Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (Tom Cruise) was born on July 3, 1962 in New York City, his parents being Thomas Cruise Mapother III and Mary Lee. He was the third of three sisters.
His father was unstable at work and also had drinking problems, so the Cruise family moved constantly until they managed to settle in the city of Ottawa (Canada). In 1974, his mother decided to leave her husband and moved to Kentucky with her children, thus avoiding Cruise's father's abuse.
Tom Cruise, in addition to constantly changing schools, had dyslexia problems so he had difficulty reading and writing. However, he managed to stand out in field hockey more for his aggressiveness than for his talent. Then he thought about becoming a professional wrestler, but a knee injury caused by hard training put an end to his sporting desires.
He later managed to enter a Franciscan church in Cincinnati with the intention of training as a priest, but left this school to pursue acting, a passion he had discovered while performing in some plays during his college years.
Although he worked as a waiter, he went to acting classes and attended many castings in search of an opportunity, his first appearance as an actor being in director Franco Zefirelli's film Eternal Love (1981).
Thus, he began his meteoric rise as an actor, being directed by directors such as Harold Becker (Taps, 1981), Francis Ford Coppola (The Outsiders, 1983), Curtis Hanson (Losin' It, 1983), Michael Chapman (All the Right Moves, 1983). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for 1983's Risky Business directed by Paul Brickman.
In 1985 Ridley Scott directed him in a fantasy epic called Legend, a now cult title that on the day of its release was not very successful.
In this short period of time he acted alongside Brooke Shields, Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Heather Langenkamp, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, Jackie Earle Haley, Lea Thomsonp, Rebecca De Mornay, Mia Sara and Chris Penn, all great promises of cinema, some of them achieved recognition and others fell by the wayside.
In 1986, Tom Cruise worked under the orders of Tony Scott in the film that launched him definitively as a Hollywood star: Top Gun. Here he plays Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell, a young navy aviator, one of the best in the Top Gun school, the boy who falls in love with his instructor and suffers the tragedy of seeing his best friend die in combat. With this film he put the public in his pocket, and this with only eight films to his credit. This was the hit of 1986 in Hollywood, and globally grossed approximately 356 Million Dollars, with a budget of 15 Million Dollars.
This film helped Cruise become a sought-after actor, demonstrating his charisma in works by directors such as Martin Scorsesse (The Color of Money, 1986), Barry Levinson (Rain Man, 1988) and Oliver Stone (Born On The Fourth of July, 1989), and I almost forgot about a 1988 film that I didn't like very much directed by Roger Donaldson called Cocktail.
Again, it is worth mentioning that he shares his work with stars of the caliber of Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, and Willen Dafoe, as well as Elizabeth Shue, Kyra Serdgwick, and Bryan Brown.
Born On The Fourth of July earned him another Golden Globe nomination and his first Oscar nomination.
This decade was prodigious for Cruise and laid the groundwork for him to become one of the world's top-grossing actors.
In the 90's he continues to be a successful actor and a magnet for the box office, directors compete with the actor as protagonists and we will see good films starring Cruise directed by Tony Scott (Days of Thunder, 1990), Ron Howard (Far and Away, 1992), Rob Reiner (A Few Good Man, 1992), Sidney Pollack ( The Firm , 1993), Neil Jordan (Interview with The Vampire, 1994), Bryan De Palma (MIssion Impossible, 1996), Cameron Crowe (Jerry Mc Guire), Stanley Kubrick ( Eyes Wide Shut, 1999) and Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, 1999).
He shares his work in these films with the beautiful Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollack, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Brat Pitt, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, Jon Voight, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Cuba Gooding Jr, Ren茅e Zellweger, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and William H. Macy among others.
For me, A Few Good Man from 1992 stands out among all the films mentioned above. Aca Cruise plays Lieutenant Kaffee, an immature and carefree military lawyer who tries to defend two Marines who are accused of murder at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay. Just watch this acting duel, worthy of all the awards in the world, between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson:
I really liked Cruise's performance in Magnolia, a film that tells the story of a series of characters who cross paths with each other, their destinies being affected. The actor plays the role of Frank T.J. Mackey, a macho charlatan who transmits his fame and success through conferences and television programs.
The Mission Impossible Saga.
The Mission Impossible saga deserves a separate parenthesis as it shows us an actor of pure and hard action and that sometimes has dared to perform his own stunts:
Currently, this saga inscribed in the action genre can be ranked as one of the best in its genre by mixing action and espionage. It has presented a charismatic Tom Cruise accompanied by villains of care.
Viewers are always eager to see the action scene that the actor, stubborn not to use stuntmen, has wanted to do.
Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, an ace of infiltration and espionage techniques, using kicks, fists, and various combat techniques as he is attacked. In the first films he was more cerebral than physical, and always took a hit or two.
