Report: Elisabeth Moss's father still trying to get back in Scientology's graces when he died

[Ron Moss]

In April 2022, the New Yorker magazine published a profile of actress Elisabeth Moss and interviewed former Scientology Celebrity Centre fixture Geoff Levin.

At the time, we gave the magazine credit for asking Geoff about Moss’s Scientology involvement, something Moss herself is generally not very talkative about.

But Geoff wanted us to know that he’d told the New Yorker more about Moss and Scientology, and about her father, Scientologist musician Ron Moss, that didn’t make it into the magazine.

He told us why he had been in a particularly good position to watch Elisabeth as she was becoming more important as an artist, and the reasons why she might have escaped some of the scrutiny that other Scientology celebrities go through.

But the most surprising thing he told us was that after her father Ron’s fall from grace, Elisabeth and her mother had pushed him out of their lives.

And now, Ron Moss has died at 79, and so we went back to Geoff for some more thoughts on his old friend.

“I knew Ron in the early days before he became Chick Corea’s manager. He played trombone on music tracks I composed. He was a musician first and then a very hard working, skilled music manager. We were friends,” Geoff says. “There was a small group of working successful musicians in Scientology in the 70s and 80s and Ron was in touch with all of us.”

And then, Ron managed Chick’s career during the jazz phenom’s most successful years.

“I attended many of Chick’s concerts thanks to Ron’s support in getting tickets,” Geoff remembers.

But then, something around the year 2001 happened. Exactly what, and how it related to Scientology, was explained recently by Mike Rinder, and Marc and Claire Headley in a video.

Mike explained that Chick Corea, the super-successful jazz artist and OT 8 Scientologist, was having serious financial problems and couldn’t pay his bills.

This was potentially a disaster not only for Chick, but also for Scientology if it became publicly known. And so, Mike says, Scientology leader David Miscavige came up with a solution: Buy Chick’s LA recording studio, Mad Hatter, so Chick could pay off his debts with money from the sale.

Mike said the studio became “the biggest white elephant in Scientology history” as it really wasn’t needed.

Meanwhile, Mike explained, a “who” had to be found to explain why Chick had failed so badly. And they settled on Ron Moss, his manager.

Marty Rathbun was used, Mike said, to work on Ron with Scientology sec checking until he agreed that he’d been the problem.

And Ron’s punishment?

“He was no longer allowed to be part of the Chick Corea world, and no longer allowed to be part of the Scientology celebrity gang,” Mike said.

When Chick died in 2021, in an interview on a music podcast Ron said he hadn’t seen Chick in 20 years, that they’d never had a “reconciliation.”

But really, Mike explained, it was Scientology disconnection: Ron was made the scapegoat for Chick’s financial problems, and was then made a sort of un-person. But they could never totally destroy him because of who his daughter was.

“Elisabeth Moss still to this day supports Scientology, right, like she knows that this happened to her dad,” Mike said. “She knows the whole story of what went down and how he was scapegoated and he was made the bad guy.”

We noted that news reports said that Ron Moss had died in Clearwater, and we asked Geoff Levin about that.

“Through a friend who was in touch with him recently, I found out Ron was living near the Scientology Flag Land Base in Clearwater until he died. He was still in Scientology. And he was doing a protracted ethics program to get back on his OT Levels,” Geoff says.

More than 20 years after he’d been kicked out of Chick’s circle, and demoted as a degraded being, Ron Moss was still dutifully trying to get himself back in the good graces of the church.

“The sad thing was, like many people who have gone ‘up the Bridge.’ Ron’s mental condition worsened and the pressure to give more and more money to Scientology increased. And that resulted in issues with his family. Linda, his ex-wife, disconnected from him and so did Elisabeth,” Geoff says. “I heard he was in touch with his son Derek.”

Ron Moss, dedicated to Scientology to the end, even after it took away his daughter and his friends.

“I’m sorry to see him go, still believing the lies of L. Ron Hubbard’s toxic organization,” Geoff says. “So many music artists went downhill the longer they stayed in Scientology. RIP Ron, you deserved better.”

---

Danny Masterson moved to another state prison

Last night Jeffrey Augustine reported that Danny Masterson has been moved from the North Kern state prison intake facility to a more permanent location: Corcoran State Prison in Central California, where he will be serving his 30 years-to-life sentence.

The That ‘70s Show actor is not eligible for parole until June 2042, when he will be 66 years old.

Notable former inmates of the prison at Corcoran include Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson.

---

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail).

---

Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series every week…

Up the Bridge: A weekly journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news