That day, Tom Cruise almost lost everything: it’s May 23, 2005, the actor will mark the history of Oprah Winfrey’s talk show. Truly spring-loaded, the star masters the show’s sofa. Tom is obviously going to let go of the horses and is unable to hold on. He gets up every 30 seconds, puts one knee on the ground, jumps on the sofa, he seems inhabited, ignoring the questions of the facilitator. The reason for such behavior? Katie Holmes, who Tom has been dating for less than two months: “I love him! I can’t pretend!”, he claims in dingo mode, borderline worrying. Behind the scenes, on the other hand, it seriously cringes: Steven Spielberg in the lead, who notes that the actor is downright screwing up the promotion of his film. Because it’s been 15 days now that on US TV or at press conferences in Europe, Tom never mentions, War of the Worlds, this feature film by Steven Spielberg that he is supposed to promote. On the contrary, he uses it for personal purposes to proclaim his love for Katie or – more seriously – to be a cantor of Scientology. Not very professional all that, bad for business anyway…
“My father beat me. He was a tyrant, a coward”
The sanction will fall a year later, after the failure of Mission Impossible IIIwhen Sumner Redstone, the boss of Viacom, the parent company of Paramount, decides to fire Tom Cruise after 14 years of collaboration: “We appreciate Tom Cruise as a person, but the way he has been recently behaving is not acceptable to Paramount”, affirms Redstone, evoking also “the creative suicide” of the actor and producer. Or how to go from adored star to infrequent illuminated… How did Tom Cruise get there? As often in cases of psychological influence, the origin is to be flushed out in traumas that occurred during childhood. As a teenager, Tom is chubby, dyslexic, and gets bullied by his classmates. At home, it’s not much better: he is his father’s favorite Turk’s head, an electrical engineer worn on the bottle: “My father beat me. He was a tyrant, a coward. He was antisocial and unpredictable. He knew how to take you out of kindness, then suddenly boom!”bitterly remembers the star in the columns of VOD, in 2006. In order to protect her son, her mother Mary Lee Pfeiffer divorced her and left with her son and three daughters for Ohio. Tom aspired at that time to become a priest and attended Saint Francis Seminary in Cincinnati for a year. Deep down, the teenager feels responsible for his parents’ divorce and the precariousness in which his now single mother finds himself plunged. Tom was then a sensitive young man steeped in spirituality and passionate about theatre.
Cascading Mysteries
He will finally choose the second option because, as he specified in the columns of First, in 2017: “At 4 years old, I already wanted to make films”. Head for New York where things will go very quickly. After odd jobs and small roles, Tom is on the bill ofUnderdogsby Coppola, in 1983 and especially Risky Business, by Paul Brickman, the same year, which made him the new teen star. Two years later, he became quite simply a star with Top Gun, by Tony Scott. He is 23 years old and already has his star on Hollywood Boulevard. When others would have freaked out, Tom is going to shape a career with little onions. Facing Paul Newman (The color of moneyby Martin Socrsese, in 1986) or Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man, by Barry Levinson, in 1988), he gained credibility which led him to be nominated for an Oscar in 1989, for Born on the 4th of July, by Oliver Stone. The 90s will be magical: Sydney Pollack, Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, John Woo, Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Mann… Tom tours with the greatest of the time.
On the heart side, he forms a glamorous and modern couple with Nicole Kidman, this beautiful Australian redhead whom he seduced on the set of Days of Thunder, by Tony Scott, in 1989 and with whom he adopted a girl then a boy: Isabella and Connor. Problem: Tom has been a Scientologist since the mid-80s and he wants his children to be brought up according to the precepts of the sect which has acquired religious status in the United States. Certainly not for Nicole who intends to educate them in the Catholic faith like her. Scientology will create discord between the two spouses and Tom will be asked to choose between his wife and the sect. In 2000, after a miscarriage, Nicole receives the papers from her husband’s lawyer: he is asking for a divorce, leaving a stunned and depressed Nicole who will take a long time to realize what has just happened to her… Tom Cruise, on the other hand, is moving on, he has reached level 3 of Scientology and feels his wings growing: he organizes a casting to find a new fiancée.
“At 4 years old, I already wanted to make films”
Katie Holmes, a fan-girl who had a poster in her teenage room, will do the trick. On the job side, he separated from his press secretary, Pat Kingsley, who managed to contain his ardor as a promoter of Scientology in the media. As a result, Tom lets go and becomes the very heavy proselyte of his sectarian practice. The rest, we know it: the embarrassing moment at Oprah Winfrey and the corollary dismissal from Paramount… We are in December 2008 and Paula Wagner, his associate producer, has just let him go in August of the same year. Tom is all alone and the loom awaits its final downfall.
