Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise as
seen on a poster
for the 2001
film Vanilla Sky

Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962) is an American actor and film producer who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies and remains one of the biggest movie stars in the world. His first leading role in a blockbuster movie was in 1983's Risky Business. He has received additional notoriety in the press for his outspoken belief in Scientology and for being notoriously litigious, especially in response to allegations or inferences of bisexuality (see below).

Ancestry and early life

Tom Cruise was born to Thomas Cruise Mapother III and Mary Lee Pfeiffer in Syracuse, New York. His paternal ancestry is Welsh: his great-great-grandfather Dylan Henry Mapother emigrated from Flint, in north Wales, to the United States in 1850. Cruise also has German ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotta Louise Voelker. His maternal ancestry is half Irish and half German (including Alsatian French). Cruise had a transient existence as a child attending eight elementary schools and three high schools. Cruise graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey {Source: Maquis Who's Who 2006} He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati and aspired to become a Catholic priest.

Cruise became interested in drama 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.

Hollywood

While it was not his first film, Risky Business (1983) 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. Cruise's status as an A-list actor was secured a few years later when he starred in Top Gun (1986).

He received Academy Award nominations for Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Jerry Maguire (1996), both as Best Actor; and for Magnolia (1999), as Best Supporting Actor. In 1996, he became the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in domestic release; the films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996).

Cruise also took on more unusual roles following Interview With The Vampire and Jerry Maguire, with 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, and in very rare form, played a villain as the hitman who kidnaps unsuspecting cabbie Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann's Collateral (2004).

Cruise teamed with producer Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions, which has co-produced several of Cruise's films such as Mission: Impossible (1996), Vanilla Sky (2001), and The Last Samurai (2003). The company also co-produced The Others (2001).

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 a role of this type, Cruise has portrayed a character who, as the film begins, is seen as a cocky, stuck-up, self-centered egotist 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. Examples of the "Generic Tom Cruise Character" can be seen in Top Gun, Rain Man, A Few Good Men,The Firm, Jerry Maguire, Cocktail, Vanilla Sky, The Last Samurai, War of the Worlds, and others.

In 2006 Tom Cruise earned three Razzie nominations, as worst actor for War of the Worlds and two of the five slots in a new Razzies category for most tiresome tabloid targets. Cruise was nominated there for his anti-psychiatry rant and for his very public romance with Katie Holmes. "He had been a very private person up until this past year," said Razzies founder John Wilson. "It certainly was a bizarre turn in terms of how he handles his personal life and the access that he gave the media to himself. The endless posing on the red carpet and just smooching like they were on the couch at home."

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.

However, while most recognize Cruise's entitlement to freedom of religion, it seems his frequent controversial outbursts promoting Scientology and strong anti-psychiatry beliefs, combined with his unusually erratic behavior throughout 2005 (detailed below) may have led to a drop in his popularity. One survey for example, showed Cruise's popularity drop from 11th to 197th most liked celebrity over a six month period.

Church of Scientology

Cruise is arguably Hollywood's most outspoken member of the controversial Church of Scientology. He became involved with the church in 1990 through his first wife, Mimi Rogers. Cruise has publicly said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Scientology Study Tech, helped him to overcome his dyslexia.

Since 2004, Cruise has talked more openly about Scientology and promoted its ideas, especially its rejection of psychiatric drugs, which was the subject of a heated argument with Matt Lauer on The Today Show on June 24, 2005. At one point, Cruise lashed out at Lauer, telling him "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Another controversy erupted after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil, an anti-depressant, which Shields claims helped her recover from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter in 2003; Brooke Shields subsequently described Cruise's comments as "irresponsible and dangerous".

Shields responded by declaring that she "wouldn't take advice from someone who devotes his life to creatures from outer space", and that Cruise "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them".

Shields also joked about the age difference between Cruise and Holmes, inviting the couple to come and see her in the London production of Chicago, in which she was then appearing, and noting that she would leave two tickets for them at the box office, "one adult and one child".

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 disputed.

Recently Cruise has also been reported to have risen 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. Cruise's fiancée, Katie Holmes, has recently begun studying Scientology, which Cruise says does not conflict with her Roman Catholic upbringing.

