Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (pronounced /ˈtɒməs ˈkruːz ˈmeɪpɒθər/; born July 3, 1962), better known by his screen name of Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won three Golden Globe Awards. His first leading role was the 1983 film Risky Business,[1] which has been described as "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker" for the actor.[2] 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 has starred in many other successful films such as Jerry Maguire (1996), Magnolia (1999), Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004) and War of the Worlds (2005).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.[3] Since 2005, Cruise and Paula Wagner have been in charge of the United Artists film studio,[4] 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.[5]
Early life
Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York,[6] the son of Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer.[7] Cruise's surname originates from his great-grandfather, Thomas Cruise O'Mara, who was adopted by a Welsh immigrant and renamed "Thomas Cruise Mapother".[8][9][10] Cruise is of German, Irish, and English ancestry.[11] His oldest sister, Lee Anne, was born in his parents' native Louisville, Kentucky, while his older sister Marian was born in Syracuse, as were Tom and his younger sister, Cass.[12]
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,[13] where he was active in athletics, playing floor hockey almost every night, showing himself to be a ruthless player, and eventually chipping his front tooth. In the game British bulldogs, he then lost his newly capped tooth and hurt his knee.[14] Henry Munro was also where Cruise became involved in drama, under the tutelage of George Steinburg.[15] 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.[16]
When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her.[17]
In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary 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.[18]
Cruise said that he was bullied in school, and by his father who he said was "a merchant of chaos", and that 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."[17]
Career
Acting
1981–1994
Cruise in 1989Cruise first appeared in supporting roles the 1981 films Endless Love and Taps, the latter in which he played a crazed military school student. His first starring role was in the 1983 comedy Losin' It. That same year he appeared in All the Right Moves and Risky Business, which has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise",[2] and which along with 1986's Top Gun, cemented his status as a star.
Cruise followed up Top Gun with The Color of Money, which came out the same year, and which paired him with Academy Award-winner Paul Newman. 1988 saw him star in Cocktail, which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. Later that year he starred with Academy Award-winner Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, which won the Academy Award for Best Film and Cruise the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Crusie finished the decade by portraying real-life paralyzed Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in 1989's Born on the Fourth of July, in which earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actor, a nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Cruise's first Best Actor Academy Award nomination.
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 initially quite outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film, as Julian Sands was her first choice. Upon seeing the film however, she paid $7,740 for a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising his performance and apologizing for her previous doubts about him.[19]
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. Cruise received an MTV Movie Award as Best Male Performance for this film.[20] His next five films were major critical and commercial successes.[21][22] The following year Cruise starred in the remake of the Spanish film Abre Los Ojos, the romantic thriller Vanilla Sky (2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz. In 2002, Cruise starred in the dystopian science 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 Edward Zwick's historical drama The Last Samurai, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination as best actor.[20] 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 million worldwide. Also in 2005, he won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Movie Star, and the MTV Generation Award.[20] Cruise was nominated for seven Saturn Awards between 2002 and 2009, winning once.[20] Nine of the ten films he starred in during the decade made over $100 million at the box office.[23]
Cruise in 2006In 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.[24] Cruise's 2007 film Lions for Lambs was a rare commercial disappointment. 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 box office success.[25] As of 2009, Cruise's films have grossed over $6.5 billion worldwide.[26]
In March 2010, Cruise completed filming the action-comedy Knight and Day, in which he re-teamed with former costar Cameron Diaz; the film was released on June 23, 2010.[27] On February 9, 2010, Cruise confirmed that he will star in a fourth Mission:Impossible film, slated for release in December 2011.[28]
Producing
Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993,[4] and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films,[29] the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer.
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.[3]
Cruise/Wagner Productions, Cruise's film production company, is said to be developing a screenplay based on Erik Larson's New York Times bestseller, The Devil in the White City about a real life serial killer, H. H. Holmes, at Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition. Kathryn Bigelow is attached to the project to produce and helm. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, is also developing a film about Holmes and the World's Fair, in which DiCaprio will star.[30]
Breakup with Paramount
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.[31][32] 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.[33] 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.[34][35]
Management of United Artists
In November 2006, Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they had taken over United Artists film studio.[4] 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,[36] 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.[37]
Popularity
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes interacting with fans in 2006.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.[1]
In 2006, Premiere ranked Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor,[38] as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazine's 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor.[39] The same year, Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity.[40]
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"[41] 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.[42]
Relationships and personal life
See also: TomKat
With Katie Holmes in May 2009.Cruise married Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987; they divorced on February 4, 1990.[1] Rogers is generally believed to have introduced Cruise to Scientology.[43]
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).[1] They separated in February 2001 when Kidman was three months pregnant; she later miscarried.[44]
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.[45]
In April 2005, Cruise began dating actress Katie Holmes. Shortly after they began their highly publicized relationship, on June 17, 2005, Cruise announced he had proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.[46]
On April 18, 2006, Holmes gave birth to a baby girl named Suri at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.[47] Cruise stated that the name derives from the Hebrew word for "princess" or the Persian word meaning red rose.[48] (See also Sarah.) She is the first biological child for both Holmes and Cruise.[49] On November 18, 2006, Holmes and Cruise were married at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy, in a Scientology ceremony attended by many Hollywood stars.[50] The actors' publicist said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony.[51] Religious Technology Center chairman David Miscavige served as Cruise's best man.[52] The day after the ceremony, the couple left for a honeymoon in the Maldives.
