Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American Scientologist, actor and producer who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies. His first leading role in a blockbuster movie was in 1983's Risky Business.
Early life
Cruise was born to Thomas Cruise Mapother and Mary Lee Pfeiffer. The very first Mapothers were Welsh immigrants to the United States. Cruise also has German ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotta Louise Voelker. Cruise's parents moved frequently when he was a child, residing in a number of locations throughout the United States and Canada, including Ottawa; Louisville, Kentucky; Glen Ridge, New Jersey (where he attended Glen Ridge High School); and Wayne, New Jersey. Before going into acting, Cruise attended a Franciscan seminary and aspired to become a Catholic priest.
Acting career
He received Academy Award nominations for Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Jerry Maguire (1996), both as Best Actor; and for Magnolia (1999), as Best Supporting Actor. In 1996, he became the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in

estic release. The films were A Few Good Men (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996).
Cruise also took on more unusual roles following Interview With The Vampire and Jerry Maguire, with Eyes Wide Shut (1999) which took two years to finish as director Stanley Kubrick's last film, alongside (now) former spouse Nicole Kidman. Cruise also turned in a powerful supporting performance as a misogynistic male guru in Magnolia (1999), which netted him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, and in very rare form, played a villain as the hitman who kidnaps unsuspecting cabbie Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann's Collateral (2004), a complex role Cruise played with intensity.
Cruise teamed with producer Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions, which has co-produced several of Cruise's films such as Mission: Impossible and its sequels, Vanilla Sky (2001), and The Last Samurai (2003). The company also co-produced The Others (2001).
Sex appeal
In 1990, 1991 and 1997, People magazine rated him among the 50 most beautiful people in the world. In 1995, Empire magazine ranked him among the 100 sexiest stars in film history. Two years later, it ranked him among the top 5 movie stars of all time. In 2002 and 2003, he was rated by Premiere among the top 20 in its annual Power 100 list.
Personal life
Cruise has been married twice, to Mimi Rogers (married on May 9, 1987, divorced February 4, 1990) and later Nicole Kidman (married on December 24, 1990, divorced August 8, 2001). He and Nicole Kidman adopted two children, Isabella (born 1993) and Connor (born 1995). Cruise recently discussed his bi-racial son with the TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Oprah asked Cruise if the issue of his race was ever discussed in the household. "We're from the human race, human kind," Cruise said. "I mean, what's there to talk about? He's my son. Listen, that's just how I feel about it. He's my son. I've never thought about color, race, I just have not thought about that."
During his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, the couple endured public speculation about their sex life and rumors that Cruise was gay. In May 2001 he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater. Slater had allegedly told the celebrity magazine Actustar that he had engaged in an

film history. Two years later, it ranked him among the top 5 movie stars of all time. In 2002 and 2003, he was rated by Premiere among the top 20 in its annual Power 100 list.
Personal life
Cruise has been married twice, to Mimi Rogers (married on May 9, 1987, divorced February 4, 1990) and later Nicole Kidman (married on December 24, 1990, divorced August 8, 2001). He and Nicole Kidman adopted two children, Isabella (born 1993) and Connor (born 1995). Cruise recently discussed his bi-racial son with the TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Oprah asked Cruise if the issue of his race was ever discussed in the household. "We're from the human race, human kind," Cruise said. "I mean, what's there to talk about? He's my son. Listen, that's just how I feel about it. He's my son. I've never thought about color, race, I just have not thought about that."
During his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, the couple endured public speculation about their sex life and rumors that Cruise was gay. In May 2001 he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater. Slater had allegedly told the celebrity magazine Actustar that he had engaged in an affair with Cruise. Both Slater and Cruise denied this, and in August 2001 Slater was ordered to pay $10 million to Cruise in damages.[1]
It is also rumored that Kidman lost interest in Scientology, and the friction between her and Cruise over this issue drove the marriage apart.
Cruise was next romantically linked with Penélope Cruz, the lead actress in his film Vanilla Sky. In March 2004, he announced that his relationship with Penélope Cruz had ended in January. In April 2005, he began dating Katie Holmes, before announcing on 17 June 2005 that he had proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France [2]. She accepted his offer, but the couple have yet to decide on a wedding date.
Church of Scientology
Cruise is arguably Hollywood's most outspoken member of the Church of Scientology. He joined in 1986 while married to Mimi Rogers. Cruise has publicly said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Scientology Study Tech [3], allowed him to overcome his dyslexia [4].
Since 2004, Cruise has talked more openly about Scientology and promoted its ideas, especially its rejection of psychiatric drugs, which was the subject of a heated argument with Matt Lauer on the Today Show on June 24, 2005. He openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil, an anti-depressant, which Shields claims helped her recover from post-partum depression after the birth of her daughter in 2003; Brooke Shields subsequently questioned Cruise's wisdom. Cruise also claimed in an Entertainment Weekly interview that psychiatry "is a Nazi science" and that methadone was actually originally called Adolophine after Adolf Hitler[5], a well-known urban legend. For a response to what Cruise said in this interview from the Journal of Clinical Investigation see Tom Cruise is dangerous and irresponsible. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Cruise claimed that "In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It's called Narconon... It's a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period."[6] (While Narconon claims to have a success rate over 70%, no outside source has ever verified this claim, let alone declaring it the only successful program as a matter of statistical fact.)
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