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 does not go well in several European countries where this organization is considered to be a cult. As an example, on July 13th, 2005, the city council of Paris vowed "never to receive (before the council or the mayor) the actor Tom Cruise, spokesman for Scientology and self-declared militant for this organisation" after his lobbying of Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Gaudin, the mayor of Marseille, was mentioned.
It has been alleged on FACTnet that Cruise's involvement in Scientology may be less than voluntary: "Tom Cruise became psychotic during a secret Scientology initiation in which one is told that rather than being one person, one is composed of thousands of aliens from all over the universe fighting for control of your body. After completing this initiation, known as OT III, Tom appeared sickly with black circles under his eyes and pasty skin. He said he wanted to be away from Scientology for good. He just wanted to go back to Hollywood and his home and be left alone by Scientology. This would not happen; David Miscavige ordered Cruise could not be let go. Scientology worked on Cruise day and night until he finally returned to Scientology." This quote was part of an interview with Scientology defector Jesse Prince.

Relationships

Mimi Rogers

Cruise was married to Mimi Rogers (married on May 9, 1987, divorced February 4, 1990). Orchestrating this divorce was important to Scientology because Rogers was disaffected from Scientology (although she introduced Cruise to the religion in the first place; in managing the divorce for Cruise, they were able to convince her to accept a relatively paltry $10 million for the settlement.

Nicole Kidman

He later married Nicole Kidman (married on December 24, 1990, divorced August 8, 2001). He and Nicole Kidman adopted two children, Isabella (born 1993) and Connor (born 1995). Cruise left Kidman three months pregnant, just shy of their 10 year wedding anniversary; she lost the child.

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. Once again it was suggested that Scientology played a role in the relationship failing.

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, France. She accepted his proposal, and the couple are expected to be married in the summer or fall of 2006. Many say Cruise is going through his midlife crisis and that the relationship won't last, but all it doesn't seem likely the way Cruise is acting. Perhaps his most notable expression of his love for Holmes was the "couch incident" which took place on the popular talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Cruise and Holmes are also expecting a baby in 2006, which was rumoured to be the reason of Cruise's early proposal.

On May 23, 2005, Cruise raised some eyebrows with an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in which he — in the words of The New York Times — "jumped around the set, hopped onto a couch, fell rapturously to one knee and repeatedly professed his love for his new girlfriend." (n.b. This scene was parodied in Scary Movie 4) Cruise's public image came under further scrutiny after a number of subsequent television interviews in which he was described as acting in an odd manner and espousing a number of controversial views. In his famous Matt Lauer interview, Cruise appeared tired and hostile when discussing psychiatry, which the Church of Scientology considers to be a harmful "pseudoscience". He accused Lauer of being "glib" and insisted that there is "no such thing as a chemical imbalance", and that through "vitamins and exercise" a person's psychiatric problems can be cured. Noting that Katie Holmes was embracing Scientology, Lauer then asked Cruise if he could be with someone who wasn't a Scientologist. He replied: "It's something you don't understand. You can be a Christian and be a Scientologist. It is a religion in that it deals with the spirit, you as a spiritual being."

This short, yet 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 is 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. The birth would be Holmes' first child, and Cruise's third; Cruise has two adopted children: Connor Antony (born January 17, 1995) and Isabella Jane (born December 22, 1992) from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.

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.

Speculation has been rampant in the press that the very public affair and engagement were merely designed to promote their then upcoming movies, War of the Worlds and Batman Begins. A poll in People found that 62 per cent of readers believed the Cruise-Holmes affair was merely a publicity stunt.

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 when even her own family did not know where she was.

Allegedly, the last time she had been seen, Holmes had flown to meet with Tom Cruise for a possible role in Mission Impossible 3. 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 a new "best friend", Jessica Rodriguez, a prominent member of the Church of Scientology described as part of its "royalty". Rodriguez has been referred to as Holmes' Scientology "minder" as she follows the actress everywhere (literally, including the bathroom) and openly tells Holmes what to say during interviews. The reports have led to claims Holmes has been coerced or brainwashed into marrying Cruise and promoting Scientology. Fans of the actress have established a web-site, Free Katie, promoting this theory, the site claiming to be "devoted to rescuing sweet Katie from the clutches of the mad scientologist Tom Cruise!"

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 there any truth to the story. A representative for Life & Style magazine responded, "We stand 100 percent behind our story", and claims it has been verified by not one, but two anonymous friends of Cruise.

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.

Children

Cruise recently discussed his bi-racial adopted son on the TV talk show with Oprah Winfrey. Oprah asked Cruise if the issue of his son's race was ever discussed in the household. Cruise responded, "We're from the human race, human kind,". "I mean, what's there to talk about? He's my son. Listen, that's just how I feel about it. He's my son. I've never thought about color, race, I just have not thought about that."