Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, popularly known as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and producer. He is currently the world’s highest-paid actor. Cruise has received various honors for his work, including a public holiday celebrated in his honor. He is famous for films like Mission: Impossible and its sequels, Top Gun, and its newly released sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
Tom Cruise Biography
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Cruise was born on 3rd July 1962, in Syracuse, New York. His father Thomas Cruise Mapother III was an electrical engineer and his mother Mary Lee was a special education teacher. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and both had English, German, and Irish ancestry. The actor has three sisters, Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass. He grew up almost poor and was raised a Catholic. Cruise described his father as “a merchant of chaos”, a “bully”, and a “coward” who beat his children. Cruise and his siblings had a difficult childhood due to their father’s constant physical abuse. Also, Tom Cruise height is about 1.7m
Cruise spent some of his childhood in Canada; when his father worked as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. His family moved in late 1971 to Beacon Hill, Ottawa. When Cruise was in sixth grade his mother divorced his father. In 1978, she married Jack South. His biological father died of cancer in 1984.
Actor William Mapother, Cruise’s cousin. He has appeared alongside Cruise in five films.
Tom Cruise Education
Cruise attended 15 schools in a period of 14 years. He studied at the new Robert Hopkins Public School for his fourth and fifth-grade education. This was where he first became involved in drama. In sixth grade, Cruise attended Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa. He received a brief Catholic Church scholarship and studied at the St. Francis Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio; he wanted to become a priest before being expelled from the seminary for drinking. He then decided to start acting.
Cruise played football for the varsity team as a linebacker during his senior year of high school but was cut from the squad after he was caught drinking before a game. He was featured in the school’s production of Guys and Dolls. Cruise finally graduated from Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey in 1980.
Tom Cruise Career
Cruise moved to New York City to pursue an acting career at age 18. He worked as a busboy in New York, then went to Los Angeles to audition for television roles. Cruise was signed with CAA and started acting in films. He made his debut in a minor role in the 1981 film Endless Love, and after that, he got a supporting role in Taps that same year. In 1983, Cruise joined the cast of The Outsiders and also got a role in All the Right Moves and Risky Business. He became a superstar when he appeared in the action movie Top Gun. Cruise started starring in several top-grossing films in Hollywood.
Following that, Cruise has majorly featured in science fiction and action films, cementing his status as an action star, usually performing risky stunts by himself. He played the character of Ethan Hunt in all six of the Mission: Impossible films from 1996 to 2018 and two that are yet to be released. His other notable roles in the genre include Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, Collateral, War of the Worlds, Oblivion, and Top Gun: Maverick amongst others with the 2022 Top Gun: Maverick being his highest-grossing film.
His career as a producer started in 1993 when Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions. The company co-produced many of Cruise’s movies; the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 was Cruise’s first project as a producer. In 2006, Cruise and Wagner disclosed that they are the new owners of the film studio United Artists. Cruise worked as a producer and starred in films for United Artists and Wagner acts as UA’s chief executive. Two years later Wagner stepped down from her position at United Artists but retains her stake in the company.
Tom Cruise Movies
Cruise has been featured in several movies, either as an actor or producer and sometimes both, listed are all of the movies he had worked on;
1981: Endless Love
1981: Taps
1983: The Outsiders
1983: Losin’ It
1983: Risky Business
1983: All the Right Moves
1985: Legend
1986: Top Gun
1986: The Color of Money
1988: Cocktail
1988: Young Guns
1988: Rain Man
1989: Born on the Fourth of July
1990: Days of Thunder
1992: Far and Away
1992: A Few Good Men
1993: The Firm
1993: Fallen Angels
1994: Interview with the Vampire
1996: Mission: Impossible (producer)
1996: Jerry Maguire
1998: Without Limits — (Producer only)
1999: Eyes Wide Shut
1999: Magnolia
2000: Mission: Impossible 2 (producer)
2001: Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
2001: The Others — Executive (producer only)
2001: Vanilla Sky (producer)
2002: Space Station 3D
2002: Minority Report
2002: Austin Powers in Goldmember
2002: Narc — (producer only)
2003: Shattered Glass — Executive (producer only)
2003: The Last Samurai — (producer)
2004: Collateral
2005: War of the Worlds
2005: Elizabethtown — (Producer only)
2006: Ask the Dust — (Producer only)
2006: Mission: Impossible III (producer)
2007: Lions for Lambs
2008: Tropic Thunder
2008: Valkyrie
2010: Knight and Day
2011: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (producer)
2012: Rock of Ages
2012: Jack Reacher — (producer)
2013: Oblivion
2014: Edge of Tomorrow
2015: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (producer)
2016: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back — (producer)
2017: The Mummy
2017: American Made
2018: Mission: Impossible – Fallout — (producer)
2022: Top Gun: Maverick — (producer)
2023: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning — (producer)
2024: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two
Tom Cruise Awards/Nominations & Honors
Cruise has received several noteworthy awards in the movie industry which include the Golden Globe Award for Motion Picture Drama, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award, the People’s Choice Award, BAFTA Award, the Academy Award nomination, MTV Generation Award, Saturn Award, etc. He won some of these awards several times.
In 1998 Cruise received a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor.
October 10, 2006, was declared “Tom Cruise Day” in Japan
Cruise is an aerobatic pilot, and was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2010, obtaining the Aviation Inspiration and Patriotism Award from the Kiddie Hawk Air Academy.
Tom Cruise Wife and Previous Relationships
Cruise dated these famous women, Melissa Gilbert, Rebecca De Mornay, Patti Scialfa, and Cher in the 1980s. He married actress Mimi Rogers in 1987 but they got divorced in 1990. Rogers was raised in Scientology (a new religious movement or cult) and was one of the group’s auditors; she met Cruise when he became one of her clients. After she left the organization, Roger blamed its leader, David Miscavige, for the break-up of their marriage.
Cruise later married actress Nicole Kidman, they met in 1990 on the set of their film Days of Thunder. The couple adopted two children: Isabella Jane and Connor Antony. In February 2001, while Kidman was pregnant Cruise filed for divorce unknowingly to him. The pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, Kidman said it was an ectopic pregnancy.
Cruise dated another actress Penélope Cruz, their relationship lasted for three years and ended in 2004. A year later Cruise started dating actress Katie Holmes. On October 6, 2005, the couple announced they were expecting a child. In 2006, they welcomed their daughter Suri. That same year, Holmes and Cruise tied the knot at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, in a Scientologist ceremony attended by many Hollywood celebrities. Six years later, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise. The actor later told the public that his ex-wife, Katie Holmes divorced him to protect their daughter Suri from Scientology and that Suri is no longer a practicing member of the organization.
Cruise joined Scientology through his first wife Mimi Rogers in 1986. He became an advocate for the Church of Scientology in the 2000s and credits them for helping him overcome dyslexia. He is still a member of the organization.
Tom Cruise Net Worth
Tom cruise’s net worth as of 2022 is estimated at $600 million with an average earning of $50 million annually.