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Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise at a Yahoo! press conference in Sunnyvale, California on March 21, 2006.
Born	Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
Height	5 ft 7 in (170 cm)

Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe Award-winning American actor and film producer. He has starred in a number of top-grossing movies and remains one of the most successful movie stars in Hollywood. His first leading role in a blockbuster movie was in 1983's Risky Business. In recent years, he has received additional, overwhelmingly negative media coverage regarding his support of Scientology (and his related criticism of psychiatry), and his relationship with Katie Holmes.

Early life

Cruise was born to Thomas Mapother III and Mary Lee Pfeiffer in Syracuse, New York. Cruise has German ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert Gay and Charlotta Louise Voelker; and Welsh ancestry from his paternal great-great-grandfather, Dylan Henry Mapother, who emigrated from Flint, Wales to Louisville, Kentucky in 1850. His maternal ancestry is half Irish and half German (including Alsatian).

Cruise's family resided in near-poverty, because Cruise's father refused to pay child support after his estrangement from the family when his son was eleven. Cities in which he lived included Ottawa, Ontario (where he attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute), Louisville, Kentucky, Winnetka, Illinois and Wayne, New Jersey. In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati and aspired to become a Catholic priest. He eventually graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey.

It was recently discovered that Cruise had suffered from child abuse when he was younger. 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 had a huge nose" 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." Having gone through fifteen schools in twelve years, Cruise, who dropped his father's name at age twelve, was also subject to 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. Cruise graduated from high school in 1980.

Hollywood

Acting career

Cruise's first acting role came in 1981, when he had a small role in Endless Love, a drama/romance film starring Brooke Shields. He had a much larger role in a substantially bigger film, Taps, starring alongside George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. The film about military cadets was moderately successful. In 1983, he was one of many young teenage 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. That same year Cruise appeared in the teen comedy Losin' It with Shelley Long. Also in 1983, Risky Business was released, widely thought to be the film that propelled Cruise to stardom. One sequence in the film, featuring Cruise lip-syncing Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in his underwear, has become an iconic moment in film history. The film has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise". A fourth film that was released in 1983 was the high-school football drama, All the Right Moves.

Cruise's next film was Ridley Scott's Legend. Cruise was picked as the first choice by big 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. Top Gun opened in May of 1986 and became the highest grossing film of the year, taking in US$353,816,701 in worldwide figures. He also starred in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money that same year. In 1988 he starred in the light hearted drama, Cocktail. The film received mixed reviews and Cruise was subsequently nominated for a Razzie award in 1989. Later that year, Rain Man was released, which also starred Dustin Hoffman. The film was praised by critics and was nominated for four Academy Awards, and won all four.

Cruise was welcomed with similar success the following year when he received Academy Award nominations for Born on the Fourth of July. In 1990, Cruise starred as hot-shot Cole Trickle as a race car driver in Days of Thunder. Days of Thunder is where Cruise first met American born and Australian raised actress Nicole Kidman, who was his co-star. Cruises' next film was Far and Away where he again was starring with Nicole Kidman. Cruise starred in A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore, the well received military thriller earned Cruise Golden Globe and MTV nominations. The following year he starred in The Firm which won Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture at the People's Choice Awards.

In 1994, Cruise starred in Interview with the Vampire, a drama/horror film that was also very well received. In 1996, Cruise starred in (as well as produced) Mission: Impossible. The film grossed $456,494,803 worldwide, and was the third highest grossing film that year. In 1996 he starred in 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 in total, nominated for five Academy Awards. The film also included the line "Show me the Money!" which became part of popular culture. Jerry Maguire saw Tom Cruise become the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed at least $100 million in domestic release. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) which took two years to finish as director Stanley Kubrick's last film, alongside then spouse Nicole Kidman. Cruise also performed as a misogynistic male guru in Magnolia (1999), which netted him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

In 2000, Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible films, releasing Mission: Impossible II, the film continued the series' blockbuster success at the box office, taking in $545,902,562 Dollars or 3,958,876,456 Yen in worldwide figures, like its predecessor, being the third highest grossing film of the year. The following year Cruise starred in the erotic thriller remake of 1997's Abre Los Ojos, Vanilla Sky. In 2002, Cruise starred in the dystopian thriller, Minority Report as well as The Last Samurai, which saw Cruise perform some of his own stunts, as he did in M:I-III.

