His first leading role in a blockbuster movie was 1983's Risky Business. After that, he starred in many top films and became an iconic celebrity of Hollywood.

Cruise is also known for his support of Scientology and his related criticism of psychiatry.

Family and early life

Born in Syracuse, New York, Cruise has German and Colonial English ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotte Louise Voelker; and purportedly Welsh ancestry from his paternal great-great-grandfather, Dylan Henry Mapother, who emigrated from Flint, Wales to Louisville, Kentucky in 1850. His great-great-grandmother Mary Cruise married twice. Her first husband was Dillon Henry Mapother, by whom she had six children. She remarried after Dillon's death, to Thomas O'Mara. Their son Thomas O'Mara, enumerated as such in the 1880 Census, was later known as "Thomas Cruise Mapother". The reason(s) for him changing his name are not entirely clear. Thus, from his and his wife Anna Stewart Bateman, he has Irish and Colonial English ancestry, respectively. His maternal ancestry is half Irish and half German (including Alsatian). Anna Stewart Bateman's great-grandfather was a third cousin of President George Washington and descended seven times from King Jean de Brienne of Jerusalem, once from King Louis VIII of France, once from King Henry III of England, twice from King Edward I of England and three times from King Edward III of England.

When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her. Cruise's father reportedly would not pay child support after this estrangement. Cities in which Tom lived included Ottawa, Ontario (where he attended Colonel By Secondary School), Louisville, Kentucky, Winnetka, Illinois and Wayne, New Jersey. In all, Cruise atended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati and aspired to become a Catholic priest. He eventually graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey in 1980.

Cruise has said that he suffered from abuse as a child. He stated that when something went wrong, his father came down hard on him. He told Parade Magazine that his father was "a bully" and "a merchant of chaos." Cruise said he learned early on that his father was - and, by extension, some people were - not to be trusted: "I knew from being around my father that not everyone means me well." Having gone through fifteen schools in twelve years, Cruise, who dropped his father's name at age twelve, was also subject to bullying at school.

Cruise started acting after being sidelined from his high school's wrestling team due to a knee injury. While injured, he successfully auditioned for a lead role in his high school's production of Guys and Dolls and decided to become an actor after his success in the role. His cousin William Mapother is also an actor most known for playing Ethan Rom on Lost.

Acting career

1980s

Cruise's first acting role came in 1981, when he had a small role in Endless Love, a drama/romance film starring Brooke Shields. Later that same year he had a more substantial role in the film Taps, appearing alongside George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. The film about military cadets was moderately successful. In 1983, he was one of many teenaged stars to appear in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders. The cast for this film included Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, and Ralph Macchio, some of which were part of the Brat Pack. That same year Cruise appeared in the teen comedy Losin' It with Shelley Long. Also in 1983, Risky Business was released, widely thought to be the film that propelled Cruise to stardom. One sequence in the film, featuring Cruise lip-syncing Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in his underwear, has become an iconic moment in film history. The film has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise". A fourth film that was released in 1983 was the high-school football drama, All the Right Moves.

Cruise's next film was the 1985 fantasy film Legend directed by Ridley Scott. Cruise was then picked as the first choice by big producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson for an upcoming American fighter pilot film. Cruise at first apparently turned down the project, but helped to alter the script he was given and developed the film. After being taken for a flight with the Blue Angels, Cruise changed his mind and signed on with the project. The project was titled Top Gun and opened in May 1986 becoming the highest grossing film of the year, taking in US$353,816,701 in worldwide figures. The Marines even used it as an ad for recruitment. He also starred in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money along with Paul Newman that same year, which earned Paul a Best Actor academy award. In 1988 he starred in the light hearted drama Cocktail. The film received mixed reviews and Cruise was subsequently nominated for a Razzie award in 1989 . Later that year, Rain Man was released, which also starred Dustin Hoffman and was directed by Barry Levinson. The film was praised by critics and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Actor.

1990s

Cruise was welcomed with similar success the following year when he received Academy Award nominations for Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, which was based on the best selling autobiography of Anti-Vietnam War hero Ron Kovic; for the first time the audience knew Tom could play complicated roles other than handsome boys. In 1990, Cruise starred as hot-shot race car driver "Cole Trickle" in Tony Scott's Days of Thunder. While filming Days of Thunder Cruise first met American born and Australian-raised actress Nicole Kidman, who was his co-star. Cruise's next film was Ron Howard's Far and Away where he again was starring with Nicole Kidman. Cruise next starred in the military thriller A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore. This film was very well received and earned Cruise Golden Globe and MTV nominations. The following year he starred in Sydney Pollack's The Firm along with Gene Hackman and Ed Harris, which was based on the best selling novel by John Grisham, won Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture at the People's Choice Awards.

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 which was also very well received, although Rice was outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film. In 1996, Cruise starred in (as well as produced) Brian de Palma's Mission: Impossible. The film, a remake of the 1960s TV series, grossed US$456,494,803 worldwide, making it the third highest grossing film that year. That same year he played the title role in the comedy-drama Jerry Maguire. The film earned him an Academy Award Best Actor nomination as well as winning co-star Cuba Gooding Jr. an Academy Award; the film was nominated for five Academy Awards in total. The film also included the line "Show me the Money!" which became part of popular culture. Jerry Maguire saw Tom Cruise become the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed at least $100 million in domestic release. In 1999 he starred in the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut which took two years to complete and was director Stanley Kubrick's last film. It was also the last film in which he starred alongside then spouse Nicole Kidman. But the film which had a straightforward description of sex and a recondite story-telling style raised great controversies. Cruise also played a misogynistic male guru in Magnolia (1999), which netted him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

2000s

In 2000, Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the second installment of the Mission Impossible films, releasing Mission: Impossible II. The film was directed by Hong Kong director John Woo and branded with his Gun fu Style, but it continued the series' blockbuster success at the box office, taking in US$545,902,562 in worldwide figures, like its predecessor, being the third highest grossing film of the year. The following year Cruise starred in the remake of the 1997 erotic thriller Abre Los Ojos, Vanilla Sky. In 2002, Cruise starred in the dystopian thriller, Minority Report which was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the science fiction novel by Philip Dick; as well as The Last Samurai, which saw Cruise perform some of his own stunts.

