Best Known As: Star of the Mission Impossible movie series
Name at birth: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
Tom Cruise made a strong impression in the teen comedy Risky Business (1983) and then had his first box-office smash as the fighter jock Maverick in Top Gun (1986). Cruise and his cocky grin were propelled higher onto Hollywood's A-list thanks to a string of successful movies: Rain Man (1988, with Dustin Hoffman), The Color of Money (1986, with Paul Newman), A Few Good Men (1992, with Jack Nicholson) and Jerry Maguire (1996, with Cuba Gooding, Jr. saying "Show me the money!"). Cruise has remained one of Hollywood's busiest actors, taking on blockbuster franchises such as Mission: Impossible (Cruise played superspy Ethan Hunt in the original and two sequels in 1996, 2000 and 2006) as well as more diverse dramas such as Magnolia (1999), Vanilla Sky (2001) and the Steven Spielberg movies Minority Report (2002, co-starring Samantha Morton) and War of the Worlds (2005). Cruise began dating actress Katie Holmes in 2005. Dubbed "TomKat" by the tabloids, they had a daughter, Suri, on 18 April 2006, and were married in Italy on 18 November 2006.
Cruise is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology... Cruise proposed to Holmes at the Eiffel Tower after a highly-publicized whirlwind romance. He came in for a ribbing from pundits after he hopped up and down on the talk-show couch of Oprah Winfrey while proclaiming his love for Holmes... Cruise's marriage to Holmes is his third. He and actress Nicole Kidman were married in 1990, separated in 2000, and were divorced in 2001. They met while filming one of Cruise's few duds, Days of Thunder (1990), and appeared together in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999). They adopted two children: Isabella (in 1993) and Connor (in 1995). Cruise also was married to actress Mimi Rogers, a fellow Scientologist, from 1986-1990... Cruise dated actress Penelope Cruz, his co-star in Vanilla Sky, from 2001-2004... Most sources say Cruise's height is 5'7".
(born July 3, 1962, Syracuse, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. actor. He made his screen debut in 1981 and rose to stardom as the leading man in Risky Business (1983) and Top Gun (1986). He received acclaim for his dramatic roles in The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and Magnolia (1999). His other films include A Few Good Men (1992), Mission: Impossible (1996), Jerry Maguire (1996), Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (2002), and Valkyrie (2008).
Tom Cruise, the actor who portrayed the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt in the movie version of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire was born Thomas Cruise Mapother on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. He grew up in New York and New Jersey and began his acting career soon after graduating from high school. His first professional part was a role in a dinner theater production of Godspell.
Cruise's debut in motion pictures was in 1981 in Endless Love, followed by Taps and Losin' It. He became a star after his performance as a young rich kid left on his own in his family's suburban Chicago home, in the comedy Risky Business. A series of starring roles followed, including All the Right Moves,Legend,Top Gun,The Color of Money, and Rain Man, movies in which he worked with many of Hollywood's finest actors and actresses. Cruise took a major step forward with his portrayal of a Vietnam veteran in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), which earned him an Academy Award nomination. More recently he has continued his appealing performances in A Few Good Men and The Firm. In 1993 he was presented with the Actor of the Decade Award at the Chicago International Film Festival.
In the summer of 1993 it was announced that Cruise had been signed to play Lestat in the long-delayed movie version of Interview with a Vampire. He was given the part opposite Brad Pitt, who would play Louis. The announcement unleashed a controversy between author Anne Rice and the studio, Geffen Films. Rice decried the selection of Cruise, whom she saw as too young, too American, and, most of all, lacking in the primal quality of Lestat-androgyny. Cruise's career had been a series of almost stereotypical male roles quite different from the character of Lestat. Unlike the traditional vampire, Lestat develops close relationships with other males and shows a number of feminine characteristics. Fans were quick to jump to Cruise's defense and to note that he had grown with each part he had played. His fans claimed that his performances in Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July demonstrated that he could adapt to many different roles. Cruise reportedly accepted a slight cut in salary for what he saw as a risky part that would test his acting ability. It was the first time he would portray what was considered a dark role. The film was expected to be completed and released in the fall of 1994. Silver, Alan. "The Vampire Cruise?" DGA Directors Guild of America News 18, 5 (October-November 1993): 27.
