Thomas Cruise

Thomas Cruise Mapother born July 3, 1962  widely known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won three Golden Globe Awards. He started his career at age 19 in the 1981 film Taps. His first leading role was in Risky Business, released in August 1983. Cruise became a full-fledged movie star after starring in Top Gun (1986). He is well known for his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt in the Mission:Impossible film series between 1996 and 2011.

Cruise has starred in many Hollywood blockbusters, including Rain Man (1988), A Few Good Men (1992), Jerry Maguire (1996), Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Tropic Thunder (2008) and Jack Reacher (2012). As of 2012, Cruise is Hollywood's highest-paid actor.

Cruise is known for his Scientologist faith and for his support of the Church of Scientology

Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III (died 1984),  an electrical engineer. Cruise has three sisters, Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass. Cruise's surname originates from his great-grandfather, born Thomas Cruise O'Mara, who was renamed "Thomas Cruise Mapother" (Maphoter is a Welsh surname). Cruise is of Irish, German and English ancestry. One of his paternal great-great-great-grandfathers, Patrick Russell Cruise, was born in North County Dublin, in 1799; he married Teresa Johnson in Warrenstown House, County Meath, in 1825. They left Ireland for America that same year and settled in New York.

He grew up in near poverty, and had a Catholic upbringing. The family was dominated by his abusive father, whom Cruise has described as "a merchant of chaos."

He was beaten by his father, who Cruise has said was a bully and coward.

He was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life—how he’d lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.

 

Career :

Acting

Cruise first appeared in a very small bit part in the 1981 film Endless Love, followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military school student in Taps later that year. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders. That same year he appeared in All the Right Moves and Risky Business, which has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise",and which, along with 1986's Top Gun, cemented his status as a Superstar. Cruise also played the male lead (Jack O' the Green) in Legend (released 1986).

Cruise's next films were Days of Thunder (1990) and Far and Away (1992), both of which co-starred then-wife Nicole Kidman as his love interest. In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best-selling novel. The film was well received, although Rice was initially quite outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film, as Julian Sands was her first choice. Upon seeing the film however, she paid $7,740 for a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising his performance and apologizing for her previous doubts about him

Producing

Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer.

Breakup with Paramount

On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Cruise. In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Cruise's value as an actor and producer from his controversial public behavior and views. Cruise/Wagner Productions responded that Paramount's announcement was a face-saving move after the production company had successfully sought alternative financing from private equity firms. Industry analysts such as Edward Jay Epstein commented that the real reason for the split was most likely Paramount's discontent over Cruise/Wagner's exceptionally large share of DVD sales from the Mission: Impossiblefranchis

Management of United Artists

In November 2006, Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they had taken over United Artists film studio. Cruise acts as a producer and star in films for United Artists, while Wagner serves as UA's chief executive. Production began in 2007 of Valkyrie, a thriller based on the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. The film was acquired in March 2007 by United Artists. On March 21, 2007 Cruise signed on to play Claus von Stauffenberg, the protagonist. This project marks the second production to be greenlighted since Cruise and Wagner took control of United Artists. The first was its inaugural film, Lions for Lambs, directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Cruise. Lambs was released on November 9, 2007, opening to unimpressive box office revenue and critical reception. In August 2008, Wagner stepped down from her position at United Artists; she retains her stake in UA, which combined with Cruise's share amounts to 30 percent of the studio.