| Born Thomas Cruise Mapother III 7/3/62. One of the sexiest actors in film today. Tom has shown remarkable resiliance over the course of his career playing everything from a vampire to a paralyzed Vietnam vet with conviction. Unlike his brat pack classmates, Tom always seems to come out on top. He is one of the handful of actors that commands a $20 million dollar per picture salary.
Raised by a single mom in upstate New York, Tom had to overcome dyslexia and constantly moving from place to place as his mother searched for work. In high school he has a promising wrestling career but had to abandon any hopes for a scholarship after he injured his knee. That behind him, he began acting in school plays and found a new love.
Tom's movie career got off to a modest start in films such as Endless Love with Brooke Shields, and Losin' It, a predecessor to American Pie in which he played a horny teen. As bad as his films were, he kept going and later appeared in a film calledTaps. That got him some much needed attention and after his next film, Risky Business, was completed, Tom became the flavor of the month for singing "Old Time Rock-n-Roll" in his tighty whities.
It was in that film that Tom became involoved in his first high-profile romance with co-star Rebecca DeMornay. The two dated for a number of years until Tom met and married older actres Mimi Rodgers, who introduced him to Scientology.
Tom hit some pretty high points after Risky. He starred in S.E. Hinton's classic The Outsiders, The Color of Money (with Paul Newman), Top Gun, Rain Man, and Born on the Fourth of July to name a few. All were smash hits but Tom still had a hard time being seen as anything more than a pretty face. Although nominated for Academy Awards on numerous occassions, he has yet to win.
In spite of L. Ron Hubbard's influence, Tom's marriage to Mimi ended in divorce. True to form he quickly became involved with an icy demeanored Aussie on the set of 1990's Days of Thunder. Her name was Nicole Kidman. The two fell in love and married. They have two adopted children, Isabella and Connor (who incidentally is African American). The couple is notoriously secretive about their private life and even go so far as to have their close associates and employees sign lengthy non-disclosure agreements. This, coupled with the suspicion that being a Scientologist can arouse, caused many people to speculate that both Tom and Nicole are homosexual--big deal! In spite of these rumors Tom and Nicole seemed to be very much in love and when news of their separation became public in Feb 2001, it made international news.
Shortly before his divorce was finalized Tom's publicist announced that he was dating his Vanilla Sky co-star and #1 box-office repellant Penelope Cruz. The two have been spotted together often at staged events and display such a rampant lack of passion that many have speculated that Spain's answer to Corporal Klinger is in fact Tom's beard.
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