lkwdblds
Crusader
Originally posted by lkwdblds on 12/25/09
NEVER BEFORE TOLD STORY!
EXCLUSIVE - THE STORY OF CELEBRITY CENTRE'S FOUNDING
NOW TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME ON THE INTERNET OR IN PRINT As promised by Lakey 3 weeks ago, his vast world wide research department has unearthed the exciting story of how Celebrity Centre came to be!! Now for the first ime anywhere - I encourage you to make a cup of java or a pot of tea and prepare to read a previously untold story. HERE IT IS, THE STORY OF THE DECADE: SIT DOWN, RELAX AND ENJOY!
RETURN WITH US NOW TO THOSE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR WHEN OUT OF THE PAST AND ON TO YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN COME THE THUNDERING DEEDS OF THE GREAT S.O. MEMBER YVONNE AND HER LOYAL SIDEKICK "MYSTERY CRACKERJACK AUDITOR" The year is 1969, the place is Los Angeles, California, USA: After a brief message from our sponsor the story will begin.....Eat Wheaties, the Breakfast of Chamnpions, the favorite breakfast food of 3 out of 4 Olympic Medal Winners...and now on to our exciting story.
PROLOGUE - Supplied through the courtesy of Dart Smohen. In 1967 the UK passed a law that Scientologists who were studying Scientology at St. Hill , once they left England could not come back in to study Scientology. Furthermore, people from outside the UK would no longer be admitted in to England to study Scientology. Because of these bans, the upper part of the Bridge, delivered only at St. Hill would be shut off to thousands of Scientologists around the world. LRH at Flag therefore put the wheels in motion to establish new advanced Orgs around the world but the most critical of all places was the USA and Los Angeles was chosen as the home of the new Advanced Org, AOLA. Similarly, ASHO, the American St. Hill Organization had to also be created. Yvonne Gillham had been sent to Edinburgh to set up the AO there, Dart Smohen was to be Chief Officer and Mystery Crackerjack Auditor, hereafter to be called Tonto {for brevity} was to be crew with Dart who was a good friend and Yvonne, also a friend. Yvonne got called back to Flag, then on the ship Apollo, and was ordered to instead prepare the Celebrity Centre Program.
Yvonne was then fired to L.A. with her priorities now shifted because of the new law banning new Scientologists from studying in England and was told to first serve as Commanding Officer of AOLA and hold off working on the CC project. Tonto was drafted to go to L.A. and help Yvonne and after AOLA was going, Bill Robertson was brought in to take over from Yvonne. While working as C.O. of AOLA, Yvonne started on her next assignment of establishing a booking office for CC by appropriating a couple of file drawers of an AOLA filing cabinet and using them to conduct and file CC business. When she was replaced by Bill Robertson, Yvonne took an office next door to the AO and opened the CC Booking office there while Tonto returned to Flag. Once Bill robertson had gone, Wally Burgess, previously C/O OTL at ST. Hill, was appointed as C/O of AOLA. Late that year, 1968, Phyliss Stevens replaced Wally as C/O and stayed on until 1970. An AO then was established in St. Hill and Phyliss became C/O UK and Dart became Senior C/S for AOSH UK.
Supplied by Yvonne's daughter, Janice Grady - Yvonne was originally ordered to open the Booking Office next door to AOLA. On her own, Yvonne did not just stop there but actually began to form the CC Org. Janice is the one who told me that the filing drawers in AOLA were used for CCLA business so that CCLA was jump started while Yvonne was turning over her AOLA hats to Bill Robertson. Call it multitasking if you will. I do not think that term had been coined yet back in 1969/70.
A PERSONAL LAKEY INCIDENT RELATED TO SCIENTOLOGY HISTORY
Yes your humble correspondent, Lakey, was present to witness Scientology history in 1967, three years before I even heard the word Scientology. In the summer, I took a 2 month trip to Europe, given a non paid vacation by my employer, IBM. I left for Paris with my Brother and we spent a week there together. We had a spat shortly after leaving Paris for Germany and we decided to split up. I toured Germany, including a visit behind the Iron Curtain into East Berlin (that was a trip) and then on to Munich and Austria. On the way back, I wanted to see Holland and then spend a week in London. I spent a week in Holland, and encountered the friendliest people of any of the countries which I visited, and went to the Hook of Holland, which was their port to catch ships bound for England. It was at the English entry port of Harwich where a team of 3 Customs agents pulled me out of a line and took me to a questioning room. I was a 27 year old single male traveling alone and they were suspicious of something but they would not tell me what it was. They asked me who I was visiting in England and I stated that I did not know one person in the entire country. That really ran up Red Flags for them. They asked me if I had money. I was carrying about $700 which is $3.500 to $4,000 in today's money. That was a plus in my favor and then when I produced my IBM Employee ID card, that was enough to sway them. I told them they could call my boss and verify that I had to be back at work in two weeks or I would be fired. They said, no need to bother and approved me to enter England. The whole thing was a crackdown on young Scientologists entering England with the sole intent of studying Scientology. A new law had outlawed that from occuring. If I had no money and no Employee card, I would have been taken as a Scientologist and denied entrance to the U.K. so I actually lived a piece of scio history 3 years before I joined up.
