories about growing up in rural Mississippi. Her family was wealthy and she had been raised by a black nanny named Vergie, whom she adored. It was Vergie, she told me, who’d helped her to develop her keen social conscience. Even as a little girl, she had taken a stand against racism. Defying her father’s orders, she once stood up to a restaurant owner who didn’t allow blacks by taking her dinner outside to the back steps to join Vergie.
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