Career Highlights: Jerry Maguire, Rain Man, Risky Business
First Major Screen Credit: Taps (1981)
Biography
An actor whose name has become synonymous with all-American testosterone-driven entertainment, Tom Cruise spent the 1980s as one of Hollywood's brightest-shining golden boys. With black hair, blue eyes, and unabashed cockiness, Cruise rode high on such hits as Top Gun and Rain Man. Although his popularity dimmed slightly in the early '90s, he was able to bounce back with a string of hits that re-established him as both an action hero and, in the case of Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, a talented actor.
Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, NY, Cruise led a peripatetic existence as a child, moving from town to town with his rootless family. A high-school wrestler, Cruise went into acting after being sidelined by a knee injury. This new activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated Cruise's need for attention, while the memorization aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia.
Moving to New York in 1980, Cruise held down odd jobs until getting his first movie break in Endless Love (1981). His first big hit was Risky Business (1982), in which he entered movie-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents' absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the "Brat Pack," a group of twentysomething actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early '80s. But Cruise chose not to play the sort of teen-angst roles that the other Brat Packers specialized in -- a wise decision, in that he has sustained his stardom while many of his contemporaries have fallen by the wayside or retreated into direct-to-video cheapies.
Top Gun (1985) established Cruise as an action star, but again he refused to be pigeonholed, and followed up Top Gun with a solid characterization of a fledgling pool shark in The Color of Money (1986), the film that earned co-star Paul Newman an Academy Award. In 1988, Cruise took on one of his most challenging assignments, as the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. "Old" Hollywood chose to give all the credit for that film's success to Hoffman, but a closer look at Rain Man reveals that Cruise is the true central character in the film, the one who "grows" in humanity and maturity while Hoffman's character, though brilliantly portrayed, remains the same.
In 1989, Cruise was finally given an opportunity to carry a major dramatic film without an older established star in tow. As paraplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Cruise delivered perhaps his most outstanding performance. Cruise's bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away in 1990 (though it did give him a chance to co-star with his-then wife Nicole Kidman), but with A Few Good Men (1992), Cruise was back in form. In 1994, Cruise appeared as the vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire. Although she was vehemently opposed to Cruise's casting, Rice reversed her decision upon seeing the actor's performance.
In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the big-budget actioner Mission: Impossible, but it was with his multilayered, Oscar-nominated performance in Jerry Maguire (also 1996) that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. 1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. The film, which was the director's last, had been the subject of controversy, rumor, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation, and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood's most well-placed movers and shakers.
Cruise's enviable position was again solidified later in 1999, when he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as a loathsome "sexual prowess" guru in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. In 2000, he scored again when he reprised his role as international agent Ethan Hunt in John Woo's Mission: Impossible II, which proved to be one of the summer's first big moneymakers. His status as a full-blown star of impressive dramatic range now cemented in the eyes of both longtime fans and detractors, the popular actor next set his sights on reteaming with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar's (The Others) Abre los Ojos titled Vanilla Sky. Though Vanilla Sky's sometimes surreal trappings found the film recieving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year's massively successful sci-fi chase film Minority Report. Based on a short story by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and directed by none other than Steven Spielberg, Minority Report scored a direct hit at the box office, and Cruise could next be seen gearing up for his role in Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai alongside Ken Watanabe, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.
For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he'd ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the Michael Mann psychological thriller Collateral. He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he'd built his career on, and for doing so convincingly. By 2005, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds.
The summer blockbuster was regarded as a good popcorn film, but was in some ways overshadowed by the negative publicity that Cruise had been gathering. It began in 2005, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in the principles of Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication in order to combat her postpartum depression, citing antidepressants and the psychological sciences as immoral and unnecessary, going so far as to call it a "Nazi science" in an Entertainment Weekly interview. On June 24, 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly excitable and argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a "pseudoscience," and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world.