NOW WE MOVE INTO THE MAIN BODY OF OUR STORY
CHAPTER ONE
Prior to leaving for Los Angeles, probably in 1967 or 1968, an innocent seeming event took place on the Apollo, an event that would forever change the history of Scientology. Yvonne attended a briefing by LRH given to senior Apollo management about Scientology's need to have a Celebrity Centre, a place for Opinion Leaders to congregate and receive Scientology Services, benefit from them and spread the word to the vast numbers of the publics who looked to their opinion leaders for guidance on how to live their lives. LRH described in general terms what such a Celebrity Centre should consist of and who would be elegible to join. Though general in overall nature, LRH probably got a little specific on a few points. We can only guess that the LRH talk struck some kind of nerve in Yvonne's phyche, rattled some basic purpose deep within her or rekindled some long held goal of hers. The LRH talk to Executives ended and for awhile it produced no effects...but only for awhile. NOTE: While on the Apollo in 1973 as Programs Chief, I was required to hear an LRH tape regarding CC. It was not of the original lecture which Yvonne had attended but rather a follow up tape to that wherein Hubbard comments on Yvonne and uses the phrase, "She ran with the ball" He also discusses who is eligible to do services at Celebrity Centres. Yvonne left on her mission to be the Commanding Officer of the Advanced Org in L.A. My research department has uncovered an interesting fact that Yvonne put early AOLA staff on 24 hour per day service. I was told by a guy on the Excalibur training ship in 1971 who was CC staff and had formerly been AOLA staff that the early AOLA was generating an income of $100,000 per week. When you think that the 1969 dollar was worth $5 in today's money, that is a hefty Gross Income (GI) for an Org of that time but the story, though hearsay, is likely true because L.A. was the only place in the Western Hemisphere where advanced Scientology Services could be obtained. Prior to its opening, the only place delivering the services was Saint Hill in England.
Sometime in 1969. Hanna Eltringham came to AOLA and assumed some of Yvonne's duties so Yvonne could concentrate on CC. Yvonne had set up the filing cabinet in AOLA having to do with the start up of CC and these files were moved into Yvonne's new private CC booking office, next door to AOLA. Yvonne worked that office from early 1969 to early 1970. This is when she must have been contacting celebrites and people such as agents who knew celebrities. It is awe inspiring to realize that this one woman was working alone on some basic purpose to help LRH and on a personal goal of hers to run an Org of Celebrities and Opinion Leaders. In that one year of unaccounted for time, she set into motion the wheels of progress that were to lead to the Celebrity Centre International of today. The life of every celebrity currently affiliated with Celebrity Centre Int would be vastly different today if it were not for this one woman, with her powerful intention, working away by herself in a small obscure office, unsupervised, making calls, setting up meetings with agents, etc. and doing whatever she had to do to get her Centre, which she considered LRH's Centre, up and running. There was no policy on what to do or how to do this but she knew what to do and nothing could stop her once she started to pursue her goal.
THIS IS WHAT GREATNESS IS ALL ABOUT. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BIG BEING IN ACTION AND WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVED BY ONE PERSON.
CHAPTER 2 - HELP ARRIVES IN THE FORM OF ANOTHER BIG BEING
Yvonne's plan was to first expose celebrities to auditing and then after achieving their wins, they would use their opinion leader status to encourage their publics to join Scientology, therefore Yvonne needed an auditor, a Class VIII, kha khan, Crackerjack auditor who just by happenstance happened to walk through her office door at that very minute just to say hello on her way out of town to handle personal affairs.
Sometime later, in early 1970 Tonto had some personal business to pursue and was granted permission by LRH to do it. Tonto was not planning on working in an Org while she was on leave handling personal business and just stopped at the AOLA to say hello to old friends and particularly Hanna Eltringham. As she was about to leave and start on her personal business, Hanna suggested that Tonto stop down in Yvonne's CC office and "just say hello." Since my opening to this story is patterned on the radio and television program of the old days, "The Lone Ranger", the "Lone Ranger" is represented by Yvonne and her first Celebrity auditor is called Tonto, just to avoid writing myster crackerjack auditor everytime. This off chance request of Hanna's turned out to be key in the opening of Celebrity Centre. FOOD FOR THOUGHT - DID YVONNE JUST POSTULATE THAT THE NEXT PIECE OF HER PUZZLE, A TOP CELEBRITY AUDITOR, WOULD JUST APPEEAR AT HER FRONT DOOR?
THE BUILDING Frank Dunn found the wooden framed building for the Centre at 1809 W. 8th St. in Central Los Angeles and the landlords were Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Freistadt. Frank made all the arrangements but Yvonne had to go in and sign the papers and got many more concessions from the Freitstadts with her incomparable charm. Nobody would know the name Freistadt if it weren't for yours truly working in Treasury. I had to write the rent check to them every month, it was for $800, a steal at twice the price. Twice I had to drive out and pay the couple in person and both times they reminisced about their experiences dealing with Yvonne. I dutifully took notes knowing that 38 years later, I would be writing the story of CCLA (just kidding of course). I speak fair German and I liked the name Friestadt which means Free City. Actually they appeared to be Jewish and not German but many Jewish people have German derived names. Once the building was acquired, Yvonne and Tonto opened for business. This occured in early 1970, I was not able to ascertain the exact date.
SOME COMMENTS ABOUT TONTO I knew Tonto only slightly in those early years I was on staff, just on a saying "hi" when passing in the hall basis. She posted recently on my thread, "The Old Days - Aboard the Apollo -1973" that she was very aware of who I was then and that I had a glow of a willingness to help and a wanting to contribute which made me shine. Well, for about a week, I was walking around about 3' off the ground after reading that compliment from TONTO. This person was so fantastic in the ability to handle Celebrities it was unbelievable. No matter how big the Celebrity was, Tonto could always relate to them. In most of the Celebrities' eyes, as PC's, Tonto was the real Celebrity and not them. Possibly no other auditor on Earth could have handled celebrities the way Tonto did. It's as if TONTO was born to audit celebrities, the hat fit like a glove. Tonto deserves status as Co-FOunder of CC !! Tonto was there with Yvonne from day 1 and at first all CC did was audit celebrities so Tonto hanled all Tech, scheduling and delivery functions. As with many great people in history, they ususally had a person of comparable magnitude working with them to help them generate their power. Yvonne and Tonto formed such a team.
