Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is one of the highest grossing actors ever. Many of his movies have earned over $100 million in the U.S. alone. Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New Jersey, he attended fifteen different schools because his father, who had trouble holding a job, kept the family moving. They lived in Winnetka, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri and Ottawa, Ontario among other places. Cruise described his father as “a bully” who was often violent. Tom has two older and one younger sisters.
Young Tom was determined to succeed even though he had dyslexia. In spite of being short, he played school sports. When he damaged his knee wrestling, he turned his energy to drama. In Ottawa he starred in a play called It. The play was filmed and shown on a local TV station.
His parents divorced in 1974, and his mother moved family to Louisville, Kentucky, where she worked as a special education teacher. At age 14, Tom won a scholarship to St. Francis Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied to become a Catholic priest but returned home after a year. At Glen Ridge High School in Syracuse, he acted in school plays.
He quit school his senior year, dropped the Mapother from his name, and moved to New York City. Working in restaurants days, he took drama classes at night at the Neighborhood Playhouse and auditioned for TV commercials. After a year, the 5’ 7” actor moved to Los Angeles where agent Paula Wagner agreed to represent him.
His big screen debut was a small part in ENDLESS LOVE (1981). Later that year he appeared in TAPS, the story of cadets who take over a closed military school. Cruise was to have three lines, but he tested so well the part was greatly expanded. In 1983 he appeared in four movies: the teen comedy LOSIN’ IT, Francis Ford Coppola’s THE OUTSIDERS and as a high school football player with ALL THE RIGHT MOVES. The fourth movie, RISKY BUSINESS made him a star. He played an enterprising teen who turns his parents’ home into Party Central while they’re out of town.
Escaping the adorable teen stereotype, he starred in the Medieval fantasy LEGEND (1985), then became a superstar as an arrogant and careless fighter pilot in TOP GUN (1986). Paul Newman remembered Cruise from a long ago audition and had him cast in the pool hustling movie THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986). After a turn as a charming bartender in COCKTAIL (1988), Cruise played a young man taking care of and learning from his autistic brother (Dustin Hoffman) in RAIN MAN (1988).
Oliver Stone’s BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989) is the true story of a paraplegic Vietnam veteran who campaigns to end the war when he comes home. Cruise’s star performance was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. He met his future wife actress Nicole Kidman filming the race car epic DAYS OF THUNDER (1990). They co-starred in Ron Howard’s 1890’s drama FAR AND AWAY (1992) about Irish immigrants settling in Oklahoma. For A FEW GOOD MEN (1992) Cruise was a Judge Advocate representing two Marines accused of murder, and he played a newbie lawyer at THE FIRM (1993). He deliciously portrayed a power drunk blood sucker in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994).
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) has become a series franchise. In the first episode Cruise went undercover to recover a computer disk. In MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 (2000) he tried to stop a biological terrorist. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (2006) had him taking down an arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman). This month in theaters, Cruise opens in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL.
Between MISSIONS, he was JERRY MAGUIRE (1996), a gung ho sports agent with only one client (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Cruise received his second Best Actor Oscar nomination. He and Kidman spent three years working on EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) which explores the consequences of living out sexual fantasies. For the ensemble movie MAGNOLIA (1999), Cruise played a man leading male dominance seminars. His third Best Actor Oscar nomination followed.
In VANILLA SKY (2001) Cruise was a rich man disfigured in a car accident accused of murder. The story moves from dream to reality and back. In Steven Spielberg’s futuristic thriller MINORITY REPORT (2002), Cruise is a police detective accused of a murder that hasn’t been committed yet. After a funny opening sequence in AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER (2002), he starred as THE LAST SAMURAI (2003), a U.S. cavalry officer helping the Emperor of Japan put down an 1876 uprising.
Extending his range, Cruise was a paid assassin in COLLATERAL (2004) forcing a cabbie (Jamie Foxx) to drive him around all night from one hit to another. He starred in Spielberg’s updated version of WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005), trying to save his family from vicious aliens who return to Earth to retrieve the monster machines they buried eons ago. He had small roles as a Senator in the political LIONS FOR LAMBS (2007) and in TROPIC THUNDER (2008) as a studio exec willing for actors to die to enhance the bottom line.
VALKYRIE (2008) is the true story of German officers who plotted to kill Hitler in 1944. Cruise played the leader who believed the war was lost and a new government should negotiate for peace. In the action romance KNIGHT AND DAY (2010), Cruise is a spy on the lam, aided by an ordinary lady (Cameron Diaz).
Cruise has been married three times and has three children. His romantic life includes Cher and Melissa Gilbert (1982). He lived with Rebecca deMornay in New York from 1983 to 1985. Paul Newman introduced Cruise to his first wife Mimi Rogers in 1986 at Newman’s Road Racing Classic Show in Georgia. They married May 9, 1987, and divorced February 4, 1990. He met his second wife actress Nicole Kidman working on DAYS OF THUNDER. They married Christmas Eve, 1990, at Telluride, Colorado. They adopted daughter Isabella Jane (born December 22, 1992, adopted January, 1993) and son Connor Antony (born January 17, 1995 adopted February, 1995). Just before their tenth wedding anniversary in 2000, Cruise announced the couple was separating. The divorce was final August 8, 2001. He shares custody and sees his children often. In 2002, he left the Oscars telecast early to watch the rest of the show with Connor and Isabella at home.
He took up with VANILLA SKY co-star Penelope Cruz and lived with her from 2001 to 2004. Cruise fell for Katie Holmes early in 2005 and proposed to her atop the Eiffel Tower in June. That October, they announced she was pregnant. Their daughter Suri was born April 18, 2006. Baby pictures appeared in Vanity Fair magazine soon after. They married November 18, 2006, in a renaissance castle near Rome and spent their honeymoon in the Maldive Islands. The Cruise family lives in Beverly Hills, California, and Telluride, Colorado.
His first wife introduced the Catholic raised Cruise to the Church of Scientology, which he joined in 1990. Ever since, he has promoted the group and defended his choice. He believes the church’s methods cured him of dyslexia. In Europe he campaigned for Scientology to be accepted as a religion instead of as a business or a cult.
A talented businessman, Cruise and his agent Paula Wagner formed Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993. The company has produced most of his films beginning with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE in 1996 and signed an exclusive development deal with Paramount’s Viacom in 1999. In 2006, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone terminated the agreement even though Cruise’s films had provided 32% of Paramount’s income for the previous six years. Cruise/Wagner Productions countered that they had new financing and had been planning to split from Paramount. Next, Cruise/Wagner acquired United Artists studio from MGM. Their first release was LIONS FOR LAMBS in 2007.