This behavior caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise's enthusiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 23, where he jumped up and down on the couch during his interview, professing his love for Holmes. He also ecstatically shook Winfrey's hands and at one point fell dramatically to one knee. The actor's newly outspoken attitude about Scientology linked intimately to the buzz surrounding his new relationship, as Holmes converted to the faith despite a lifelong adherence to Catholicism. The media was flooded with a rumor that the young actress had a "lost" period around this time, when for two weeks she was unreachable to her parents, friends, and extended family. Many suspected that Cruise's strange public behavior was nothing more than a failed publicity stunt to raise interest in War of the Worlds, a general attitude that continued through October 2005, when he and Holmes announced that she was pregnant.
Some audiences found Cruise's ultra-enthusiastic behavior refreshing, but for the most part, the actor's new public image hurt his fan base, as he alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring 2006 release of Mission: Impossible III, his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years. Despite a cast that boasted such names as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, curiosity about the film's success seemed to hinge solely on Cruise's controversial personal life. The movie ended up performing essentially as expected, despite lining up almost conspicuously with the birth of he and Holmes' daughter Suri in spring of 2006.
The media frenzy that followed the pregnancy and birth were no less involved. There were whispers of dangerous or inadvisable methods of childcare and feeding, rumors that the Scientology endorsed method for birthing demands complete silence from everyone -- including the mother -- and questions about what kind of access to medical care and pain medicine Holmes would have in accordance with the practices of Scientology. Holmes said little publicly of her new relationship, religion, or role as a mother, but Cruise insisted in interviews that the process of the "silent birth" demands others in the room be quiet, but not the mother.
Even after the child was born, controversy surrounded the name that the couple chose for her, as Cruise's public statement claimed the name Suri was chosen because it means "princess" in Hebrew and "red rose" in Persian, while experts on both languages insisted that this was not accurate. Scholars and speakers of the languages in question said that in Persian (conventionally known as Farsi) the word denotes the color red but has no connection whatsoever to roses, while in Hebrew, the closest connection it bears to its claimed origin is that the Jews of Eastern Europe use it as a nickname for the name Sarah, and that in ancient Hebrew Sarah is the feminine form of the word Lord. After the birth, the couple finally set their wedding date and held the event in July of that year.
Cruise next made headlines on a business front, when -- in November 2006 -- he and corporate partner Paula Wagner (the twin forces behind the lucrative Cruise-Wagner Productions, est. 1993) officially "took over" the defunct United Artists studio. Originally founded by such giants as Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin in 1921, UA was run into extinction after the Heaven's Gate fiasco in the early '80s and its purchase by Transamerica's Kirk Kerkorian. The press announced that Cruise and Wagner would "revive" the studio, with Wagner serving as Chief Executive Officer and Cruise starring in and producing projects. MGM (UA's parent company) handed the team the rights to almost single-handedly develop United's production slate, and gave them an allotment of four films per year, a number expected to dramatically increase. Harry Sloan, the chairman of MGM, remarked in a press release, "Partnering with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner, we have the ideal creative foundation from which to reintroduce the United Artists brand. United Artists is once again the haven for independent filmmakers and a vital resource in developing quality filmed entertainment consistent with MGM's modern studio model."
One of the fist films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs, which took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war. Cruise both starred in and produced the film, and though it performed unevenly with critics and at the box office, he soon green-lit another UA production, Valkyrie. Both producing and starring again, Cruise would play Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a Nazi officer who infamously attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler during the Thrid Reich in Germany. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (pronounced /ˈtɒməs ˈkruːz ˈmeɪpɒθər/; born July 3, 1962), better known by his screen name of Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer. Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity in 2006.[1] He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won three Golden Globe Awards. His first leading role was the 1983 film Risky Business[2], which has been described as "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker" for the actor.[3] After playing the role of a heroic naval pilot in the popular and financially successful 1986 film Top Gun, Cruise continued in this vein, playing a secret agent in a series of Mission: Impossible action films in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to these heroic roles, he played other parts such as the misogynisticmale guru in Magnolia (1999) and a cool and calculating sociopathic hitman in the Michael Mann crime-thriller film Collateral (2004).