In the 2004 crime-thriller film Collateral, Cruise combatted a good-guy stereotype which had been attributed to him. A number of Cruise's more well-known and popular movies have cast him in a similar role, one which has been half-jokingly referred to by movie fans (and some critics) as the "Generic Tom Cruise Character." In this role, Cruise portrays a character who, as the film begins, is seen as a cocky, stuck-up, self-centered egoist who cares for little other than himself. As the events of the movie unfold, his character learns to become more open-minded and altruistic, until by the time the climax has been reached, he has undergone a radical change and been transformed into a better human being. Collateral saw a surprising turn as a sociopathic gray-haired hitman with a killer smile, Vincent, who hijacks a cab to be transported to five hits in one night. His trademark smile and handling of guns took a 180-degree turn for an unlikable character who is very organized and thoroughly nasty, as opposed to his popular good-guy characters.

In 2005, Cruise starred in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Because of events leading up to the release of the film, notably, Cruise's very public advocation of Scientology and anti-psychiatry statements, coupled with the criticism of his relationship with actress Katie Holmes, many expected the film to be a bomb at the box office. However, the film earned $234,280,354 becoming his most successful film in domestic figures (not taking deflation into account), and ultimately earning $591,416,316 in worldwide figures. He was however, the loser of three Razzie nominations at the end of the year.

Producing career

Cruise teamed with producer Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions, which has co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996, Cruises' first work as a producer. He won a Nova Award (shared with Paula Wagner, Cruise's producing partner at Cruise/Wagner Productions) for Most Promising Producer in Theatrical Motion Pictures at the PGA Golden Laurel Awards in 1997 for his work as a producer on Mission: Impossible.

His next project as a producer was the 1998 film, Without Limits, a film about famous 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, with Shattered Glass being particularly successful. 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. he reprised his role as actor/producer for Mission: Impossible III

Tom 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 in the industry .

Cruise-Wagner Productions, Tom 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 at the Chicago World's Fair. 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.

Breakup with Paramount

On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions. In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Tom Cruise's value as an actor and producer from his controversial public behavior and views. 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. 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.

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.

In 2006, Premiere magazine established Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor, as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazines 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor.

On 16 June, 2006, Forbes magazine published 'The Celebrity 100', a list of the most powerful celebrities, in which Cruise came top. 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, "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" for Paramount's non-renewal of their production contract with Tom.

Relationships

Mimi Rogers

Cruise was married to Mimi Rogers (married on May 9, 1987, divorced February 4, 1990). Rogers is generally believed to be the one who introduced Cruise to Scientology.

Nicole Kidman

Cruise met Nicole Kidman on the set of their film Days of Thunder. The couple married on December 24, 1990 and divorced on August 8, 2001. He and Kidman adopted two children, Isabella (born 1993) and Connor (born 1995). They separated when Kidman was three months pregnant, just shy of their 10 year wedding anniversary; she later miscarried.

Penélope Cruz

Cruise was next romantically linked with Penélope Cruz, the lead actress in his film Vanilla Sky. In March 2004, he announced that his relationship with Penélope Cruz had ended in January.

Katie Holmes

In April 2005, Cruise began dating Katie Holmes, before announcing on 17 June 2005 that he had proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. She accepted his proposal, and the couple were expected to be married in the summer or autumn of 2006. On April 18, 2006 Katie gave birth to a baby girl named Suri, whose name was chosen with its relation to Scientology, the Persian Rose, the birthplace and the "Hebrew word" (which Cruise had erroneously believed to mean princess). She is the first child for Holmes and third for Cruise, who (as previously mentioned) has two adopted children with Nicole Kidman.

Controversy

Scientology

Cruise is arguably Hollywood's most outspoken member of the Church of Scientology. He became involved with Scientology in 1990 through his first wife, Mimi Rogers. Cruise has publicly said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Scientology Study Tech, helped him overcome his dyslexia. It has been claimed that Cruise belongs to one of the highest echelons of the "Church of Scientology", known as "Operating Thetan Seven" or OT-VII , and it has been suggested that Cruise's increasing willingness to talk openly about Scientology may be a reflection of this.

A controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil, an anti-depressant, to which Shields attributes her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. This led to a heated argument with Matt Lauer on The Today Show on June 24, 2005. Brooke Shields responded to Cruise's comments by calling them "irresponsible and dangerous". In late August of 2006, Cruise apologized in person to Shields for his comments; Shields said that she was "impressed with how heartfelt 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." Cruise's spokesman confirmed that Cruise and Shields had made up but said that Cruise's position on anti-depressants had not changed.

Cruise also claimed 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. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Cruise claimed 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% , the accuracy of this figure has been widely disputed. It has been reported that Cruise adopted his anti-psychiatry philosophies from Dr. Thomas Szasz, a leading critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry. Scientology is also well-known for its anti-psychiatry stance, which may also have affected his viewpoint on the subject.

As of 2005, Tom Cruise has begun campaigning on behalf of the Church of Scientology before politicians and government officials around the world. Such advocacy did not go well in several European countries where this organization is considered to be a cult. As an example, on July 13, 2005, after it was learned that he lobbied Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Gaudin (the mayor of Marseille), the city council of Paris vowed "never to receive the actor Tom Cruise, spokesman for Scientology and self-declared militant for this organisation"

He has also campaigned and raised donations for Downtown Medical, which he co-founded, 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, as well as firefighters.

Concern has also been voiced about Holmes and her relationship to Scientology. Roger Friedman of the Fox News Channel claimed that Katie Holmes disappeared for sixteen days in April 2005 when even her own family did not know her whereabouts. Allegedly, the last time she had been seen, Holmes had flown to meet with Tom Cruise for a possible role in Mission: Impossible III. When she re-appeared, Holmes stated she was in love with Tom Cruise and studying Scientology. The actress then fired her long-time manager and agent and acquired Jessica Rodriguez, a prominent member of the Church of Scientology.

Trapped in the Closet

In 2006, controversy emerged about the television show South Park because of a controversial episode that satirized Scientology. Dubbed "Closetgate" by the Los Angeles Times, the controversy continued as Comedy Central, the channel that broadcasts South Park in the U.S., pulled the "Trapped in the Closet" episode at the last minute from a scheduled repeat on March 15, 2006. It was alleged that Cruise threatened Paramount with withdrawal from promotion of his latest film Mission: Impossible III if the episode was broadcast. Viacom owns both Paramount and Comedy Central. Paramount and Cruise's representatives denied any threats. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in a typically satirical response, claimed to be "servants of Xenu" and declared that the "million-year war for Earth" had only just begun. The LA Times reported that, "For Stone and Parker, Closetgate will be the gift that keeps on giving." . Recently "Trapped in the Closet" has been nominated for an Emmy, and was re-aired July 19, 2006.

Jumping the couch

Cruise has made several bold expressions of his feelings for Holmes to the media, most notably the "couch incident" which took place on the popular talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show of May 23, 2005. In that instance, Cruise "jumped around the set, hopped onto a couch, fell rapturously to one knee and repeatedly professed his love for his new girlfriend." This scene has been parodied in numerous venues in film (Scary Movie 4), on TV (Family Guy). The "couch incident" was voted #1 of 2005's "Most Surprising Television Moments" on a countdown on E!.

The term "Jumping the Couch," fashioned after "jumping the shark," is used to describe someone "going off the deep end" in public. The term is usually synonymous with a nervous breakdown accompanied by often bizarre or unintentionally humorous behavior in public. 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 and by the nonprofit group Global Language Monitor as one of its top phrases for the year.

Parodies

As noted, the scene has been parodied numerous times, including:

• A YTMND reworking of the scene to make it look like Cruise kills Oprah with Sith lightning emanating from his hands.
• A mashup of James Frey's infamous 2006 appearance on Oprah and Cruise's appearance was released by Best Week Ever, in which Oprah appears to call Cruise a liar.
• The 2006 film Scary Movie 4 parodies the Oprah scene.

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.
• David Ehrenstein - Tom Cruise's lawyers threaten to sue Ehrenstein for his book titled "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998", that discussed Cruise's appeal to both men and women .
• 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 this, and in August 2001 Slater was ordered to pay $10 million to Cruise in damages.
• Michael Davis — He also sued Michael Davis, a magazine publisher, who alleged that he had photographs that would prove Tom Cruise was homosexual; this suit was dropped in exchange for a public statement by Davis that Tom Cruise was heterosexual.

