Real Name: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV ;
Birthday: July 3, 1962, ;
Place of Birth: Syracuse, NY ;
Education: Glen Ridge High School ;
Charismatic and engaging in his teen roles of the early 1980s, the athletic and boyishly handsome Cruise soon graduated to adult superstar status. By the mid-90s, he was indisputably the most powerful movie star of his generation, only bested by the relatively grizzled Harrison Ford as the world box-office champ.
Already a veteran of 18 films with a cumulative gross of more than $2 billion (prior to the surefire 1996 summer hit, Mission: Impossible), the still young Cruise may yet become top gun.
After a peripatetic childhood in which he reportedly attended a dozen schools by age 12, Cruise turned to acting in high school after a knee injury derailed his wrestling ambitions. Energized by landing the role of Nathan Detroit in his high school production of Guys and Dolls, he dropped out in his senior year to pursue an acting career.
By 1981, Cruise was in Los Angeles where he met Paula Wagner, then an agent at Creative Artists Agency, who would subsequently guide his film career. He made his feature debut in a small role in Franco Zeffirelli's notorious Brooke Shields-starrer Endless Love, and gained attention in a showy supporting role as an increasingly lunatic cadet in Taps (both 1981).
Cruise landed his first starring role as a sensitive kid opposite "older woman" Shelly Long in Losin' It (1983), a middling teen coming-of-age comedy.
Cruise's career prospects brightened when he persuaded Francis Ford Coppola to cast him in a small role as a tough guy in The Outsiders (1983). He failed to stand out amid a talented ensemble of teen heartthrobs that included Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph Macchio. Nonetheless, the job led to more high-profile assignments.
Cruise gained celebrity in the superior teen sex satire Risky Business (also 1983). As an anxious, affluent, suburban teen poised precariously on the brink of young adulthood, Cruise created a resonant protagonist for young Reagan-era audiences.
Cruise performed well in a more naturalistic mode in All the Right Moves (1983), a sober high school football drama that fared modestly at the box office. He next grew his hair long and made the wrong move with Ridley Scott's colossal fantasy flop, Legend (1985). Cruise solidified his star status with one of the signature hits of the '80s, Top Gun (1986). Defiantly politically incorrect, with flying sequences edited to the rhythms of pop tunes, the film functioned as both Navy recruiting ad and glossy romantic adventure.
No longer the engaging boy-next-door, Cruise's Maverick was a cocky go-getter armed with a killer smile. He would play variations on this role in several subsequent films-particularly the less ambitious ones (e.g. Cocktail, 1988; Days of Thunder, 1990).
Not content to be a matinee idol, Cruise began stretching his abilities in the mid-80s-often paired with older, more established male stars of previous eras-with impressive results. He enriched his characterization of the talented but arrogant young man opposite Paul Newman in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money (1986). Cruise consolidated his serious dramatic credentials with Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988), where he more than held his own opposite overbearing Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman.
Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989) earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his hard-hitting portrayal of anti-war activist Ron Kovic.
Cruise stumbled a bit with the critically and commercially disappointing Far and Away (1992), a goofy period romance co-starring his wife Nicole Kidman (whom he married in 1990 after they had worked together in Days of Thunder). He recovered with a highly popular court-martial drama, A Few Good Men (1992), wherein he successfully confronted an iconic Jack Nicholson. He played a lawyer again in the thriller The Firm (1993) with comparably successful results at the box office.
Never content to rest on his laurels (or his bank account) for long, Cruise raised eyebrows-and more than a few hackles-by accepting the central role of the vampire Lestat in David Geffen's lavish production of Neil Jordan's Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). Many balked at the idea of the All-American go-getter playing the decadent, ambisexual European predator of Anne Rice's novel. Rice herself was the harshest critic as she traveled about the country trashing the casting decision while on a book tour. Sporting blond locks and blue contact lenses (his eyes are naturally green), Cruise eventually won Rice's approval and generally positive (if hardly enthusiastic) notices.
The film was also notable for teaming the superstar with less familiar heartthrobs Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. Although Cruise was only 32 at the time, there was a peculiar sense of his passing on the baton.
Cruise was all but omnipresent in the media as he aggressively promoted his feature producing debut, the post-Cold War espionage movie, Mission: Impossible (1996). Based on the fondly remembered '60s TV show, the project had languished in various development hells before Cruise got involved. This marked the inaugural project for Cruise/Wagner Productions, the company the actor formed with his one-time agent in 1992. Rumors abounded about Cruise clashing with director Brian De Palma over budgetary and story matters.
Nonetheless, despite international location shooting, high-tech stunts, computer-generated visual effects, and last-minute re-writes by a stellar assortment of scripters, Mission: Impossible came in on time and under budget at approximately $67 million. (Cruise deferred his $20 million salary.) The reviews were mixed-some treated it as an extravagant but cold vanity production with a confused storyline but most admired the cinematic technique. As anticipated, business was brisk.
Now a producer as well as an actor, Cruise had numerous projects in various stages of development at the time of the release of his summer blockbuster. Jerry Maguire (1996), in which he played a venal sports agent, was lensing for a Christmas release. Cruise also announced that he and Kidman were starting preproduction on legendary writer-director Stanley Kubrick's long-awaited return to feature filmmaking, Eyes Wide Shut (scheduled to begin lensing in the fall of 1996). This collaboration would mark another milestone in Cruise's quest to be taken seriously as an artist and not just another pretty face-with major commercial clout.***
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