In 2005, the Hollywood journalist, Edward Jay Epstein argued that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar movie franchise.[4] Since 2005, Cruise and Paula Wagner have been in charge of the United Artists film studio,[5] with Cruise as producer and star and Wagner as the chief executive. Cruise is also known for his controversial support of and adherence to the Church of Scientology.[6]
Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York,[7] the son of Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer.[8] Although Cruise's paternal surname (Mapother) is Welsh, it appears that his paternal great-grandfather, Thomas O'Mara, was of Irish ancestry and adopted his stepfather's surname, becoming the first Thomas Cruise Mapother.[9] He also has German and English ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotte Louise Voelker,[9] and German ancestry through his mother.[10] Tom Cruise's oldest sister, Lee Anne, was born in Louisville. His older sister Marian was born in Syracuse, as were Tom and his younger sister, Cass.[11]
Cruise attended Robert Hopkins Public school for grades three, four, and five. The Mapother family then moved to the suburb of Beacon Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, so Cruise's father could take a position as a defence consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. There, Cruise completed grade six at Henry Munro Middle School, part of the Carleton Board of Education,[12] where he was active in athletics, playing floor hockey almost every night, showing himself to be a ruthless player, eventually chipping his front tooth. In the game "British Bull Dog", he then lost his newly capped tooth and hurt his knee.[13] Henry Munro was also where Cruise became involved in drama, under the tutelage of George Steinburg.[14] The first play he participated in was called IT, in which Cruise won the co-lead with Michael de Waal, one playing "Evil", the other playing "Good." The play met much acclaim, and toured with five other classmates to various schools around the Ottawa area, even being filmed at the local Ottawa TV station.[15] The two were also singled out for a version of Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as a Marcel Marceau-type act. It was at this point that Mary Lee Mapother helped foster her son's acting aspirations: when the religious overtones of the former caused concern for school principal Jim Brown, Cruise's mother convinced him that the play should proceed, and she founded the Gloucester Players, a theatrical troupe where Cruise and some of the boys in Steinburg's class acted.
When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her.[16] After a long period of near-poverty, in which Tom's newspaper-delivery earnings helped put food on the table, his mother married a plastics salesman named Jack South.
Besides Ottawa, cities in which Cruise lived included Louisville, Kentucky; Winnetka, Illinois; and Wayne, New Jersey. In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscanseminary in Cincinnati (on a church scholarship) and aspired to become a Catholic priest. In his senior year, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but he was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game.[17] Cruise graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey in 1980.
Cruise has said that he was abused as a child; this was partially due to his suffering from dyslexia. He stated that when something went wrong, his father came down hard on him. He told Parade Magazine that his father was "a bully" and "a merchant of chaos." Cruise said he learned early on that his father was – and, by extension, some people were – not to be trusted: "I knew from being around my father that not everyone means me well."[18] Having gone through 15 schools in 12 years, Cruise, who dropped his father's surname at age 12, was also a victim of bullying at school.
Cruise started acting after being sidelined from his high school's wrestling team due to a knee injury. While injured, he successfully auditioned for a lead role in his high school's production of Guys and Dolls and decided to become an actor after his success in the role. His cousin William Mapother is also an actor most known for playing Ethan Rom on Lost.
