Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise (1962- ), American film actor. Cruise's boyish good looks and charismatic, cocksure persona made him one of Hollywood's most bankable stars in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in action-hero roles. Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, New York, on July 3, 1962, he first achieved acclaim in Paul Brickman’s sharp suburban satire Risky Business (1983). In the film, Cruise was able to show off his physique, sense of humour, and essential geniality. Cruise’s first big film, Legend (1985) by Ridley Scott, was a misfire, and he paled alongside Paul Newman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in The Color of Money (1986) by Martin Scorsese, but the high-tech aviation film Top Gun (1986; Tony Scott), although considered by many to be specious, was a huge hit. He subsequently gave two of the best performances of his career, holding his own opposite Dustin Hoffman, in the Academy Award-winning Rain Man (1988; Barry Levinson), and receiving a Best Actor Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for his powerful work as Vietnam War casualty Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (1989; Oliver Stone). His power to draw audiences remained evident in such films as Cocktail (1988), Days of Thunder (1990, which he co-wrote), Far and Away (1992, opposite his second wife, Nicole Kidman), A Few Good Men (1992), and The Firm (1993).

Cruise confounded expectations (including those of novelist Anne Rice) by proving a witty Lestat in Interview with the Vampire (1994). This was followed by yet another change of style, his next project being Mission: Impossible (1996), a big-screen version by Brian de Palma of the 1960s cult television programme of the same name; he reprised the role in two sequels (2000, 2006). Cruise went on to win a Best Actor Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Oscar for his inspired performance as a sports agent who finds himself at a moral crossroads in the comedy Jerry Maguire (1996).

In 1999 Cruise won a further Golden Globe and was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Supporting Actor, for his portrayal of the manic television sex guru Frank T. J. Mackey in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. In the same year, amid tight security and contractual secrecy, he and Kidman starred in the much-heralded Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut, which was released a few months after the sudden death of the reclusive director. Cruise and Kidman later divorced in 2001 after 11 years of marriage. Cruise subsequently starred in Vanilla Sky (2001)—a Hollywood remake of the Spanish film Abre Los Ojos (2000; Open Your Eyes), and the science-fiction films Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005), both directed by Steven Spielberg.

After this, the usually discreet Cruise was often in the headlines, talking openly about his adopted religion, Scientology, criticizing the psychiatry profession, and on the Oprah Winfrey television show effusively declaring his love for the actress Katie Holmes, whom he went on to marry in 2006. This perceived erratic behaviour, coupled with the relatively disappointing box-office performance of Mission: Impossible III, was later cited by Paramount Pictures as the reason for the studio's decision to end its working relationship with Cruise after 14 years. Within months, however, Cruise had struck a new deal with MGM to revive the studio United Artists.