Tom Cruise Biography

Mary Lee took the kids to live at Taylorsville Road, Kentucky, where life was one hell of a struggle, Tom living with an aunt for a year while his mum got house and home together. When he rejoined the family, young Tom was titular Man Of The House, but they all had to work, Tom putting his newspaper delivery earnings into the general coffers. The family received food stamps but not full Welfare as Mary Lee was always working. "My mother finally had the courage to stand up to my father and say 'No more, I'm not taking it, so long'," Cruise would say in that same Parade interview. "People can create their own lives. I saw how my mother created hers and made it possible for us to survive". At one point there was so little money that Tom took a scholarship at the St Francis Seminary in Cincinnati where, for a year, he studied for the priesthood and, more importantly, ate properly. Eventually, Mary Lee married again; to plastics salesman Jack South. There were more moves - indeed, by the age of 14, Tom had attended 15 different schools, being bullied at nearly all of them - but, eventually, they settled, Tom enrolling at Glen Ridge High School, New Jersey. From here, he went straight into acting.

Cruise had actually first thought of acting around the age of five. Mary Lee was a teacher with a keen interest in amateur theatrics (his cousin William Mapother was an actor) and Tom would be taken regularly to the cinema. He loved it, but the constant movement made settling into anything next to impossible. Later he would say "Nothing was quick enough in terms of life for me". Tom, a dreamy, lonely child living much of the time in his own interior world, was always the New Kid, forced to prove himself endlessly, and this was made yet more problematic by both shyness and dyslexia. It's thought the latter was brought on by teachers demanding he write with his right hand but, whatever the cause, Tom found learning demanded a terrific effort as pages turned to meaningless blocks of weird scribbles before his eyes. Constantly challenged by his parents, making him exceptionally competitive, he was desperate to fit in - more, to win. So he threw himself into sports - wrestling, raquetball, ice hockey, everything. He wasn't particularly gifted but his intensity and hyper-energy made him difficult to resist.

What eventually drew him to acting was an accident. Suffering a knee injury while wrestling, it was suggested that he try his hand at school theatre productions. Being Cruise, he threw himself in at the deep end, with the musical Guys And Dolls (he'd soon also perform in Godspell), and immediately began to pursue excellence in the field. Typically, he gave himself a 10-year deadline to achieve success. At 18, he left Glen Ridge and moved to New York, supporting himself by working as a bus-boy, a porter in an apartment block and a table-cleaner at Mortimer's restaurant. In the evenings he took drama classes, auditioning for TV ads whenever possible. He looked good, he had that winning smile, but he was never hired. Casting directors always described him as “too intense”. Other descriptions from those who knew him at the time included "long-haired", "angry", "muscular" and "obsessed with success". Feeding on hot dogs and rice, he lived, he now says “like an animal in the jungle”.

As yet, he had no connections, but he did have some advantages. Moving from state to state, he'd found his need to fit in had caused him to pick up the appropriate accent. He was always playing a role. Then there was his charm. As the only son in the family, he had grown up around women. Indeed, he remembers his sister Marian's friends coming round when he was just 6 or 7, sitting him up on the kitchen sink and using him for kissing practice. He says the first time he almost suffocated - but it was fun. So he was easy around women, capable of turning on the grace and charm (the very first example being his winning of Laurie Hobbs at the Sacred Heart School in Louisville), and this confidence served him well.

While in New York, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV shortened his name to the far snappier Tom Cruise. He went to Los Angeles to audition for TV roles (there's a famous clip of him trying out with a very young Heather Locklear - neither got the part), but got none. He did though sign with the Creative Artists Agency and got film work. First was Endless Love, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, renowned for Jesus Of Nazareth. Brooke Shields starred but Cruise, way down the bill (with James Spader, also making his debut), had a foot on the ladder. Or not, considering the film was so dismal. Returning to New Jersey, he was surprised to hear he had another audition, for a one-line part in Taps, the tale of military academy students so loyal the fight to prevent its closure. Where before Cruise's intensity had been a drawback, now it made him. Director Harold Becker (who'd earlier made The Onion Field, and would later helm Sea Of Love and Malice) was so impressed by his test he lifted Cruise to third on the bill, as belligerent cadet Dick Shawn.

Holding his own alongside Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn and even George C. Scott, Cruise was now headline material. Next came Losin' It, about four kids trying to lose their virginity in Tijuana (smooth Cruise gets an older, married woman), then the big one, Risky Business. Here Cruise played a smart teenager who, his parents out of town, gets tied up with a high-class prostitute and a bunch of shady figures. Wisecracking, dancing in his undies and sporting those classic Ray-Bans, he was a sensation (and he would, for a while, date his co-star Rebecca DeMornay).