Filmmaking
Acting career
1980s
Cruise in 1989
Cruise's first film role came in 1981, when he had a small role in Endless Love, a drama/romance film starring Brooke Shields. Later that same year he had a more substantial role in the film Taps, appearing alongside George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. The film about military cadets was moderately successful. In 1983, he was one of many teenaged stars to appear in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders. The cast for this film included Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, and Ralph Macchio, two of whom were part of the Brat Pack. That same year Cruise appeared in the teen comedy Losin' It. Cruise's breakthrough came after Risky Business was released, which helped to propel Cruise to stardom. One sequence in the film, featuring Cruise lip-syncingBob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in his underwear, has become an iconic moment in 1980s film. The film has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise."[3] A fourth film that was released in 1983 was the high-school football drama, All the Right Moves. Cruise's next film was the 1985 fantasy film Legend directed by Ridley Scott.
Cruise was then selected as the first choice by producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson for an upcoming American fighter pilot film. Cruise at first apparently turned down the project, but helped to alter the script he was given and developed the film. After being taken for a flight with the Blue Angels, Cruise changed his mind and signed on with the project. The project was titled Top Gun and opened in May 1986, becoming the highest grossing film of the year, taking in $354 million in worldwide figures. Also in 1986, he starred in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money along with Paul Newman, who received the Best Actor honor from the Academy Awards. In 1988, he starred in the lighthearted drama Cocktail, which received mixed reviews and Cruise received his first nomination for a Razzie award in 1989. Later that year, Rain Man was released, which also starred Dustin Hoffman and was directed by Barry Levinson. The film was praised by critics and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Actor (for Hoffman).
In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best-selling novel. The film was well received, although Rice was outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film, as River Phoenix was her first choice. In 1996, Cruise starred in (as well as produced) Brian de Palma's Mission: Impossible. The film, a remake of the 1960s TV series, grossed $456 million worldwide, making it the third highest grossing film that year. That same year he played the title role in the comedy-drama Jerry Maguire. The film earned him an Academy Award Best Actor nomination as well as winning co-star Cuba Gooding, Jr. an Academy Award; the film was nominated for five Academy Awards in total. The film also included the catchphrase "Show Me the Money!" which became part of popular culture. In 1999 he starred in the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut which took two years to complete and was director Stanley Kubrick's last film. It was also the last film in which he starred alongside then spouse Nicole Kidman. But the film, which had a straightforward description of sex and a recondite story-telling style, raised great controversies. Cruise also played a misogynisticmale guru in Magnolia (1999), which netted him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He was originally intended to play as Jericho Cane in the action horror film End of Days before Arnold Schwarzenegger assumed the lead role.
2000s
In 2000, Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the second installment of the Mission Impossible films, releasing Mission: Impossible II. The film was directed by Hong Kong director John Woo and branded with his Gun fu Style, and it continued the series' blockbuster success at the box office, taking in almost $547M in worldwide figures, like its predecessor, being the third highest grossing film of the year. The following year Cruise starred in the remake of Abre Los Ojos, Vanilla Sky (2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz. The film was critically acclaimed and proved to be another box office success. In 2002, Cruise starred in the successful dystopianscience fiction thriller, Minority Report which was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. In 2003, he starred in the successful Edward Zwick's historical drama The Last Samurai.
In the 2004 Michael Mann's crime-thriller film Collateral, Cruise took a turn against his generic good guy role by playing the role of a sociopathic hitman. In 2005, Cruise worked again with Steven Spielberg in War of the Worlds, which became the fourth highest grossing movie of the year with US$591.4 M worldwide. Despite the film's box office success, it earned three Razzie nominations, including one for Cruise. In 2006, he reprised his role as Ethan Hunt in the third installment of the Mission Impossible film series, Mission: Impossible III. The film was more positively received by critics than its predecessor, and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office.[19] He appeared in the 2007 drama Lions for Lambs, which became Cruise's only wide-released film in 21 years that did not gross over $100 million worldwide.[20]
In 2008, Cruise appeared in the hit comedy Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller and Jack Black. This performance earned Cruise a Golden Globe nomination. Cruise's latest starring role is in the historical thriller Valkyrie, released on December 25, 2008 to mixed reviews.