For a while it was just Yvonne and Tonto. The first addition had to be a C/S (Case Supervisor) for Tonto and shortly after opening, Ellen Jones, Class VIII became the C/S. For awhile there was just the three of them auditing and C/Sing Celebrities but new staff began to be added. Hector Carmona was one of the early non technical people, see Chapter 4 for more of his story and how he rose to be chief Registrar. Within 6 months there were at least 50 on staff. My first experience going there was at about that time, around August of 1970. I was then a newbie , only two months into Scientology and on lines doing the Dianetics Course at L.A. Org. I went there to hear a Mario Feninger concert because I am a lover of classical music. I remember a staff member named DIck Hubbard, no relation to LRH. We arrived early before the concert and told Dick that we would be back in an hour. Though tickets were free, he gave us our tickets because he said seating was limited and we would need the tickets to get in when we came back. We came back and saw the concert. Of course Mario was great. He wore a black cape and as was typical of all his concerts, he opened with 2 pieces by the Father and Son composers of the Baroque era, Allesandro and Domenico Scarletti, there was intermission and my first experience in the CCLA snack bar and then Chopin for the second half of the program. I believe there was an encore which was a piece by Mario's Mother, Teresa de Rogatis. As always Mario was spectacular and the concert very memorable.
SOME OF THE EARLY CELEBRITIES WHO WERE THERE - In 1970 the biggest four Celebrities were Stehphen Boyd, who had recently starred with Charleton Heston in the Epic Movie, Ben Hur, Karen Black a young and developing star at that time, Candice Bergen who was well known as being the daughter of ventroloquist Edgar Bergen and Ernest Lehman, a major Director, having just directed a major Academny Award Winning movie plus having recently worked very closely with Alfred Hitchcock. Stephen Boyd made the Intro movie which I saw but both he and Candice Bergen had already just left Scientology or were just in the process of leaving when I first showed up. Tonto auditied all of these people with the exception of Stephen Boyd. One time Ernest Lehman was there for a session and Tonto was not available and they tried to assign another auditor to him and he refused. He said it would have to be Tonto or he would leave and come back the next day. He left for the day because Tonto was not available. I was standing just a few feet away and heard the entire interchange. (I edited in this paragraph and the one below it on January 15, 2010)
Other top celebrities on lines were Chick Correa, Geoffrey Lewis who was already getting top supporting actor roles in big films and on TV and Robert F. Lyons, who had just had a big movie hit in "Downhill Racer". A Latin singing star named "Lisette" who was known as La muchacha con los ojos triestes" {The girl with the sad eyes) was huge in Latin America at the time. We even had big 7'2" Richard Kiel who played the role of "Jaws" in some of the James Bond films, though he did not show up until 1972. Of course Mario Feninger, the classical pianist was there as well. While I was on staff there, through October, 1973, Anne Francis did one class and Shelly Winters came down and spoke to the staff. Besides Ernest Lehman, who only showed up to receive auditing, another well know director and drama coach, Milton Katselas became a fixture there, heavily particpating in many ways. Rock Hudson, was brought in for an intro session which did not go well. John Travolta was still about 3 years away from joining and was not yet famous.
CHAPTER 3 TONTO'S CONTRACT IS EXTENDED
Six months had passed and there were more auditors and C/Ses on staff and Tonto wanted to move on and resume the personal projects which had been shelved as per the original agreements with Yvonne As was typical with Yvonne, she begged Tonto to stay longer and Tonto agreed and eventually stayed about another year and a half.
CHAPTER 4 MORE ABOUT THE EARLIEST DAYS AT CCLA - Initially, the Org consisted only of Yvonne and Tonto and the staff was formed around Tonto. For example, Ellen Jones was the third staff member and was Tonto's C/S. This practice of building up the staff around Tonto continued. Originally, Tonto was paid the entire auditing fee of $25 per hour (about $125 in today's money) directly by the celebrities. After a few months, CC began collecting the money and Tonto was paid a pay check from CC. Sea Org base pay at the time was $10 per week. After 6 months, the number of staff was up to around 50 and there were other auditors and C/Ses on staff and Tonto's pay was down to $5 per hour. As covered earlier, Tonto wanted to leave and was talked into staying by Yvonne. Eventually, in mid 1971 the Org moved up to a mansion in the hills near the Griffith Park Observatory. At that point the Org was a year and a half old and had plenty of Celebrity auditors and C/Ses and Tonto's pay was down to $5 per hour and she decided it was time to leave. Yvonne put up a fight but could not prevent Tonto from leaving and Tonto went off into the sunset, her mission at CC completed in her usual Kha Khan fashion. She left for the San Francisco area with Frank Dunn and Frank and Lee Blumer. FOOD FOR THOUGHT Would Scientology have done better in the long term, in its stated mission, if the Sea Org had paid certain key people what they were worth. Tonto, was the entire tech delivery team of the Org and was on authorized leave from the Sea Org to handle some personal business. When she started audting at CCLA she received $25 per hour (in 1970 dollars) and within 6 months she was down to $5 per hour and wanted to leave as per her initial deal with Yvonne. Had her pay been kept higher due to her unique status in the Organization, she mentioned to me that she would have wanted to stay longer, perhaps indefinitely. This is a personal insight that just occured to me and I edited it in on 8 Jan 2010.
Added May 18, 2010 - I spoke by phone twice with the old lead registrar, Hector Carmona about 6 weeks ago. Hector was one of the earliest non technical staff to join up with Yvonne. He told me that at the beginning, he was not a registrar. On one occasion he filled in for the Recruiter and he recruited somebody and then recruits in general started picking up. Next he filled in somewhere else and then some major and unexpected positive result occurred there. One day, the registrar was out and Yvonne asked Hector to fill in and someone walked in and Hector signed this person up for a sizeable service. Everyone was joking that wherever Hector went, the statistics connected with the CCLA Organization increased. Yvonne told Hector that he was somebody special and she was going to make him the head registrar. That happened in early 1970, probably in the Spring. Hector stayed on that post for 12 years, I believe, until 1982. Hector related something to me that I did not previously know. While the Org was up on La Brea Blvd., Yvonne was demoted from being the Commanding Officer. It was done in a way so as for her to save face. It was determined that there would be two commanding officers, Yvonne and someone else, I believe it was Irene Derman but I am not sure. Irene was to stay up at La Brea and run the main organization as Commanding Officer. Yvonne was also called a Commanding Officer but was sent to the beautiful Chateau Elysee, where Celebrity Centre is currently located. Yvonne did not contol a complete Organization but focused instead on only promotional actions. Her post was more of a titular post rather than a post with real power. It is odd that this happened to Yvonne because in the 1980's her husband Heber Jentzsch was made the President of Scientology and in the same manner his post was mainly to serve as a public relations figurehead but he had absolutely no actual power. My Opinion is that Yvonne knew she was being demoted and it probably broke her spirit because within a year or so, she died of brain cancer, in the early part of 1978. She was only in her mid 40's. Getting back to the main line of the story.....