He could have settled for this, used that killer smile to become the face of the go-getting, sharp-suited Eighties generation. Instead, he chose to work with another legendary director, Francis Ford Coppola, briefly joining the Brat Pack for The Outsiders. Then he starred in the slow, testing All The Right Moves, about a High School football star dreaming of scholarship and escape from his miserable Pennsylvania mill town. He was clearly attempting to widen his scope, next taking an even wilder shot with Ridley Scott's Legend, playing canny pixie Jack opposite Tim Curry's magnificent clomping demon.

Now came the first huge hit, Top Gun, with Ridley Scott's brother Tony. Here Cruise was Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a slick and arrogant fighter-pilot, extremely casual with the millions of dollars-worth of hardware he's riding. Promoted with Berlin's Take My Breath Away, it was a silly, macho, flag-waving monster of a hit (particularly amongst the gay community, though that's seldom mentioned) but again Cruise was intent upon growing as an actor, not simply as a star. Now he played Vincent, the cocky pool-player who draws Paul Newman's Fast Eddie (first seen in The Hustler) out of retirement. As a willing foil, Cruise helped win Newman the Oscar, but Newman changed Cruise forever. A renowned worker for charity, Newman raised his consciousness and got him interested in car-racing (he drove for Newman's team and thus got the idea for his later vehicle, Days Of Thunder). And, inadvertently, he got him married, Cruise meeting actress Mimi Rogers (Someone To Watch Over Me, The Doors) at Newman's Road Racing Classic Show in Georgia. Having dated Cher and Melissa Gilbert, Cruise would be with Rogers (six years his senior) for three years. Together they would serve on the board of the environmentally concerned Earth Communications Office. Formerly married to Scientology counsellor Jim Rogers, she would also introduce Tom to the religious group which he'd join in 1990.

As a willing foil, Cruise helped win Newman the Oscar, but Newman changed Cruise forever. A renowned worker for charity, Newman raised his consciousness and got him interested in car-racing (he drove for Newman's team and thus got the idea for his later vehicle, Days Of Thunder). And, inadvertently, he got him married, Cruise meeting actress Mimi Rogers (Someone To Watch Over Me, The Doors) at Newman's Road Racing Classic Show in Georgia. Having dated Cher and Melissa Gilbert, Cruise would be with Rogers (six years his senior) for three years. Together they would serve on the board of the environmentally concerned Earth Communications Office.

Having dared to play alongside Newman, now there was Dustin Hoffman, and Hoffman in a show-stealing Oscar role to boot. But it should be noted that Cruise, as Charlie Babbitt, a flash yuppie who discovers a less superficial life with his retarded brother, was the one who made that film. Hoffman needed someone onscreen to react to him, to lend him humanity, to connect with the audience - and Cruise, his performance ignored in the rush to praise Hoffman's, did it brilliantly. Then came Cocktail. Director Roger Donaldson had just done the superior Kevin Costner thriller No Way Out, the producers were expecting an update of The Graduate; it turned out to be an empty-headed jumble (though Cruise made an impressive tequila juggler).

Yet Cruise's trajectory was upwards, and now came Oliver Stone's Born On The Fourth Of July (something of a cheat, that, as Cruise was actually born on the 3rd). Here Cruise played real-life Vietnam vet-turned-anti-war-activist Ron Kovic, a man physically destroyed yet spiritually raised by the paralysis of his lower body. He won his first Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. He moved on to Days Of Thunder, again with Tony Scott. And his second wife. Cruise had come across Nicole Kidman at the premiere of her excellent Dead Calm. She amused him. Now, starring together, she won him completely, and he starred with her again in his next picture, Far And Away (directed by Ron Howard), about Irish lovers battling for a decent life on the American frontier. For Cruise, this tale was close to home as his great-great-grandfather, Dillon Henry Mapother, had moved from southern Ireland to Louisville back in 1850.

The movie was not a raging hit, but Cruise was by now super-bankable. His presence made the fairly average conspiracy flick The Firm into a smash. Still, he was trying to shake his pretty-boy image, be seen as the "actor-artist" he believed himself to be. He worked constantly at this. On Days Of Thunder he was so intense the crew dubbed him Laserhead. On Far And Away, Ron Howard noted that he actually ran to the toilet and back. He is NEVER late, and demands the same professionalism from his co-workers. So next he took on Interview With The Vampire, as the murderous Lestat, drunk on power and immortality. Fans of the book denounced this casting, as did its author Anne Rice though, having seen the picture, she made an abrupt u-turn, claiming Cruise's Lestat would be remembered like Olivier's Hamlet. His charm and intensity had coupled well again.