In the 2004 Michael Mann's crime-thriller film Collateral, Cruise combated a good-guy stereotype which had been attributed to him. A number of Cruise's more well-known and popular movies have cast him in a similar role, one which has been half-jokingly referred to by movie fans (and some critics) as the "Generic Tom Cruise Character." In this role, Cruise portrayed a character who, as the film begins, is seen as a cocky, stuck-up, self-centered egoist who cares for little other than himself. As the events of the movie unfold, his character learns to become more open-minded and altruistic, until by the time the climax has been reached, he has undergone a radical change and been transformed into a better human being. Collateral saw Cruise in a surprising turn as a sociopathic gray-haired hitman with a killer smile, Vincent, who hijacks a cab to be transported to five hits in one night. His trademark smile took a 180-degree turn for an unlikable character who is very organized and thoroughly nasty, as opposed to his popular good-guy characters.

In 2005, Cruise starred in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Due to events leading up to the release of the film, notably, Cruise's very public advocacy of Scientology and anti-psychiatry statements, coupled with the criticism of his relationship with actress Katie Holmes, many expected the film to be a bomb at the box office. However, the film earned US$234,280,354, becoming his most successful film in domestic figures (not accounting for inflation), and ultimately earning US$591,416,316 in worldwide figures. Despite its box-office success, the film also earned three Razzie nominations at the end of the year.

In 2006, he reprised his role as Ethan Hunt in the third installment of the Mission Impossible film series Mission Impossible III which was also a box office success and was more positively received by critics than its predecessor. He is set to appear in the upcoming films Lions for Lambs and Valkyrie.

Among the movies that Tom Cruise was reportedly offered but turned down are: Alexander, Footloose, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Enemy of the State and Cold Mountain.

Salary history

* $100,000,000 for War of the Worlds (took a 20% gross participation instead of an upfront salary)
* $25,000,000 + gross participations for The Last Samurai
* $25,000,000 + gross participations for Minority Report
* $25,000,000 + gross participations for Vanilla Sky
* $75,000,000 in gross participations for Mission: Impossible II
* $70,000,000 in gross participations for Mission: Impossible
* $20,000,000 for Eyes Wide Shut
* $20,000,000 + 15% gross participations for Jerry Maguire
* $15,000,000 for Interview with the Vampire
* $13,000,000 for Far and Away
* $2,000,000 for Top Gun

Producing career

Cruise partnered with producer Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions which has co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer. He won a Nova Award (shared with Paula Wagner) for Most Promising Producer in Theatrical Motion Pictures at the PGA Golden Laurel Awards in 1997 for his work as a producer for the film Mission: Impossible.

His next project as a producer was the 1998 film Without Limits about famous American runner Steve Prefontaine. Cruise returned to work as a producer in 2000, continuing work on the Mission Impossible sequel. He then served as an executive producer for The Others which starred Nicole Kidman, also that year, he again worked as actor/producer in Vanilla Sky. He subsequently worked on (but did not star in) Narc, Hitting It Hard and Shattered Glass, with Shattered Glass being particularly successful. His next project, which he also starred in, was The Last Samurai, he was jointly nominated for the Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award at the 2004 PGA Golden Laurel Awards. He then worked on Suspect Zero, Elizabethtown and Ask the Dust.

Tom Cruise is noted as having negotiated some of the most lucrative movie deals in Hollywood, and was described in 2005 by Hollywood economist Edward Jay Epstein as "one of the most powerful - and richest - forces in Hollywood". Epstein argues that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are regarded as able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar movie franchise. Epstein also contends that the public obsession with Cruise's tabloid controversies obscures full appreciation of Cruise's exceptional commercial prowess in the industry.

Cruise-Wagner Productions, Tom Cruise's film production company, is said to be developing a screenplay based on Erik Larson's New York Times bestseller, "The Devil in the White City" about a real life serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair. Kathryn Bigelow is attached to the project to produce and helm. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, is also developing a film about Holmes and the World's Fair, in which DiCaprio will star.

Breakup with Paramount

On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions. In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Tom 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: Impossible franchise. However, Radar has claimed that the "personal conduct" complained of by Redstone was an allegedly Cruise-inspired attempt to intimidate Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount. According to Radar, when Grey was walking to his car one night after tense negotiations with Cruise over Mission: Impossible 3, he was "surrounded by more than a dozen Scientologists, who pressured him to ease up on the actor ... Following a terse exchange, the visitors allowed Grey to get into his car and leave, but the message was clear." Grey reportedly stood his ground and convinced Cruise to accept a lower fee than the actor had initially demanded.

Management of United Artists

According to an Associated Press report on November 2, 2006, Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they will be in charge of the United Artists film studio. Cruise will produce and star in films for United Artists, while Wagner will serve as UA's chief executive.

Production begins summer 2007 for Valkyrie, a thriller based on an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the height of WWII which was acquired in March 2007 by United Artists. On March 21, 2007 Cruise signed on to play a major role. This project marks the second production to be greenlighted since Cruise and Wagner took control of United Artists. Production is under way on its inaugural film, Lions for Lambs, directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Cruise. Lambs is scheduled for release November 9, 2007.