THE STORY OF CELEBRITY CENTER'S FOUNDING!!
NEVER BEFORE TOLD STORY!
EXCLUSIVE THE STORY OF CELEBRITY CENTER'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 Cebebrity Center came to be!! Now for the first time 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 AND ENJOY!
RETURN WITH US TO THOSE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR WHEN OUT OF THE PAST AND INTO YOUR HOME, (OFFICE OR LOCAL STARBUCKS) COME THE THUNDERING DEEDS OF THE GREAT S.O. MEMBER YVONNE AND HER LOYAL SIDEKICK "MYSTERY CRACKERJACK AUDITOR" The Year is 1969. the place Los Angeles, California, USA: After a brief message from out sponsor the story begins......Eat Wheaties, the Breakfast of Chanpions the favorite breakfast food of 3 out of 4 U.S. Olympic Medal Winners...and now on to our exciting story.
CHAPTER ONE
In late 1968 and on into 1969, Yvonne Jentzsch was the Commanding Officer of the new advanced Org in Los Angeles. She had been sent to Los Angeles as part of a mission from Flag, then onboard the Apollo, to establish the new Advanced Org for North America in L.A. Prior to leaving for Los Angeles, an innocent 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 and enrich 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 psyche, 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. 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 24hour/ 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 attained. Prior to its opening, the only place delivering the services was Saint Hill.
Sometime in 1969, Hanna Eltringham came to Los Angeles to relieve Yvonne of her very successful mission and Hanna took over Yvonne's duties. We know that while C.O. of L.A., Yvonne had set up a filing cabinet having to do with the start up of Celebrity Centre. What was in the filing cabinet, I do not know yet but when my story is released today, I believe that point will be cleared up in full by someone out there who knows. What I have heard is that the file cabinet contained contact information for Celebrities and some information about celebrity bookings.
When Yvonne was no longer C.O. of AOLA, she occupied an office right next door to the AO and her files were moved to that office. Yvonne worked in that office for nearly a year 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, 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, set into motion the wheels of progress that were to lead to Celebrity Centre International of today. The life of every celebrity currently affiliated with Celebrity Centre Int would be vastly different today than it is 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 going. There was no policy on what or how to do this but she knew what to do and nothing would 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 appeared on the scene by chance who was the best person on the planet to help Yvonne succeed. Since my opening story is patterned after the Lone Ranger radio and TV show, and Yvonne represents the Lone Ranger, let me refer to the mystery Crackerjack class VIII auditor as Tonto only so that I can write one short word to represent this auditor instead of using mystery, cracerjack Class VIII all the time.
Tonto had recently left Flag to pursue some personal matters and arrived in L.A. and just stopped in at AOLA to check in with Hanna, to say hello and see what was going on. Tonto knew both Hanna and Yvonne from the Apollo. It was Hanna who asked Tonto to say hello to Yvonne in her office right next door. This off chance request of Hanna's turned out to be key in the opening of Celebrity Centre.
In her trademark sweet manner (who could refuse Yvonne) Yvonne asked Tonto to shelve her personal plans for only six months and stay to help Yvonne get Celebrity Centre going. Tonto graciously agreed and initially Tonto did all the auditing plus the CSing, getting paid directly by the Celebrity clients.
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 Freistadts with her incomparable charm. Nobody would know the name Freistadt if it weren't for me working in CC 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 a lot of 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 do not know 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. 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 PCs, Tonto was the real Celebrity and not them. Possibly no other auditor on Earth could have handled celebrities the way Tonto did. Its 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 real celebrities so Tonto handled all Tech, scheduling and delivery functions. As with many great people in history, they usually had a person of comparable magnitude to them 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 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/S ing Celebrities but new staff began to be added. 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. We arrived early before the concert and told Dick, no relation to LRH, 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 Scarlatti, 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.
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 stay longer. Tune in again tomorrow for the next episode to see what happened next.
Lakey
I don't know actually, cos I haven't read it for donkey's years.