For many his next film, Valkyrie, will strike him. Everyone imagines a flop and, bim!, it will be a totally unexpected success. From then on, Tom will no longer leave the place of choice he occupies in the Hollywood merry-go-round. Three years later, new york magazine will set the tone with this title: It’s time to get back to loving Tom Cruise. If the public adheres, for his relatives, it is less simple. His romance with Katie Holmes fell apart in 2012 and he hasn’t seen their daughter Suri in 10 years. Fortunately, the cinema is there: at 59, he is back with Top Gun: Maverick and he appears fresh as a roach when his colleagues have taken serious shovel blows. The art of always staying on top!
Exploits and glitches
Cruise, like Belmondo once, does not use stunt doubles. A real added value that is not without some cold sweats on the side of insurers. In 1985, he almost drowned in the Pacific on the set of Top Gunin 2004 on The last Samouraihe is a few centimeters from being decapitated by a katana, in 2014, he hit a plane tree in a car while turning edge of tomorrowthen in 2018 on Mission: Impossible – Fallout, he tries a yamakasi jump on a building roof and hurts his leg badly. A man of all challenges, he should shoot in 2023 on the international space station.
A real launch…
Short or long hair, beard or hairless, Tom Cruise knows how to transform according to his desires and his roles, above all. His trademark remains: that famous smile that shaped his glory. On the physical side, a detail has not escaped anyone: the star does not age or little. Injections or not injections? At nearly 60, he has only one wrinkle between his two eyebrows, called the frown line. Quite a symbol.
Love status: it’s complicated
After flirting in the 80s with Melissa Gilbert (The Little House On The Prairie), Heather Locklear (Melrose Place) and Cher (in cougar mode at the time), Tom seduces his playmate in Risky Business, Rebecca De Mornay, in 1983. In 1987, he married Milf Mimi Rogers, who introduced him to Scientology. He divorced in February 1990 after meeting Nicole Kidman in 1989, whom he married in December 1990 (you follow?). Together, they will embody the glamorous couple of the 90s and will adopt two children: Connor (born in 1995) and Isabella (1992). Their divorce will be ratified in 2001 and after a four-year relationship with Penélope Cruz (in Cruz and Cruise mode) met on the set of Vanilla Sky, he formalized with Katie Holmes in 2005. In 2006, they had a daughter (Suri, Cruise’s only natural child to date) and married in 2006 in Rome. The couple divorced in 2012. Kidman, Cruz, Holmes… the end of these loves would find its origin in Tom’s involvement in Scientology. During 2021, the press mentioned a story with actress Hayley Atwell, but their relationship would not have lasted long. Faced with these successive failures, some have long commented, in addition to Scientology, on a repressed homosexuality of the star. According to the essayist Louis Blanchot, Tom would be “a seducer without eroticism”who would live a kind of“asepsis in its relation to the other to sex”. OK…
The Shadow of Scientology
Child beaten and humiliated by a violent, sadistic and alcoholic father, Tom Cruise has always found refuge in spirituality. In the late 70s, the future star even considered becoming a priest. With his first wife, Mimi Rogers, he began his initiation into Scientology in 1984. Over the years, he rose through the ranks. In the 90s, the new number one of the sect, the ambitious David Miscavige, bet on the notoriety of the star to recruit followers. He then encourages Tom to talk about his involvement in the media while controlling his private life. In 2018, after selling his real estate assets, the actor bought a penthouse in Clearwater (Florida), a coastal city of 100,000 inhabitants which became the Vatican of Scientology. There, his three Scientologist sisters, Lee Anne, Marian and Cass, joined him with their children. Tom, who fled from the family home at 18, has he shaped in Clearwater the ideal home of his lost childhood? It’s possible.
HIS FILMOGRAPHY
1986: TOP GUN
The US Air Force lacks recruits? Tony Scott films a film in his glory and makes young Tom Cruise a star of the Reagan years.
1986: THE COLOR OF MONEY
In this sequel to The Con man, by Scorsese, he continues his journey against a living legend: Paul Newman.
1988: RAINMAN
In front of Barry Levinson’s camera, he plays opposite Dustin Hoffman in this award-winning autism film.
1989: BORN ON JULY 4
An activist film by Oliver Stone about Vietnam War veterans. A manned performance by Tom Cruise.
1996: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
First part of SA franchise directed by Brian De Palma. A seventh installment is expected to be released shortly.
1999: MAGNOLIA
Another cult film by Paul Thomas Anderson in which he plays a masculinist guru expert in seduction. A masterful composition by Tom.
2002: MINORITY REPORT
A first collab with Steven Spielberg (will follow The War of the Worlds, in 2005), on an SF film adapted from Philip K. Dick. Big success on arrival.
2012: JACK REACHER
A very good action film by Christopher McQuarrie which should have been the starting point of a great franchise. Alas, the second part will be a failure.
2022: TOP GUN: MAVERICK
Almost forty years later, he is back in the shoes of Maverick. A film by Joseph Kosinski that smashes the walls with sound, spectacle and emotion.
See also: Video: Tom Cruise: his physical evolution!
Renaud Leclercq