Producing career
Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993,[5] and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films,[21] the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer. He won a Nova Award (shared with Paula Wagner) for Most Promising Producer in Theatrical Motion Pictures at the PGA Golden Laurel Awards in 1997 for his work as a producer for the film Mission: Impossible.
His next project as a producer was the 1998 film Without Limits about famous American runner Steve Prefontaine. Cruise returned to work as a producer in 2000, continuing work on the Mission Impossible sequel. He then served as an executive producer for The Others which starred Nicole Kidman, also that year, he again worked as actor/producer in Vanilla Sky. He subsequently worked on (but did not star in) Narc, Hitting It Hard and Shattered Glass. His next project, which he also starred in, was The Last Samurai, he was jointly nominated for the Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award at the 2004 PGA Golden Laurel Awards. He then worked on Suspect Zero, Elizabethtown and Ask the Dust.
Cruise is noted as having negotiated some of the most lucrative movie deals in Hollywood, and was described in 2005 by Hollywood economist Edward Jay Epstein as "one of the most powerful – and richest – forces in Hollywood." Epstein argues that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are regarded as able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar movie franchise. Epstein also contends that the public obsession with Cruise's tabloid controversies obscures full appreciation of Cruise's exceptional commercial prowess.[4]
On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Cruise. In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Cruise's value as an actor and producer from his controversial public behavior and views.[23][24] Cruise/Wagner Productions responded that Paramount's announcement was a face-saving move after the production company had successfully sought alternative financing from private equity firms.[25] Industry analysts such as Edward Jay Epstein commented that the real reason for the split was most likely Paramount's discontent over Cruise/Wagner's exceptionally large share of DVD sales from the Mission: Impossible franchise.[26][27]
In November 2006, Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they had taken over United Artists film studio.[5] Cruise acts as a producer and star in films for United Artists, while Wagner serves as UA's chief executive. Production began in 2007 of Valkyrie, a thriller based on the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. The film was acquired in March 2007 by United Artists. On March 21, 2007 Cruise signed on to play Claus von Stauffenberg, the protagonist. This project marks the second production to be greenlighted since Cruise and Wagner took control of United Artists. The first was its inaugural film, Lions for Lambs, directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Cruise. Lambs was released on November 9, 2007,[29] opening to unimpressive box office revenue and critical reception. In August 2008, Wagner stepped down from her position at United Artists; she retains her stake in UA, which combined with Cruise's share amounts to 30 percent of the studio.[30]
Popularity
In 1990, 1991 and 1997, People magazine rated him among the 50 most beautiful people in the world. In 1995, Empire magazine ranked him among the 100 sexiest stars in film history. Two years later, it ranked him among the top 5 movie stars of all time. In 2002 and 2003, he was rated by Premiere among the top 20 in its annual Power 100 list.[2]
In 2006, Premiere ranked Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor,[31] as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazine's 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor.[32]
On June 16, 2006, Forbes magazine published 'The Celebrity 100', a list of the most powerful celebrities, which Cruise topped. The list was generated using a combination of income (between June 2005 and June 2006), web references by Google, press clips compiled by LexisNexis, television and radio mentions (by Factiva), and the number of times a celebrity appeared on the cover of 26 major consumer magazines.
