Eyes wide open: Biographer digging for info on Cruise
A Tom Cruise bio by the author of books on Princess Diana, Madonna and Monica Lewinsky is bound to upset the defenders of his faith at the Church of Scientology.
Tom Cruise has a new biographer - even though he probably doesn’t want one.
Andrew Morton - who scaled the best-seller lists with books about Princess Diana, Madonna and Monica Lewinsky - is digging for fresh bits about the diminutive box-office Goliath.
A source at St. Martin’s Press, which published the Lewinsky and Madonna books, tells us it hopes to bring out the book next fall, but the house doesn’t seem eager to bugle the deal.
That could be because Morton, who enjoyed the full cooperation of Di and Monica, is not likely to get much from Cruise. In fact, Morton is probably bracing himself for interference from the actor’s protectors at the Church of Scientology. Last week at an L.A. restaurant, the former Daily Mail reporter was spotted debriefing private eye Paul Barresi and attorney Graham Berry, reports radaronline.com.
Baressi actually did Cruise a favor in 2002, when he helped put the kibosh on a story peddled by a porn actor who claimed he’d been intimate with Cruise.
But there are few people Scientologists loathe more than Berry, who represented a psychiatrist quoted in Time’s scorching 1991 Scientology story in a libel suit.
Berry wouldn’t discuss what he and Morton talked about, but told us that “Cruise can be compared to Charles Lindbergh and his support of Nazi Germany.”
Cruise’s sister and publicist, Lee Anne De Vette, didn’t return a call by deadline.
Recently, the church’s lawyers threatened to sue ScienTomogy.info, a site that pokes fun at Cruise and his faith, for copyright infringement. Since then, the site’s creator, New Zealander Gary Stollery, has posted a disclaimer on his Web page, explaining that the site is a joke. Still, he’s received mass E-mails, late-night cell-phone calls and even house visits from church members looking to “explain” the sect to him.
