Tom Cruise

Profession: Actor
Place/Date of Birth: New York, USA, 03 July 2020
Associated with: Katie Holmes, Nicole Kidman

Curtis and Cruise team up? - Feb 14 2008
Tom Cruise is reportedly in line to star in Richard Curtis' new romantic comedy.

The Love Actually director is keen for the Top Gun actor to play the lead in his latest romantic comedy Lost For Words, according to the Daily Express newspaper.

A source said: "If Curtis gets his way Cruise will play the part of a shallow, self-obsessed superstar who changes his ways after falling in love with a respected Chinese actress."

Curtis has previously named romantic comedy Jerry Maguire - which starred Tom opposite Renee Zellweger - as one of his all-time favourite films.

Meanwhile, the 45-year-old actor is said to be looking for a suitable romantic lead following the box-office failure of political drama Lions For Lambs.

The source added: "If Tom passes up the chance to star in Lost For Words, it is understood that Hugh Jackman is the second choice of the movie-makers for the main role."

Curtis has written the movie, which will be directed by Susanna Bier, who directed Halle Berry in Things We Lost In The Fire, and produced by Universal.

They are reportedly hoping Tang Wei, star of Ang Lee's Lust Caution, will play the female lead, but are not approaching any actresses until they have cast the leading man.

Church hits back at paper over Tom outburst - Jan 22 2008
The Church of Scientology has accused a German newspaper of being "grossly irresponsible" for publishing comments by a historian comparing a speech by Tom Cruise to one by a Nazi minister.

The church, of which the star is a member, said the claims of Second World War historian Guido Knopp, published by the Bild tabloid, were "horrendous and disgraceful".

The writer said Tom’s speech to Scientologists, recently leaked onto the internet, was reminiscent of a 1943 speech by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Karin Pouw, the church’s public affairs director, said: "Bild am Sonntag is grossly irresponsible for publishing horrendous and disgraceful claims about Mr Cruise.

"The video of Mr Cruise is a pirated, edited video that is taken from a three-hour event which encompassed the many humanitarian programs sponsored by the Church of Scientology...

"Bild am Sonntag has disgracefully misinterpreted Mr Cruise’s remarks. He was giving an acceptance speech for a humanitarian award bestowed in honour of his efforts for global literacy. In doing so, he was urging other people to become involved in similar humanitarian activities to the betterment of all.

"Anyone who knows Mr Cruise knows that he doesn’t have a prejudicial bone in his body and that, unlike Bild am Sonntag and other German anti-religionists, he does not discriminate against any other religion, race or colour."

She said the church was responsible for the world’s largest non-governmental anti-drug campaign and funded a global literacy programme helping millions.

Tom plays Nazi resistance hero Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg - who led a failed plot to assassinate Hitler - in the film Valkyrie, which has caused controversy in Germany.

War expert sees Goebbels in Cruise - Jan 21 2008
A German historian has compared a speech by actor Tom Cruise about Scientology to a call to war by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Guido Knopp, an expert on Second World War history, told Bild newspaper that Tom’s address to his fellow Scientologists "inevitably" recalled Goebbels.

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Biography

New Yorker Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3 1962) may have reached the heights of the heart throb-o-meter in the eighties but since his split with Nicole Kidman has ruined many a young woman’s fantasy with increasingly bizarre behaviour. So where did it all go wrong for the sofa leaping strange one?

Born in Syracuse Tom grew up in relative poverty following his father’s departure from the family, the actor has since claimed that he suffered abuse before the split. While Thomas III refused to pay child support, Tom’s mother Mary Lee Pfieffer moved her son from city to city, eventually settling in New Jersey where Tom, who once aspired to become a Catholic priest, then a Wrestler, took up acting. His first role was as lead in a High School production of Guys and Dolls.

1981 saw Tom take his first acting role, alongside Brooke Shields in Endless Love. He followed this up with increasingly important roles before in 1983 appearing in Risky Business, the underpanted lip syncing scene of which brought him to the attention of movie goers worldwide as well as to Director Jerry Bruckheimer who asked Tom to star in his next project. Rumour has it that the actor turned down the role of fighter pilot Maverick in Top Gun but in 1986 there he was on our screens, ready to become a cinematic icon.

As the 80s rolled on The Colour of Money, Cocktail and Rain Man ensured Tom’s place at the top of the Hollywood A list, taking him in to the nineties able to demand huge pay cheques for his work and earning him Academy Award nominations (for Born on the Fourth of July). In 1990 he met Australian actress Nicole Kidman on the set of Days of Thunder who he would soon work with again on the less successful Far and Away. Fresh from his divorce from Mimi Rogers, whom he had married just three years earlier, Tom whisked Nicole up the aisle before embarking on a roll call of more ’serious’ film work from The Firm to A Few Good Men and Interview With The Vampire.

1996 proved a successful year for Tom. He began a long relationship with the Mission:Impossible franchise and earned himself another Oscar nomination for the unforgettable Bruckheimer release Jerry Maguire. But this time seemed to mark a turning point for America’s most personable lead man. In 1999 he and Nicole took on the bizarre and controversial Kubrick movie Eyes Wide Shut which he closely followed with the Oscar nominated Magnolia which saw a further move away from his usual ’arrogant nice guy’ roles.

In 2001 the Cruise/Kidman van screeched to an unexpected halt. The couple, who had two adopted children - Isabella and Connor - were divorced just before their tenth wedding anniversary. Nicole, three months pregnant, later miscarried. Tom was soon in love again, this time with Vanilla Sky co-star Penelope Cruz with whom he was linked until 2004. He continued to create box office successes, from a second Mission Impossible movie to Collateral and Minority Report.

Following his split from Penelope Tom became ever more vocal about his beliefs as a Scientologist. The controversial religion was expected to affect his 2005 outing, War of the Worlds, however whilst the film still managed to net millions, Tom’s religious ramblings coupled with his unexpected relationship with Dawson’s Creek and Batman Begins actress Katie Holmes, sixteen years his junior, saw his own popularity wane.

Tom’s pro-Scientology and anti-psychiatry comments, a very public battle with Brooke Shields and some truly over the top, overacted protestations of love signalled the end of Tom’s relationship with Paramount pictures with whom he had worked as a Producer. Paramount weren’t the only ones to go off the actor either. The newspapers and magazines who not so long ago loved him and his movies turned against him, branding him a laughing stock and turning up the volume on the gay rumours which have plagued Cruise for so many years.

Tom and Katie carried out their fast forward relationship under the glare of the press - first bringing baby daughter Suri in to the world in April 2006 just a year after they first met, then marrying in November of the same year.
upated December 2006
February 2008

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