As of August 2006[update], "a USA Today/Gallup poll in which half of those surveyed registered an "unfavorable" opinion of the actor" was cited as a reason in addition to "unacceptable behavior"[33] for Paramount's non-renewal of their production contract with Cruise. In addition, Marketing Evaluations reports that Cruise's Q score (which is a measure of the popularity of celebrities), had fallen 40 percent. It was also revealed that Cruise is the celebrity people would least like as their best friend. October 10, 2006 was declared "Tom Cruise Day" in Japan; the Japan Memorial Day Association said that he was awarded with a special day because he has made more trips to Japan than any other Hollywood star.[34]
Relationships and personal life
Mimi Rogers
Cruise married Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987; they divorced on February 4, 1990.[2] Rogers is generally believed to have introduced Cruise to Scientology.[35]
Nicole Kidman
Cruise met Nicole Kidman on the set of their film Days of Thunder. The couple married on December 24, 1990. He and Kidman adopted two children, Isabella Jane (b. December 22, 1992) and Connor Antony (b. January 17, 1995).[2] They separated in February 2001 when Kidman was three months pregnant; she later miscarried.[36]
Penélope Cruz
Cruise was next romantically linked with Penélope Cruz, the lead actress in his film Vanilla Sky. After a three-year relationship, in March 2004, Cruise announced that their relationship had ended in January.[37]
On April 18, 2006 Katie gave birth to a baby girl named Suri at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.[39] Cruise stated that the name derives from the Hebrew word for "princess" or the Persian word meaning red rose.[40] (See also Sarah.) She is the first biological child for both Holmes and Cruise.[41] The couple married in Bracciano, Italy on November 18, 2006.
Controversy
Scientology
Cruise is an outspoken advocate for the Church of Scientology. He became involved with Scientology in 1990 through his first wife, Mimi Rogers.[42] Cruise has publicly said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron HubbardStudy Tech, helped him overcome dyslexia.[43] In addition to promoting various programs that introduce people to Scientology, Cruise has campaigned for Scientology to be fully recognized as a religion in Europe. He lobbied politicians in France and Germany, where the legal systems regard Scientology as a cult and business, respectively. In 2005 the Paris city council revealed that Cruise had lobbied officials Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Gaudin, described him as a spokesman and militant for Scientology, and barred any further dealings with him.[44][45] Cruise co-founded and raised donations for Downtown Medical to offer New York 9/11 rescue workers detoxification therapy based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard. This has drawn criticism from the medical profession,[46] as well as firefighters.[47] For these activities and others, David Miscavige awarded Scientology's Freedom Medal of Valor to Cruise in late 2004.
A controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil (paroxetine), an anti-depressant, to which Shields attributes her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. Shields replied that she would not take advice from anyone who believed in space aliens. This led to a heated argument with Matt Lauer on The Today Show on June 24, 2005.[48] Medical authorities said Cruise's comments had further stigmatized mental illness[49][50] and Shields herself called them "a disservice to mothers everywhere."[51] In late August 2006, Cruise apologized in person to Shields for his comments; Shields said that she was "impressed with how heartfelt [the apology] was … I didn't feel at any time that I had to defend myself, nor did I feel that he was trying to convince me of anything other than the fact that he was deeply sorry. And I accepted it."[52] Cruise's spokesman confirmed that Cruise and Shields had made up but said that Cruise's position on anti-depressants had not changed.[52] Shields was a guest at Cruise's and Holmes's wedding.
Cruise also said in an Entertainment Weekly interview that psychiatry "is a Nazi science" and that methadone was actually originally called Adolophine after Adolf Hitler, a myth well-known as an urban legend.[53] In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Cruise said that "In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It's called Narconon… It's a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period." While Narconon claims to have a success rate over 70 percent,[54][55] the accuracy of this figure has been widely disputed.[56] Scientology is well-known for its opposition to mainstream psychiatry.