Tonto and Yvonned connected again in the beginning of 1976 for one last time when Tonto opened a cafe on Fairfax Ave. and catered to CC students at lunch break when CC was on La Brea Blvd., not too far from Fairfax. I bet those lunches were health food lunches and were very tasty. Tonto got to see Yvonne almost every day during this period up in Yvonne's office. The two shared a nice communication line as equals. You see, it was Yvonne's daughters, Janice and Teri, who brought Yvonne to Tonto's cabin when Tonto was setting up getting ready to leave on a mission to set up the AO in Edinburgh, Tonto had been the career tutor to all the children without any troubles for the entire month, with Mary Sue as the Captain, but that is another story. At this point Tonto exits the CC story permanently.
CHAPTER 5 - THE OLD MANSION IN THE HILLS
Scientology Management and City Building Codes and Regulations mix like oil and water. Scientology Int management, at least at that time, read only LRH. Nothng else was deemed worth reading and was labled as False Data. Tell that to the officials who wrote the Los Angeles City Building and Zoning Codes. They couldn't know a Secondary from a Second Martgage, a GPM from an IBM, or an auditing assessment from a tax assessmeent. An E meter was something affixed to one's house to register the amount of electricity being used. In fact if someone told them an auditor was going into session, they would think that a bookkeeper was going to play jazz with a liitle group of like minded buddies.
The mansion was a grand old estate home in an area of luxury estates in the hills just south of Griffith Park Observaory in Los Angeles. To get there from the Celebrity Center, one would have to take Vermont Blvd north 3 to 4 miles to Los Feliz Blvd., drive a good mile or so East and then turn left at Hillhurst Ave. and head up into the hills. If one went straight up he would pass the Greek Theater in about a mile and then another mile would find him at the L.A. Observatory. To get to the Org mansion, one would have to turn left about half way to the Greek Theatre and then wind around the streets for 4 or 5 blocks and wind up at the mansion. The mansion was situated on about 1 1/2 acres of land. The problem was that this land was zoned R1 which meant that it was for single family Residences. LRH did not write that in policy so no one knew or suspected that such a thing existed. The mansion consisted of a large house, perhaps 4.500 square feet plus a basement and an attic. It was probably built in the late 1920's. Scientologists have a habit of quickly gobbling up every square inch of usable space and shorly the attic and basement werre claimed as berthing by various staff members. This brought the square footage up to about 6,000 plus there was a garage and some other out buildings. Total usable space was perhaps 7,000 square feet. Into this footage were shoe honed berthing for about 65 staff, several course rooms, a galley (large kitchen for staff meals) and archives for all the pc folders plus an HGC with its large waiting room and lots of small individual auditing rooms. There was an entry room or parlor when you first walked in and a large living room where I believe a piano was placed. There was a formal dining room as well. These 3 front rooms were furnished nicely and kept at low traffic volume to make the place appear more like a home than an Org.
The flaw in all this was that the neighborhood was zoned single family residences and the neighbors, old staid, wealthy families of tradition objected vehemently to us being there runing an operation that seemed like some sort of business enterprise. The neighbors complianed to L.A. City Council that their peaceful neighborhood was being invaded by some group of flamboyant people not the family people typical of the neightborhood and that further, most all of the parking spots on the adjoining streets were being taken up all day by visitors of this strange group whcih had moved in next door.
CHAPTER 6 - TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
Either Flag Management or the brain trust at CCLA hatched a plot to try and keep us in the building. It was a typical Sea Org shore story. We were to pretend to be some kind of discussion group that met regularaly and discussed art. The most conventional looking people were picked who were a little older and wore suits and ties and had shorter hair, etc. I was not staff then but public but I was picked to serve, another person chosen was my good friend, actress Beverly Carter who was also public. Our chaplain, Andrik Schappers was chosen (he is still in the Church and leads crusades in Europe to expand Scn). Dick Hubbard had that All American look and may have been choosen, I believe that Ellen Jones was chosen and perhaps her husband Mark plus we had Irene Howey and also Henry Baumgard and others for a total of 12 or so "Art Critics". The day the official from the City of L.A. showed up, Yvonne acted as the host and showed him in. We were all discussing art and the men wore suits and ties and the women all wore nice dresses. We picked an artist such as Monet or Picasso or van Gogh and we all read up on his bio and drilled it a litttle. When the guy from L.A. showed up, Yvonne acted as the host and showed him in. We were all discussing art when he walked in and this fellow was well groomed, quite charming and very cordial to us. He stuck around for 20 to 30 minutes observing us and then shook hands with everyone and left smiling. We thought we had done very well but it really did not matter. Even if we were an art discussion group visiting Yvonne, the amount of traffic going in and out on a a day to day basis and the amount of parking taking place in a residental neighborhood ruled out any chance we had to stay. We were ordered to move out within some prescribed time such as 30 or 60 days. A new house on 9th Street and Lake St. about 3 blocks from the Centre was chosen and the Mansion was vacated on schedule and the move to 9th and Lake went smoothly. That completes this phase of the story. Other things may be added from time to time as they become known to me.
I have this story up on another site but Janice Grady suggested that I make it a separate thread of its own.