Now it was massive hits all the way. Cruise - cool, smart and pumped - made an excellent Ethan Hunt in Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible. Then came Cameron Crowe. Cruise knew him already - Crowe had written Cruise's first ever cover feature, for Interview Magazine. Now a director, Crowe was working on Jerry Maguire, about a sports agent discovering his humanity while teetering on the brink of financial ruin. Cruise was brilliant - harassed, arrogant, sweet and triumphant - and again happily played second fiddle where necessary, to Cuba Gooding Jr ("Show me the money!"), Renee Zellweger ("You complete me"), and even toddler Jonathan Lipnicki. Another mighty hit, another Golden Globe, another Oscarnomination.

Now Cruise took the chance to work with another of the great directors. Along with Kidman, he spent three years on Stanley Kubrick's slow, ultra-considered Eyes Wide Shut. Sadly, the film was a little TOO considered for most and, oddly, Cruise gained more respect and attention for his far shorter role in Magnolia. As Frank TJ Mackey, a rabble-rousing male therapist, he was tremendous - posing, cajoling, demanding ("Respect the cock!"). And he was moving, particularly beside his father's (Jason Robards) death-bed. Deservedly, there was another Golden Globe, and another Oscar nomination - that Michael Caine pipped him was nothing short of outrageous.

Mission: Impossible 2, with John Woo, was another mega-hit. Then it was back to Crowe with Vanilla Sky, a "rock'n'roll" remake of the Spanish weird-out Open Your Eyes - Cruise had bought the remake rights after seeing the movie with production partner Paula Wagner, then got Crowe involved. It's worth noting that Cruise was now such a massive star that the film's poster was simply a picture of his head and shoulders beside a list of words reading "Love, Hate, Dreams, Life, Work, Play, Friendship, Sex". Completely meaningless, that list, when it comes to explaining what the film was about, but it absolutely did not matter. Everyone was only going to see Cruise anyway.

The movie featured Cruise as a New York playboy, the inheritor of a publishing empire, in a bizarre love triangle with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz (herself the star of the original). Then there's a car accident and everything goes mad - Cruise is so horrifically scarred he spends the rest of the movie in a mask. It actually went mad for Cruise %u2018n' Cruz in real life too. After the movie wrapped, the media went into feeding-frenzy at the news that Cruise had split with Kidman after 10 years of marriage (they have two adopted children - Isabella and Connor) and begun seeing Cruz. Tom and Nicole tried to keep a lid on it, but it was impossible, what with Cruise having to attend the premiere of Kidman's The Others (directed by Amenabar, Cruise had produced the film - no doubt as part of the Open Your Eyes/ Vanilla Sky deal). Of course, everyone was interested in the splitting of Tom and Nicole's mighty fortune, and fascinated when Kidman revealed that in March, 2001, one month after Cruise filed for divorce, she had suffered a miscarriage.

Next came Minority Report, a sci-fi thriller from the pen of Philip K. Dick (screenplay by Frank Darabont of Shawshank Redemption fame), about future-cops who, with the aid of Pre-Cogs (weird, bald types who float in big tanks and see the future) can arrest criminals before they commit their crimes. Cruise played the head of Washington's Pre-Crime unit, who's himself accused and pursued by rival Colin Farrell. Adding Steven Spielberg to Tom's incredible list of directors, it was hugely inventive stuff, action-packed but still teeming with intelligence, Spielberg having got together some of the deepest minds in America to help build his future-world. It cost over $100 million yet, with Cruise attached (unlike Spielberg's relative failure A:I), it still made money.

For his next project, Cruise would step back in time with The Last Samurai. Here he was Nathan Algren, a US cavalryman and hero of the American civil war, who's invited to modernise the army of the Emperor of Japan, then under threat from the samurai warriors of a rebel leader. He agrees but, captured by the enemy, he learns and comes to respect their codes of honour (in return teaching their children baseball). It was an interesting premise, and expertly filmed by Edward Zwick - after Glory a veteran of major battle sequences - yet many found it a little too close to Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves for comfort. As ever, Cruise drove the film to success (receiving a Golden Globe nomination for his efforts), promoting it with huge vigour. In the process, he became the first man ever to appear on Marie Claire's front cover, and publicly sang Elvis Presley's I Want You, I Need You, I Love You with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Cruise's next project would be on a far smaller scale, when he teamed up with Michael Mann for Collateral. Here cab driver Jamie Foxx played an LA cabbie who picks up a fare only to discover the guy's a hit-man. This is Cruise, probably the world's most charming assassin, who then forces Foxx to drive him around town as he carries out his bloody work. Can Foxx out-wit this deadly fellow and perhaps save himself and the final victim? The movie was yet another hit, proof that Cruise could get away with playing a villain and further proof (if any was needed) that he's a great guy to accompany onscreen, Foxx being nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

With script and director problems plaguing Mission Impossible 3, Cruise and Spielberg now brought forward their plans to remake War Of The Worlds. This time ancient aliens have buried three-legged machines in the ground and bring them to life by hitting them with lightning bolts containing alien drivers. Cue death rays, destruction, total chaos and some of the most amazing SFX in history (check out the burning train or Cruise walking through a downed aircraft) as an immature, divorced Cruise attempts to protect his children by running, hiding and seeking a means of fighting back. A hugely expensive production, budgeted at $132 million, it nevertheless rewarded its makers handsomely, Cruise yet again breaking the $200 million barrier with ease.