In January 2008 the Daily Mail (UK) announced a forthcoming biography of Cruise, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, by Andrew Morton. Among the book's claims, it said that Cruise had become the church's "second in command in all but name." This has been corroborated by former Scientology staff member Marc Headley.[57] Cruise's attorney Bert Fields said that the unauthorized biography was full of "tired old lies" or "sick stuff."[58]
On January 15, 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring an interview with Cruise was leaked to the Internet and uploaded to YouTube. In the video, music from Cruise's Mission Impossible films plays in the background, and Cruise discusses what being a Scientologist means to him.[59][60] According to The Times, Cruise can be seen in the video "extolling the virtues of Scientology."[61]The Daily Telegraph characterizes Cruise as "manic-looking" during the interview, "gush[ing] about his love for Scientology."[62]
The Church of Scientology asserted that the video material that had been leaked to YouTube and other websites was "pirated and edited" and taken from a three-hour video produced for members of Scientology.[60][63] YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation.[64] As of February 4, 2008, the web site Gawker.com was still hosting a copy of the video, and other sites have posted the entire video.[64][65] Lawyers for the Church of Scientology sent a letter to Gawker.com demanding that they remove the video, but Nick Denton of Gawker.com stated: "It's newsworthy, and we will not be removing it."[66]
Cruise has made several expressions of his feelings for Holmes to the media, most notably the "couch incident" which took place on the popular The Oprah Winfrey Show of May 23, 2005. Cruise "jumped around the set, hopped onto a couch, fell to one knee and repeatedly professed his love for his new girlfriend."[67] The phrase "jumping the couch", fashioned after "jumping the shark", is used to describe someone "going off the deep end" in public in a manner extreme enough to tarnish his or her reputation. It enjoyed a short-lived popularity, being chosen by the editors of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang as the "slang term of the year" in 2005[68] and by the nonprofit group Global Language Monitor as one of its top phrases for the year.[69]
The "couch incident" was voted #1 of 2005's "Most Surprising Television Moments" on a countdown on E![70] and was the subject of numerous parodies, including the epilogue of Scary Movie 4 and an episode of Family Guy.
In early May 2008, Cruise reappeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to celebrate 25 years in the film business. The feature was a two hour special, the first hour was Oprah spending the day with Cruise at his house in Telluride, Colorado on May 2.
Litigation related to gay rumors
The Daily Express newspaper: During his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, the couple endured public speculation about their sex life and rumors that Cruise was gay. In 1998, he sued a British tabloid that alleged that the marriage was a sham designed to cover up his homosexuality.[71]
David Ehrenstein: In 1998 Tom Cruise's lawyers threatened to sue Ehrenstein for his book titled Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928–1998 (New York : William Morrow and Co., 1998, ISBN 0688153178), that discussed Cruise's appeal to both men and women.[72]
Chad Slater: In May 2001 he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater (AKA Kyle Bradford). Slater had allegedly told the celebrity magazine Actustar that he had engaged in an affair with Cruise. Both Slater and Cruise denied having the affair, and in August 2001 Slater was ordered to pay US$10 million to Cruise in damages after Slater declared he could not afford to defend himself against the suit and would therefore default.[73]
Michael Davis: Cruise also sued Michael Davis, publisher of Bold Magazine, who alleged but never confirmed that he had video that would prove Cruise was gay. The suit was dropped in exchange for a public statement by Davis that the video was not of Cruise and that Cruise was heterosexual.[74]
Other litigation
The Beast newspaper: After The Beast's publication of their 50 Most Loathsome People of 2004 (which included Cruise in the list), Cruise's lawyer Bertram Fields threatened to sue the small independent publication. The Beast, seeing the opportunity for nationwide exposure (particularly after the story broke on the entertainment program Celebrity Justice and later in mainstream newspapers) actively encouraged the lawsuit, effectively calling Fields's bluff. No lawsuit was ever filed and Cruise was included more prominently in the 2005 list.[75]
TomCruise.com: In 2006, Cruise sued cybersquatter Jeff Burgar to obtain control of the TomCruise.com domain name. When owned by Burgar, the domain redirected to information about Cruise on Celebrity1000.com. The decision to turn TomCruise.com over to Cruise was handed down by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on July 5, 2006.[76]
Publicist
Cruise's more open attitude to Scientology has been attributed to the departure of his publicist of 14 years, Pat Kingsley, in March 2004. He replaced her with his sister, fellow Scientologist Lee Anne DeVette, who served in that role until November 2005.[77] He then demoted his sister and replaced her with veteran publicist Paul Bloch, from the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan. DeVette explained that it was her decision to work on philanthropic projects rather than publicity.[78] Such restructuring is seen as a move to curtail publicity of his views on Scientology, as well as the hard-sell of his relationship with Katie Holmes backfiring with the public.[79][80]