Lakey
NEVER BEFORE TOLD STORY!
EXCLUSIVE - THE STORY OF CELEBRITY CENTRE'S FOUNDING
NOW TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME ON THE INTERNET OR IN PRINT As promised by Lakey 3 weeks ago, his vast world wide research department has unearthed the exciting story of how Celebrity Centre came to be!! Now for the first ime anywhere - I encourage you to make a cup of java or a pot of tea and prepare to read a previously untold story. HERE IT IS, THE STORY OF THE DECADE: SIT DOWN, RELAX AND ENJOY!
RETURN WITH US NOW TO THOSE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR WHEN OUT OF THE PAST AND ON TO YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN COME THE THUNDERING DEEDS OF THE GREAT S.O. MEMBER YVONNE AND HER LOYAL SIDEKICK "MYSTERY CRACKERJACK AUDITOR" The year is 1969, the place is Los Angeles, California, USA: After a brief message from our sponsor the story will begin.....Eat Wheaties, the Breakfast of Chamnpions, the favorite breakfast food of 3 out of 4 Olympic Medal Winners...and now on to our exciting story.
PROLOGUE - Supplied through the courtesy of Dart Smohen. In 1967 the UK passed a law that Scientologists who were studying Scientology at St. Hill , once they left England could not come back in to study Scientology. Furthermore, people from outside the UK would no longer be admitted in to England to study Scientology. Because of these bans, the upper part of the Bridge, delivered only at St. Hill would be shut off to thousands of Scientologists around the world. LRH at Flag therefore put the wheels in motion to establish new advanced Orgs around the world but the most critical of all places was the USA and Los Angeles was chosen as the home of the new Advanced Org, AOLA. Similarly, ASHO, the American St. Hill Organization had to also be created. Yvonne Gillham had been sent to Edinburgh to set up the AO there, Dart Smohen was to be Chief Officer and Mystery Crackerjack Auditor, hereafter to be called Tonto {for brevity} was to be crew with Dart who was a good friend and Yvonne, also a friend. Yvonne got called back to Flag, then on the ship Apollo, and was ordered to instead prepare the Celebrity Centre Program.
Yvonne was then fired to L.A. with her priorities now shifted because of the new law banning new Scientologists from studying in England and was told to first serve as Commanding Officer of AOLA and hold off working on the CC project. Tonto was drafted to go to L.A. and help Yvonne and after AOLA was going, Bill Robertson was brought in to take over from Yvonne. While working as C.O. of AOLA, Yvonne started on her next assignment of establishing a booking office for CC by appropriating a couple of file drawers of an AOLA filing cabinet and using them to conduct and file CC business. When she was replaced by Bill Robertson, Yvonne took an office next door to the AO and opened the CC Booking office there while Tonto returned to Flag. Once Bill robertson had gone, Wally Burgess, previously C/O OTL at ST. Hill, was appointed as C/O of AOLA. Late that year, 1968, Phyliss Stevens replaced Wally as C/O and stayed on until 1970. An AO then was established in St. Hill and Phyliss became C/O UK and Dart became Senior C/S for AOSH UK.
Supplied by Yvonne's daughter, Janice Grady - Yvonne was originally ordered to open the Booking Office next door to AOLA. On her own, Yvonne did not just stop there but actually began to form the CC Org. Janice is the one who told me that the filing drawers in AOLA were used for CCLA business so that CCLA was jump started while Yvonne was turning over her AOLA hats to Bill Robertson. Call it multitasking if you will. I do not think that term had been coined yet back in 1969/70.
A PERSONAL LAKEY INCIDENT RELATED TO SCIENTOLOGY HISTORY
Yes your humble correspondent, Lakey, was present to witness Scientology history in 1967, three years before I even heard the word Scientology. In the summer, I took a 2 month trip to Europe, given a non paid vacation by my employer, IBM. I left for Paris with my Brother and we spent a week there together. We had a spat shortly after leaving Paris for Germany and we decided to split up. I toured Germany, including a visit behind the Iron Curtain into East Berlin (that was a trip) and then on to Munich and Austria. On the way back, I wanted to see Holland and then spend a week in London. I spent a week in Holland, and encountered the friendliest people of any of the countries which I visited, and went to the Hook of Holland, which was their port to catch ships bound for England. It was at the English entry port of Harwich where a team of 3 Customs agents pulled me out of a line and took me to a questioning room. I was a 27 year old single male traveling alone and they were suspicious of something but they would not tell me what it was. They asked me who I was visiting in England and I stated that I did not know one person in the entire country. That really ran up Red Flags for them. They asked me if I had money. I was carrying about $700 which is $3.500 to $4,000 in today's money. That was a plus in my favor and then when I produced my IBM Employee ID card, that was enough to sway them. I told them they could call my boss and verify that I had to be back at work in two weeks or I would be fired. They said, no need to bother and approved me to enter England. The whole thing was a crackdown on young Scientologists entering England with the sole intent of studying Scientology. A new law had outlawed that from occuring. If I had no money and no Employee card, I would have been taken as a Scientologist and denied entrance to the U.K. so I actually lived a piece of scio history 3 years before I joined up.