Cruise owns a home in Murrieta, California.[53]
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.[54] Cruise has publicly said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Study Tech, helped him overcome dyslexia.[55] 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.[56][57] 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,[58] as well as firefighters.[59] 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.[60] Medical authorities said Cruise's comments had further stigmatized mental illness[61][62] and Shields herself called them "a disservice to mothers everywhere."[63] 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."[64] Cruise's spokesman confirmed that Cruise and Shields had made up but said that Cruise's position on anti-depressants had not changed.[64] 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.[65] 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,[66][67] the accuracy of this figure has been widely disputed.[68] 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.[69] Cruise's attorney Bert Fields said that the unauthorized biography was full of "tired old lies" or "sick stuff."[70]
IAS Freedom Medal of Valor ceremony video
See also: Project Chanology
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.[71][72] According to The Times, Cruise can be seen in the video "extolling the virtues of Scientology."[73] The Daily Telegraph characterizes Cruise as "manic-looking" during the interview, "gush[ing] about his love for Scientology."[74]
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.[72][75] YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation.[76] 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.[76][77] 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."[78]
Oprah Winfrey Show incident
Cruise jumps on the couch during the taping of an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show.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."[79] 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[80] and by the nonprofit group Global Language Monitor as one of its top phrases for the year.[81]
The "couch incident" was voted #1 of 2005's "Most Surprising Television Moments" on a countdown on E![82] and was the subject of numerous parodies, including the epilogue of Scary Movie 4, an episode of South Park and an episode of Family Guy. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Lesson learned: Tell, don't show."[83]
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.[84]
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 0-688-15317-8), that discussed Cruise's appeal to both men and women.[85]
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.[86]
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.[87]
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.[88]
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.[89]
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.[90] 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.[91] 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.[92][93]
Confessional files
According to statements in May 2010 from former high-ranking member of the Church of Scientology, Mark Rathbun, who served as Inspector General of the Religious Technology Center from 1978 to 2004, Scientology leader David Miscavige ordered that Cruise's Auditing sessions be secretly videotaped.[94][95][96] Rathbun had himself been the individual responsible for performing auditing counseling with Cruise.[94] Rathbun wrote on his blog that he had been tasked with auditing Cruise during the period in 2001 directly after he had separated from Nicole Kidman.[97] Rathbun wrote, "I audited a number of intensives of confessionals on Tom Cruise from July through November 2001. ... By order of Miscavige many of those sessions were secretly recorded by a well-concealed video camera and voice recorder system built into the VIP auditing room at Celebrity Center International."[94][95] Rathbun subsequently learned that transcripts of the videotapes of Cruise were brought to meetings where they would be discussed by top management of Scientology.[95][98] Rathbun wrote that Miscavige would read out information from the reports about Cruise's auditing sessions, "While sipping scotch whiskey at the end of the night, Miscavige would read Tom’s overts and withholds ... joking and laughing about the content of Tom’s confessions."[94][95]
The nature of what was discussed in the confessional sessions by Cruise was not revealed.[99][100][101] Rathbun ceased the filming of Cruise in 2002, because he felt it was unethical.[96] Rathbun left the organization in 2004, and since then has given counselling to former members of Scientology.In a post on his blog, Rathbun wrote a statement addressed to Cruise, "Wake up, Tom. It is not too late. Though, time is getting very, very short."As of May 9, 2010 (2010 -05-09)[update], representatives for Cruise had not yet responded to the statements made by Rathbun.
The Editor-in-Chief of The Village Voice described the statements by Rathbun about the use of Cruise's confessional files as "some of the most damning statements against his former employer."Lynn Hayes of Beliefnet discussed the revelations by Rathbun, writing, "Religion in any form provides a solid structure that can offer comfort and security, and departure from that security can be frightening and painful. As humans we always have a choice, and it will be interesting to see how Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology manage this revelation."El Tiempo commented, "Although Tom Cruise is a staunch supporter and defender of Scientology, apparently other members of this doctrine do not profess the same devotion to the actor."