Surely Cruise will soon direct himself. He did helm an episode of TV series Fallen Angels back in 1993 and is a producer too, having worked on both Mission: Impossibles, plus Without Limits (directed by Robert Towne, writer of Chinatown, and The Firm, Days Of Thunder and the Mission movies), Narc and The Others.

Of course, being the biggest movie star in the world, Cruise receives attention of another kind. He's had to sue people for claiming he's gay, one being "erotic wrestler" Chad Slater (AKA Kyle Bradford) who went so far as to claim he'd had an affair with Cruise which had ended his marriage to Kidman. June 2001 saw Cruise launch another $100 million suit against one Michael Davis who approached various news services claiming he had a video of Cruise in a homosexual relationship. Cruise often sues when he feels lies are being told and his reputation damaged. He gives all proceeds to charity - now taking a big percentage of his film's grosses (he made $75 million from M:I2), he hardly needs the money. He also gets gyp for his membership of the Church of Scientology, which he joined in 1990, despite his stated opinion that it's aided him enormously, and even helped clear up his dyslexia.

Always big news in the tabloids, Cruise would hit new heights in 2005 when it was announced that, having split from Penelope Cruz, he was dating actress Katie Holmes, 16 years his junior. Many publicly asserted that it was a publicity stunt designed to hype their oncoming blockbusters War Of The Worlds and Batman Begins. Many more would agree once Cruise had appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, bouncing up and down on the sofa and loudly declaring his love. But June would see Cruise propose to Holmes on the Eiffel Tower and October would bring an announcement that she was pregnant. Still, though, the unpleasant gossip would not stop, most of the stories characterising Holmes as a poor naive girl who, having worshipped Cruise as a little girl, was now being drawn into Scientology despite her Catholic beliefs. The arrival of daughter Suri in April, 2006, would bring another wave of rumours. Was Cruise really going to force Holmes to stay silent during the birth? The answer was - oddly enough - no.

Cruise had occasionally involved himself in politics - in 2000 he backed Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign - but now he'd become far more outspoken. The press campaign for War Of The Worlds often became very heated, with Cruise defending his belief in Scientology, aggressively attacking the absurdly common diagnosis of ADD and willy-nilly prescription of the likes of Ritalin, then rubbishing psychology, psychiatry and the use of anti-depressants (statements that drew him into a very public war of words with, among others, the actress Brooke Shields). Though some of his points were good, particularly on the subject of Ritalin, he would be quite badly shown up when reporters began to research some of his more outrageous claims about the history of psychiatry and drugs.

In TV interviews, Cruise was now coming across as defensive and sometimes angry, his famous ebullience and optimism seeming rather forced. Indeed, his image was taking over. Now he was a money-making monolith, an Operating Thetan on level 7 of Scientology's Bridge to Total Freedom, almost entirely removed from his audience. As if recognising this, he'd give some of his most revealing interviews yet, exploring his relationship with his father and mother, the lessons learned and the damage done. Behind the mystique of Scientology and Hollywood super-power, Cruise was still that bullied little boy, still seeking a better life for himself and his family. Of course, he was also still Ethan Hunt and, at last, 2006 would see the third installment of the Mission: Impossible series, with Cruise this time engaged in a battle of wills (and big guns) with sadistic international arms dealer Philip Seymour Hoffman, who threatens to kill Hunt in front of his girlfriend Michelle Monaghan. It was very different from the last time Cruise and Hoffman had starred together, beside Jason Robards' death-bed in Magnolia.

Though away from the industry Cruise does like to scuba-dive and sky-dive and also pilots aircraft, including a Pitts Special S-2B stunt plane, mostly it's about work. Cruise resents being thought of as a beefcake actor or a pretty-boy maker of pulp entertainment. He did, after all, turn down Top Gun 2, despite a promised 500% wage rise, made Born On The Fourth Of July for scale (plus percentage) and took no upfront fee for The Last Samurai. He's tested himself against the best for so long, he's been involved in so many award-winning projects, he feels he deserves better. And he does.

Dominic Wills