Odds and Ends

Director Cameron Crowe (JERRY MAGUIRE, VANILLA SKY) first met Cruise when he interviewed the actor for a cover story in Interview Magazine.

Paul Newman (THE COLOR OF MONEY) got Cruise interested in auto racing. This helped the actor prepare for his role in DAYS OF THUNDER. While filming that movie at Daytona Speedway, Cruise raced a Hendricks Motorsports R&D car around the track at 205 mph.

In 1994 in Toronto, Canada, Cruise became a licensed pilot. He owns a P-51D Mustang which he named “Kiss Me Kate.” He sometimes flies a Pitts Special S-2B stunt plane.

In 1996, he drove a hit and run accident victim to the hospital and paid her bill. She was then the aspiring Brazilian actress Heloisa Vinhas.

Britain’s tabloid Daily Express, the celebrity rag Actustar and Bold Magazine have published articles saying Cruise married Kidman so he could continue to be a closet gay. Between 1998 and 2001, Cruise sued these publications and won every case. He donated the proceeds to charity.

His favorite charities and organizations include The Ashley Flint Fund, The Tsunami Relief Fund,
Themoms.biz Diabetes Fund, Hillary Rodham Clinton's Campaign and The Church of Scientology.

To correct his “bite,” Cruise wore braces for a while in 2002.

His sister Lee Anne De Vette was his publicist in 2004 and joined his production company in 2005. She also oversees his charitable contributions.

After filming THE LAST SAMURAI, he sang a duet in public with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The song was Elvis’ “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You with All My Heart.”

As a Scientologist, Cruise is vegetarian and drinks no alcohol.

For more information, visit http://www.tomcruise.com/#/whatsnew