NOW WE MOVE INTO THE MAIN BODY OF OUR STORY
CHAPTER ONE
Prior to leaving for Los Angeles, probably in 1967 or 1968, an innocent seeming event took place on the Apollo, an event that would forever change the history of Scientology. Yvonne attended a briefing by LRH given to senior Apollo management about Scientology's need to have a Celebrity Centre, a place for Opinion Leaders to congregate and receive Scientology Services, benefit from them and spread the word to the vast numbers of the publics who looked to their opinion leaders for guidance on how to live their lives. LRH described in general terms what such a Celebrity Centre should consist of and who would be elegible to join. Though general in overall nature, LRH probably got a little specific on a few points. We can only guess that the LRH talk struck some kind of nerve in Yvonne's phyche, rattled some basic purpose deep within her or rekindled some long held goal of hers. The LRH talk to Executives ended and for awhile it produced no effects...but only for awhile. NOTE: While on the Apollo in 1973 as Programs Chief, I was required to hear an LRH tape regarding CC. It was not of the original lecture which Yvonne had attended but rather a follow up tape to that wherein Hubbard comments on Yvonne and uses the phrase, "She ran with the ball" He also discusses who is eligible to do services at Celebrity Centres. Yvonne left on her mission to be the Commanding Officer of the Advanced Org in L.A. My research department has uncovered an interesting fact that Yvonne put early AOLA staff on 24 hour per day service. I was told by a guy on the Excalibur training ship in 1971 who was CC staff and had formerly been AOLA staff that the early AOLA was generating an income of $100,000 per week. When you think that the 1969 dollar was worth $5 in today's money, that is a hefty Gross Income (GI) for an Org of that time but the story, though hearsay, is likely true because L.A. was the only place in the Western Hemisphere where advanced Scientology Services could be obtained. Prior to its opening, the only place delivering the services was Saint Hill in England.
Sometime in 1969. Hanna Eltringham came to AOLA and assumed some of Yvonne's duties so Yvonne could concentrate on CC. Yvonne had set up the filing cabinet in AOLA having to do with the start up of CC and these files were moved into Yvonne's new private CC booking office, next door to AOLA. Yvonne worked that office from early 1969 to early 1970. This is when she must have been contacting celebrites and people such as agents who knew celebrities. It is awe inspiring to realize that this one woman was working alone on some basic purpose to help LRH and on a personal goal of hers to run an Org of Celebrities and Opinion Leaders. In that one year of unaccounted for time, she set into motion the wheels of progress that were to lead to the Celebrity Centre International of today. The life of every celebrity currently affiliated with Celebrity Centre Int would be vastly different today if it were not for this one woman, with her powerful intention, working away by herself in a small obscure office, unsupervised, making calls, setting up meetings with agents, etc. and doing whatever she had to do to get her Centre, which she considered LRH's Centre, up and running. There was no policy on what to do or how to do this but she knew what to do and nothing could stop her once she started to pursue her goal.
THIS IS WHAT GREATNESS IS ALL ABOUT. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BIG BEING IN ACTION AND WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVED BY ONE PERSON.
CHAPTER 2 - HELP ARRIVES IN THE FORM OF ANOTHER BIG BEING
Yvonne's plan was to first expose celebrities to auditing and then after achieving their wins, they would use their opinion leader status to encourage their publics to join Scientology, therefore Yvonne needed an auditor, a Class VIII, kha khan, Crackerjack auditor who just by happenstance happened to walk through her office door at that very minute just to say hello on her way out of town to handle personal affairs.
Sometime later, in early 1970 Tonto had some personal business to pursue and was granted permission by LRH to do it. Tonto was not planning on working in an Org while she was on leave handling personal business and just stopped at the AOLA to say hello to old friends and particularly Hanna Eltringham. As she was about to leave and start on her personal business, Hanna suggested that Tonto stop down in Yvonne's CC office and "just say hello." Since my opening to this story is patterned on the radio and television program of the old days, "The Lone Ranger", the "Lone Ranger" is represented by Yvonne and her first Celebrity auditor is called Tonto, just to avoid writing myster crackerjack auditor everytime. This off chance request of Hanna's turned out to be key in the opening of Celebrity Centre. FOOD FOR THOUGHT - DID YVONNE JUST POSTULATE THAT THE NEXT PIECE OF HER PUZZLE, A TOP CELEBRITY AUDITOR, WOULD JUST APPEEAR AT HER FRONT DOOR?
THE BUILDING Frank Dunn found the wooden framed building for the Centre at 1809 W. 8th St. in Central Los Angeles and the landlords were Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Freistadt. Frank made all the arrangements but Yvonne had to go in and sign the papers and got many more concessions from the Freitstadts with her incomparable charm. Nobody would know the name Freistadt if it weren't for yours truly working in Treasury. I had to write the rent check to them every month, it was for $800, a steal at twice the price. Twice I had to drive out and pay the couple in person and both times they reminisced about their experiences dealing with Yvonne. I dutifully took notes knowing that 38 years later, I would be writing the story of CCLA (just kidding of course). I speak fair German and I liked the name Friestadt which means Free City. Actually they appeared to be Jewish and not German but many Jewish people have German derived names. Once the building was acquired, Yvonne and Tonto opened for business. This occured in early 1970, I was not able to ascertain the exact date.
SOME COMMENTS ABOUT TONTO I knew Tonto only slightly in those early years I was on staff, just on a saying "hi" when passing in the hall basis. She posted recently on my thread, "The Old Days - Aboard the Apollo -1973" that she was very aware of who I was then and that I had a glow of a willingness to help and a wanting to contribute which made me shine. Well, for about a week, I was walking around about 3' off the ground after reading that compliment from TONTO. This person was so fantastic in the ability to handle Celebrities it was unbelievable. No matter how big the Celebrity was, Tonto could always relate to them. In most of the Celebrities' eyes, as PC's, Tonto was the real Celebrity and not them. Possibly no other auditor on Earth could have handled celebrities the way Tonto did. It's as if TONTO was born to audit celebrities, the hat fit like a glove. Tonto deserves status as Co-FOunder of CC !! Tonto was there with Yvonne from day 1 and at first all CC did was audit celebrities so Tonto hanled all Tech, scheduling and delivery functions. As with many great people in history, they ususally had a person of comparable magnitude working with them to help them generate their power. Yvonne and Tonto formed such a team.
