Dust-up has N.J. angles aplenty

Cruise, Shields - and Codey?

NJ Courier-Post/July 11, 2005
By Alan Guenther

Just when it seemed that Tom Cruise had finished couch-dancing, professing his love for Katie Holmes and his contempt for psychiatry, acting New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Codey made an appearance on the national stage last week.

You may have heard - how could you not? - that Cruise, in television appearances, trashed actress Brooke Shields for taking medications to overcome depression after she'd had a baby. Cruise is a Scientologist, and Scientologists believe psychiatrists are too free and easy with pills.

That's when Codey stepped in.

"Tom Cruise knows as much about postpartum depression as I do about acting, and he should stick to acting and not talk about women who need help," Codey told the Associated Press. The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, The Washington Post and People magazine's online edition all printed Codey's remarks.

But why would the governor get involved?

Well, New Jersey is a bigger part of this story than you might think.

Shields, of course, is a Princeton alumna. Cruise spent years in Glen Ridge, Essex County, before he dropped out of high school.

There are more Jersey connections to this national story. In fact, the first Church of Scientology was incorporated in Camden in 1953, though it didn't thrive, according to local Scientology spokesman Bruce Thompson. Church founder L. Ron Hubbard delivered more than 150 lectures in Camden at the end of 1953.

But Codey's ties to the controversy are more direct and personal than that.

His wife, Mary Jo, 49, has openly discussed her struggles with depression; she was diagnosed with it 28 years ago.

During a public appearance last fall, she told of driving to a pharmacy four towns away from her home to fill a prescription for antidepressants. She said she "wore dark sunglasses and prayed really hard to God that no one would see me."

Local mental health experts say that's why this story is worthy of the governor's attention.

"At the present moment, it feels as though 20 years of advocacy to reduce the stigma of mental illness has been overshadowed by the opinion of a movie star. Tom Cruise has chosen to abuse his celebrity status to send an anti-mental health message," said Mary Lynne Reynolds, executive director of the Mental Health Association in Southwestern New Jersey.

Local Scientologists are just as impassioned.

They give Cruise credit for exposing what they say is a multibillion dollar collusion between psychiatrists and the drug industry.

Scientologists, who claim 8 million members worldwide, including 3.5 million in the United States, say they're tired of seeing children drugged at an early age to enhance performance in school. And they think too many people take mood-altering drugs instead of working to solve their problems.

"We are very vocal," said Thompson. "We don't feel it's good to drug people to mask symptoms." Thompson is the spokesman for Philadelphia's Church of Scientology on Race Street, which claims about 200 members. About half are from South Jersey.

Bill Scordato, 51, of Washington Township, credits Scientology with helping him organize his life. Married for 19 years, he says he searches for ways to "raise the percentage chance of success."

Scientology, says Thompson, provides a pathway to enlightenment that is unclouded by drugs. That's why the message being delivered by Cruise is so important, he says.

But Reynolds says Cruise's comments could encourage "many people to avoid effective mental health treatment."

That's why the issue, she says, merited the attention of the governor.