Tom Cruise

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

Man arrested over Tom ’blackmail plot’ - July 27 2007
A man who allegedly demanded more than a million dollars not to publish Tom Cruise’s stolen wedding photographs has been arrested.

David Schmidt, of Arizona, known for brokering deals involving compromising celebrity photos and videos, approached the star’s representatives about six weeks ago with photos from his Italian wedding last year to Katie Holmes, Tom’s lawyer Bertram Fields said. The FBI was contacted.

"He was looking for money, lots of money," Fields said. It was not clear how Schmidt had obtained the photos.

The 47-year-old was arrested on Tuesday, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

Schmidt has also been trying to auction Paris Hilton’s diaries, along with photos of her in various stages of undress and other personal items that had been stored in a Los Angeles locker until a few months ago.

The socialite’s publicist, Elliot Mintz, has said the belongings were "illegally seized".

Tom throws Becks welcome party - July 23 2007
Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Will Smith threw a celeb-filled party to welcome the Beckhams to their new home in the US.

An array of Oscar winners and big names of the entertainment world turned out for what was billed as an official welcome-to-Los Angeles party for David and Victoria.

Tom and Will played co-hosts for the invitation-only bash at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary gallery in Los Angeles.

Director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer were among the first to arrive, and Brooke Shields was also there.

Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria popped in, followed by the man behind the Beckham brand, Simon Fuller.

Wesley Snipes and Quincy Jones came to welcome the Brit couple, as did Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.

Others on the guest list ranged from George Clooney to Oprah Winfrey to Steven Spielberg.

Shoot on controversial movie begins - July 20 2007
Shooting began in a forest outside Berlin of a film starring Tom Cruise as Germany’s most famous anti-Hitler plotter.

The German government said it was letting the filmmakers shoot anywhere they requested - except the former German general staff headquarters.

The so-called Bendler Block, where Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg was executed by firing squad 63 years ago, was off limits, said government spokesman Torsten Albig, citing "the dignity of the place".

Work went ahead as planned, with the movie set cordoned off with yellow-and-black plastic tape in a pine forest near the village of Klein Koeris, 43 miles south of Berlin. The German producers, Studio Babelsberg, confirmed Cruise was on the set.

The country’s largest newspaper, Bild, printed pictures of the star - sporting a pair of dark sunglasses, a grey jacket and jeans - as he left a silver Audi A6 at Berlin’s Tempelhof airport to get on a helicopter, that, according to Bild, took him to the set.

The government’s refusal to permit filming at the place where von Stauffenberg worked and died led to controversy about whether Cruise’s religious beliefs had triggered the decision.

Cruise is one of Scientology’s best-known members; the German government considers Scientology a commercial enterprise that takes advantage of vulnerable people, and some critics maintain that one of its adherents should not be playing one of the Nazi-era’s few heroes.

Government spokesman Albig said the decision to turn down director Bryan Singer’s request to shoot Valkyrie at the Bendler Block, now a memorial for Third Reich resistance fighters, had nothing to do with Cruise’s religion.

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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

Related links

Katie Holmes
Nicole Kidman