For a while it was just Yvonne and Tonto. The first addition had to be a C/S (Case Supervisor) for Tonto and shortly after opening, Ellen Jones, Class VIII became the C/S. For awhile there was just the three of them auditing and C/Sing Celebrities but new staff began to be added. Hector Carmona was one of the early non technical people, see Chapter 4 for more of his story and how he rose to be chief Registrar. Within 6 months there were at least 50 on staff. My first experience going there was at about that time, around August of 1970. I was then a newbie , only two months into Scientology and on lines doing the Dianetics Course at L.A. Org. I went there to hear a Mario Feninger concert because I am a lover of classical music. I remember a staff member named DIck Hubbard, no relation to LRH. We arrived early before the concert and told Dick that we would be back in an hour. Though tickets were free, he gave us our tickets because he said seating was limited and we would need the tickets to get in when we came back. We came back and saw the concert. Of course Mario was great. He wore a black cape and as was typical of all his concerts, he opened with 2 pieces by the Father and Son composers of the Baroque era, Allesandro and Domenico Scarletti, there was intermission and my first experience in the CCLA snack bar and then Chopin for the second half of the program. I believe there was an encore which was a piece by Mario's Mother, Teresa de Rogatis. As always Mario was spectacular and the concert very memorable.
SOME OF THE EARLY CELEBRITIES WHO WERE THERE - In 1970 the biggest four Celebrities were Stehphen Boyd, who had recently starred with Charleton Heston in the Epic Movie, Ben Hur, Karen Black a young and developing star at that time, Candice Bergen who was well known as being the daughter of ventroloquist Edgar Bergen and Ernest Lehman, a major Director, having just directed a major Academny Award Winning movie plus having recently worked very closely with Alfred Hitchcock. Stephen Boyd made the Intro movie which I saw but both he and Candice Bergen had already just left Scientology or were just in the process of leaving when I first showed up. Tonto auditied all of these people with the exception of Stephen Boyd. One time Ernest Lehman was there for a session and Tonto was not available and they tried to assign another auditor to him and he refused. He said it would have to be Tonto or he would leave and come back the next day. He left for the day because Tonto was not available. I was standing just a few feet away and heard the entire interchange. (I edited in this paragraph and the one below it on January 15, 2010)
Other top celebrities on lines were Chick Correa, Geoffrey Lewis who was already getting top supporting actor roles in big films and on TV and Robert F. Lyons, who had just had a big movie hit in "Downhill Racer". A Latin singing star named "Lisette" who was known as La muchacha con los ojos triestes" {The girl with the sad eyes) was huge in Latin America at the time. We even had big 7'2" Richard Kiel who played the role of "Jaws" in some of the James Bond films, though he did not show up until 1972. Of course Mario Feninger, the classical pianist was there as well. While I was on staff there, through October, 1973, Anne Francis did one class and Shelly Winters came down and spoke to the staff. Besides Ernest Lehman, who only showed up to receive auditing, another well know director and drama coach, Milton Katselas became a fixture there, heavily particpating in many ways. Rock Hudson, was brought in for an intro session which did not go well. John Travolta was still about 3 years away from joining and was not yet famous.
CHAPTER 3 TONTO'S CONTRACT IS EXTENDED
Six months had passed and there were more auditors and C/Ses on staff and Tonto wanted to move on and resume the personal projects which had been shelved as per the original agreements with Yvonne As was typical with Yvonne, she begged Tonto to stay longer and Tonto agreed and eventually stayed about another year and a half.
CHAPTER 4 MORE ABOUT THE EARLIEST DAYS AT CCLA - Initially, the Org consisted only of Yvonne and Tonto and the staff was formed around Tonto. For example, Ellen Jones was the third staff member and was Tonto's C/S. This practice of building up the staff around Tonto continued. Originally, Tonto was paid the entire auditing fee of $25 per hour (about $125 in today's money) directly by the celebrities. After a few months, CC began collecting the money and Tonto was paid a pay check from CC. Sea Org base pay at the time was $10 per week. After 6 months, the number of staff was up to around 50 and there were other auditors and C/Ses on staff and Tonto's pay was down to $5 per hour. As covered earlier, Tonto wanted to leave and was talked into staying by Yvonne. Eventually, in mid 1971 the Org moved up to a mansion in the hills near the Griffith Park Observatory. At that point the Org was a year and a half old and had plenty of Celebrity auditors and C/Ses and Tonto's pay was down to $5 per hour and she decided it was time to leave. Yvonne put up a fight but could not prevent Tonto from leaving and Tonto went off into the sunset, her mission at CC completed in her usual Kha Khan fashion. She left for the San Francisco area with Frank Dunn and Frank and Lee Blumer. FOOD FOR THOUGHT Would Scientology have done better in the long term, in its stated mission, if the Sea Org had paid certain key people what they were worth. Tonto, was the entire tech delivery team of the Org and was on authorized leave from the Sea Org to handle some personal business. When she started audting at CCLA she received $25 per hour (in 1970 dollars) and within 6 months she was down to $5 per hour and wanted to leave as per her initial deal with Yvonne. Had her pay been kept higher due to her unique status in the Organization, she mentioned to me that she would have wanted to stay longer, perhaps indefinitely. This is a personal insight that just occured to me and I edited it in on 8 Jan 2010.
Added May 18, 2010 - I spoke by phone twice with the old lead registrar, Hector Carmona about 6 weeks ago. Hector was one of the earliest non technical staff to join up with Yvonne. He told me that at the beginning, he was not a registrar. On one occasion he filled in for the Recruiter and he recruited somebody and then recruits in general started picking up. Next he filled in somewhere else and then some major and unexpected positive result occurred there. One day, the registrar was out and Yvonne asked Hector to fill in and someone walked in and Hector signed this person up for a sizeable service. Everyone was joking that wherever Hector went, the statistics connected with the CCLA Organization increased. Yvonne told Hector that he was somebody special and she was going to make him the head registrar. That happened in early 1970, probably in the Spring. Hector stayed on that post for 12 years, I believe, until 1982. Hector related something to me that I did not previously know. While the Org was up on La Brea Blvd., Yvonne was demoted from being the Commanding Officer. It was done in a way so as for her to save face. It was determined that there would be two commanding officers, Yvonne and someone else, I believe it was Irene Derman but I am not sure. Irene was to stay up at La Brea and run the main organization as Commanding Officer. Yvonne was also called a Commanding Officer but was sent to the beautiful Chateau Elysee, where Celebrity Centre is currently located. Yvonne did not contol a complete Organization but focused instead on only promotional actions. Her post was more of a titular post rather than a post with real power. It is odd that this happened to Yvonne because in the 1980's her husband Heber Jentzsch was made the President of Scientology and in the same manner his post was mainly to serve as a public relations figurehead but he had absolutely no actual power. My Opinion is that Yvonne knew she was being demoted and it probably broke her spirit because within a year or so, she died of brain cancer, in the early part of 1978. She was only in her mid 40's. Getting back to the main line of the story.....