He is an agent who hangs in a very well protected room to steal information, escapes from a water tank that breaks, survives on top of a high-speed train, deceives the villains with masks, faces stab wounds in his eye, jumps from skyscrapers, is disowned, runs out of resources and survives in hiding, climbs the tallest building in the world in Dubai, climbs planes in motion, and hangs from the facade of the Vienna Opera House.
To date, 6 films in the franchise have been released: Mission Impossible 1, 2, and 3, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, and Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Directed by Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J Abrams, Brad Bird and Christopher McQuarrie.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 will be released in 2023:
This saga has featured actors such as Simon Pegg, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle B茅art, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emilio Estevez, Vanessa Redgrave, Dougray Scott, Dominic Purcell, Thandie Newton, Richard Roxburgh, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Crudup, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aaron Paul, Keri Russell, Maggie Q, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, L茅a Seydoux, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Henry Cavill, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby and Wes Bentley among others.
During the 2000s he continues to be a highly sought after actor acting in Sci-Fi films: Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001), Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005), Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion (2013), and Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
He has also acted in comedies such as Jay Roach's Austin Powers in Goldmember (2003), Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder (2008), and James Mangold's Knight & Day (2010).
He acted in Action and Suspense dramas: Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai (2003), Michael Mann's Collateral (2004), Bryan Singer's Valkkyrie (2008), Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher (2012), Edward Zwick's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), and Doug Liman's American Made (2017).
He worked under the orders of Robert Redford in the film Lions for lambs (2007) a drama that criticizes American society, and dared to sing in Adam Shankman's musical comedy Rock of Ages (2012).
This year (2022) Tom Cruise presents Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski, in which we see what has happened to the character of Maverick three decades later. This film is the most watched so far this year worldwide. The plot is set 36 years after the first installment, here Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell serves as a test pilot for the U.S. Navy dodging to climb to higher ranks, destroys the prototype of a hypersonic aircraft in an unscheduled test flight at Mach 10 speed. Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, (former rival and now friend of Maverick), dictates orders to go to the aviation school Top Gun to train a group of young aviators.
During the 2000's his co-stars have been: Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Samantha Morton, Colin Farrel, Ken Watanabe, Jamie Foxx, Dakota Fanning, Meryl Streep, Keneth Branagh, Malin Akerman, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Rosamund Pike, Werner Herzog, Morgan Freeman, Emily Blunt,and Cobie Smulders among other stars.
Cruise participated in the reboot of The Mummy (2017) directed by Alex Kurtzman, which was intended to create a Dark Universe where the classic monsters of the Universal studio would be shown but with a twist of action and adventure.
The film was received very poorly critically but managed to gross three times its original budget.
Tom Cruise's love affairs.
In 1985 Cruise began a two-year relationship with Rebecca de Mornay, however in 1987, he married the also actress Mimi Rogers, divorcing her in 1990, the year he married Nicole Kidman, during their marriage, they adopted a girl and a boy: Isabella Jane and Connor Anthony, for years they had formed one of the most stable couples in the mecca of cinema. But in February 2001, six weeks after celebrating their tenth anniversary, they decided to divorce. After their breakup, Cruise began a new relationship with the Spanish Penelope Cruz until 2004. In April 2005 Cruise declared his love to Katie Holmes by jumping on a couch during the Oprah Winfrey show.
In October of that same year, they announced they were expecting a baby who was born on April 18, 2006, her name Suri Cruise. Cruise and Holmes were married on November 18, 2006, near Rome (Italy), by the rite of the Church of Scientology.
In 2012, Katie Holmes announced that she was divorcing Tom Cruise due to irreconcilable differences.
Scientology in his life.
It is impossible to talk about Tom Cruise without relating him to Scientology, a religion which, according to its founder Ron Hubbard, means the science of knowledge. This, for some cult, was founded in 1954. Cruise joined the organization in the 1990s. David Miscage in those years rose to the position of president within this church when Ron Hubbard retired, in the 80's, becoming very close friends with Cruise.
It is said that Miscage's goal was to have a worldwide referent of this organization, and he achieved it, since the actor shared how Scientology had helped him find peace, he also claims that his triumph is not only personal but also work-related, since he is a Scientologist and has the tools to achieve his goals.
Tom Cruise, regardless of his life and religious beliefs, has always been an actor who manages to attract masses and if we follow his career we will see his growth as an actor, being able to act at different levels in all kinds of movies. Since his beginnings as a young actor he is an actor that transmits charisma in his roles either as a leading or supporting actor. Almost always, his presence in a film is synonymous with success. By the year 2022, his net worth is estimated to be 600 Million Dollars.
This is my participation in the Movie Star of the Week Initiative Link Here, being chosen this week the controversial Tom Cruise. Thank you for your attention. Greetings to all.
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