Other litigation

• Buffalo 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' bluff. No lawsuit was ever filed and Cruise was included more prominently in the 2005 list.
• TomCruise.com - In 2006, Cruise sued infamous 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 WIPO on July 5, 2006. The decision was criticized by The Register suggesting that the WIPO conflict resolution system is flawed and "that if you were provided with the names of the panellists in any given case, you could predict with almost complete certainly what the outcome was."

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 . He then demoted his sister and replaced her with veteran publicist Paul Bloch, from the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan. Such restructuring is seen as a move to curtail publicity about his Scientology views, as well as the hard-sell of the Tom/Kat relationship backfiring with the public , . DeVette explained that it was her decision to work on philanthropic projects rather than publicity.

Miscellaneous

In April 2005, Cruise began dating Katie Holmes. This very public love affair took a dramatic turn when Cruise and Holmes got engaged in Paris while on a world publicity tour for their two most recent movies (War of the Worlds for Cruise, and Batman Begins for Holmes). War of the Worlds director Steven Spielberg indicated that he was frustrated by media coverage of Cruise's relationship during promotion of the film, though he believed it to be genuine. On October 5, 2005, it was reported by People magazine that Holmes was pregnant. Cruise came under fire from various medical professionals after he bought a sonogram machine to monitor his baby. The American College of Radiology claims that overuse or misuse of the medical equipment is unnecessary and could be harmful to the baby's health, and that it may be illegal to own. On May 4, 2006 the California Assembly passed a bill to ban distribution of ultrasound machines to non-licensed practitioners, though the law must still go through the Senate. On April 18, 2006 Holmes gave birth to a baby girl named Suri, the first child for Holmes and the third child for Cruise who had adopted two children with Nicole Kidman : Connor Antony (born January 17 1995) and Isabella Jane (born December 22 1992).

Cruise's behavior in recent interviews and his very public romance with Katie Holmes led him to become the butt of numerous jokes on late night television shows such as Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The jokes commonly referred to Cruise being insane or parody the Lauer interview.

In February 2006 an article in Life & Style magazine reported that Cruise and Holmes were splitting up, but keeping up a public pretense until the Spring (when the birth of their child will roughly coincide with the release of Mission Impossible 3, Cruise's next film). Arnold Robinson, a publicist for the couple, denied the story. A representative for Life & Style magazine responded, "We stand 100 percent behind our story", and claimed it had been verified by two anonymous friends of Cruise.

In an April 2006 interview with GQ magazine taken while Holmes was pregnant, Cruise jokingly suggested that he might eat her placenta after birth - a health practice known as placentophagy. He was quoted as saying "I'm gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I'm gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there." But when the interviewer said it would be a big meal, Cruise replied: "OK, maybe I won't." In a later interview with Diane Sawyer, Cruise joked about the comments and said he wasn't really going to eat it.

During the London premiere of War of the Worlds, Cruise was on one of his familiar walkabouts when much to his surprise he was squirted with a water pistol (disguised as a microphone) by a performer working on Channel 4's comedyram Balls Of Steel, in which various famous people were targeted for practical jokes. While nearly losing his composure, the actor called the perpetrator a "jerk" and said he was "incredibly rude". Police later made arrests after the incident, but no charges were later brought.

On August 22, 2006, Reuters reported that Paramount has ended their 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise's production company. "As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal," Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, parent company of Paramount, was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal. Redstone went on to say "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount", citing Cruise's offscreen behavior. .

Selected filmography

All salaries are reported by IMDb source.

All gross reported by boxofficemojo.com. Figures are subject to minor adjustments (usually upwards) when studios release revised official figures, which sometimes occurs years after first release.

These figures do not account for inflation.

• American film actors
• American film producers
• Best Actor Academy Award nominees
• Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominees
• Kids' Choice Awards winners
• High school dropouts
• American Scientologists
• Worst Actor Razzie nominees
• People from Louisville
• New Jersey actors
• People from Ottawa
• People from Syracuse, New York
• German-Americans
• Adoptive parents
• People with dyslexia
• 1962 births
• Living people
• Mission: Impossible actors
• Famous Baby-Boomers