Tonto and Yvonned connected again in the beginning of 1976 for one last time when Tonto opened a cafe on Fairfax Ave. and catered to CC students at lunch break when CC was on La Brea Blvd., not too far from Fairfax. I bet those lunches were health food lunches and were very tasty. Tonto got to see Yvonne almost every day during this period up in Yvonne's office. The two shared a nice communication line as equals. You see, it was Yvonne's daughters, Janice and Teri, who brought Yvonne to Tonto's cabin when Tonto was setting up getting ready to leave on a mission to set up the AO in Edinburgh, Tonto had been the career tutor to all the children without any troubles for the entire month, with Mary Sue as the Captain, but that is another story. At this point Tonto exits the CC story permanently.
CHAPTER 5 - THE OLD MANSION IN THE HILLS
Scientology Management and City Building Codes and Regulations mix like oil and water. Scientology Int management, at least at that time, read only LRH. Nothng else was deemed worth reading and was labled as False Data. Tell that to the officials who wrote the Los Angeles City Building and Zoning Codes. They couldn't know a Secondary from a Second Martgage, a GPM from an IBM, or an auditing assessment from a tax assessmeent. An E meter was something affixed to one's house to register the amount of electricity being used. In fact if someone told them an auditor was going into session, they would think that a bookkeeper was going to play jazz with a liitle group of like minded buddies.
The mansion was a grand old estate home in an area of luxury estates in the hills just south of Griffith Park Observaory in Los Angeles. To get there from the Celebrity Center, one would have to take Vermont Blvd north 3 to 4 miles to Los Feliz Blvd., drive a good mile or so East and then turn left at Hillhurst Ave. and head up into the hills. If one went straight up he would pass the Greek Theater in about a mile and then another mile would find him at the L.A. Observatory. To get to the Org mansion, one would have to turn left about half way to the Greek Theatre and then wind around the streets for 4 or 5 blocks and wind up at the mansion. The mansion was situated on about 1 1/2 acres of land. The problem was that this land was zoned R1 which meant that it was for single family Residences. LRH did not write that in policy so no one knew or suspected that such a thing existed. The mansion consisted of a large house, perhaps 4.500 square feet plus a basement and an attic. It was probably built in the late 1920's. Scientologists have a habit of quickly gobbling up every square inch of usable space and shorly the attic and basement werre claimed as berthing by various staff members. This brought the square footage up to about 6,000 plus there was a garage and some other out buildings. Total usable space was perhaps 7,000 square feet. Into this footage were shoe honed berthing for about 65 staff, several course rooms, a galley (large kitchen for staff meals) and archives for all the pc folders plus an HGC with its large waiting room and lots of small individual auditing rooms. There was an entry room or parlor when you first walked in and a large living room where I believe a piano was placed. There was a formal dining room as well. These 3 front rooms were furnished nicely and kept at low traffic volume to make the place appear more like a home than an Org.
The flaw in all this was that the neighborhood was zoned single family residences and the neighbors, old staid, wealthy families of tradition objected vehemently to us being there runing an operation that seemed like some sort of business enterprise. The neighbors complianed to L.A. City Council that their peaceful neighborhood was being invaded by some group of flamboyant people not the family people typical of the neightborhood and that further, most all of the parking spots on the adjoining streets were being taken up all day by visitors of this strange group whcih had moved in next door.
CHAPTER 6 - TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
Either Flag Management or the brain trust at CCLA hatched a plot to try and keep us in the building. It was a typical Sea Org shore story. We were to pretend to be some kind of discussion group that met regularaly and discussed art. The most conventional looking people were picked who were a little older and wore suits and ties and had shorter hair, etc. I was not staff then but public but I was picked to serve, another person chosen was my good friend, actress Beverly Carter who was also public. Our chaplain, Andrik Schappers was chosen (he is still in the Church and leads crusades in Europe to expand Scn). Dick Hubbard had that All American look and may have been choosen, I believe that Ellen Jones was chosen and perhaps her husband Mark plus we had Irene Howey and also Henry Baumgard and others for a total of 12 or so "Art Critics". The day the official from the City of L.A. showed up, Yvonne acted as the host and showed him in. We were all discussing art and the men wore suits and ties and the women all wore nice dresses. We picked an artist such as Monet or Picasso or van Gogh and we all read up on his bio and drilled it a litttle. When the guy from L.A. showed up, Yvonne acted as the host and showed him in. We were all discussing art when he walked in and this fellow was well groomed, quite charming and very cordial to us. He stuck around for 20 to 30 minutes observing us and then shook hands with everyone and left smiling. We thought we had done very well but it really did not matter. Even if we were an art discussion group visiting Yvonne, the amount of traffic going in and out on a a day to day basis and the amount of parking taking place in a residental neighborhood ruled out any chance we had to stay. We were ordered to move out within some prescribed time such as 30 or 60 days. A new house on 9th Street and Lake St. about 3 blocks from the Centre was chosen and the Mansion was vacated on schedule and the move to 9th and Lake went smoothly. That completes this phase of the story. Other things may be added from time to time as they become known to me.
I have this story up on another site but Janice Grady suggested that I make it a separate thread of its own.
Lakey
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