Tom Cruise

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

Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American actor, producer, and Scientologist who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies. His first leading role in a blockbuster movie was in 1983's Risky Business.

1 Early life
2 Acting career
3 Sex appeal
4 Personal life
5 Church of Scientology
6 Oprah, interviews and Katie Holmes
7 Selected filmography
8 Reported salaries
9 See also
10 References
11 External links

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Early life

Cruise was born to Thomas Cruise Mapother and Mary Lee Pfeiffer. The very first Mapothers were Welsh immigrants to the United States. Cruise also has German ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotta Louise Voelker. Cruise's parents moved frequently when he was a child, residing in a number of locations throughout the United States and Canada, including Ottawa; Louisville, Kentucky; Glen Ridge, New Jersey (where he attended Glen Ridge High School); and Wayne, New Jersey. Before going into acting, Cruise attended a Franciscan seminary and aspired to become a Catholic priest.

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Acting career

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 (now) former spouse Nicole Kidman. Cruise also turned in a powerful supporting performance 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), a complex role Cruise played with intensity.

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

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Sex appeal

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.

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Personal life

Cruise has been married twice, to Mimi Rogers (married on May 9, 1987, divorced February 4, 1990) and later 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 recently discussed his bi-racial son with the TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Oprah asked Cruise if the issue of his race was ever discussed in the household. "We're from the human race, human kind," Cruise said. "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."

During his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, the couple endured public speculation about their sex life and rumors that Cruise was gay. In May 2001 he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater. 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.[1]

It is also rumored that Kidman lost interest in Scientology, and the friction between her and Cruise over this issue drove the marriage apart.

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. In April 2005, he 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 [2]. She accepted his offer, but the couple have yet to decide on a wedding date.

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Church of Scientology

Cruise is arguably Hollywood's most outspoken member of the Church of Scientology. He joined in 1986 while married to Mimi Rogers. Cruise has publicly said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Scientology Study Tech [3], allowed him to overcome his dyslexia [4].

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. He openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil, an anti-depressant, which Shields claims helped her recover from post-partum depression after the birth of her daughter in 2003; Brooke Shields subsequently questioned Cruise's wisdom. 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 [5], a well-known 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."[6] (While Narconon claims to have a success rate over 70%, no outside source has ever verified this claim, let alone declaring it the only successful program as a matter of statistical fact.)

Tom Cruise has been quoted as saying "There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance in a body." This runs counter to what is believed by most of the medical profession; chemicals such as dopamine and seratonin are widely recognized as playing a role in some mental disorders.

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 has since replaced her with his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, who is a Scientologist. [7]. Recently Cruise has also been reported to have risen to one of the highest echelons of the Church of Scientology, what is known as 'Operating Thetan Seven' or OT-VII. This rise in the ranks also has contributed to Cruise's more frequent comments on Scientology, since that level reportedly gives Cruise, among other things, more authoritative powers. Cruise's fiancée, Katie Holmes, recently has begun studying Scientology, which Cruise says does not conflict with her Roman Catholic upbringing.

Cruise may have successfully converted his bride-to-be, Katie Holmes, into Scientology but failed to convert Scarlett Johansson. After two hours of proselytizing, Cruise introduced her to a room full of upper level Scientologists waiting to dine with the pair at that point she excused herself politely. She had then pulled out of Cruise's upcoming movie Mission Impossible III.

Wikinews has news related to this article:

Church of Scientology does not see humor in website dedicated to Tom Cruise

As of 2005, Tom Cruise has begun advocating for the Church of Scientology before politicians and government officials around the world. As an example, he has lobbied French minister Nicolas Sarkozy in favor of Scientology. Such advocacy does not go well in several European countries where this organization is considered as a cult who swindles its members. 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" [8] after he was mentioned as lobbying Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Gaudin, mayor of Marseille.[9]

Cruise’s involvement with Scientology is parodied on the site scienTOMogy.info.

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Oprah, interviews and Katie Holmes

Wikinews has news related to this article:

Tom Cruise debates psychiatry on Today show

Tom Cruise jumps ecstatically on Oprah's couch

On May 23, 2005, Cruise raised some eyebrows with a frenzied 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, the actress Katie Holmes."

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. 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 [10] 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 has been critical of Cruise's focus on his relationship during promotion of the film. On October 5, 2005, it was reported by People magazine that Holmes is pregnant. The birth would be Holmes' first child, and Cruise's third. Cruise has two adopted children; Connor, 10, and Isabella, 12, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman.

Cruise's hostile behavior in recent interviews and his very public romance with Katie Holmes have led to his being the butt of numerous jokes on late night television shows such as Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Late Show with David Letterman. The jokes commonly refer to Cruise being crazy or insane. The phrase "jumping the couch" is now used to refer to someone (usually a celebrity) who seems to have gone insane.

In the wake of these events, Tom Cruise demoted his sister LeAnne DeVette and replaced her with vetran publicist Paul Bloch, from the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan. Such restructuring is seen as a move to curtail publicity about Tom's Scientology views.

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