Tom Cruise

Starting with his earliest hits in the 1980s, American actor Tom Cruise has maintained a decades-long career as one of Hollywood's most profitable stars.

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, known as Tom Cruise, was born in Syracuse, New York, on July 3, 1962. He began his career playing small roles in films in the early 1980s before coming to prominence for his supporting role in The Outsiders (1983), a teen drama adapted from S.E. Hinton's bestselling 1967 novel of the same name.

The 1980s saw Cruise transform into one of the leading young actors of his generation. The acclaimed teen comedy Risky Business (1983) became one of Cruise's most iconic roles and helped propel him to superstardom, while the action blockbuster Top Gun (1986) helped establish Cruise as a leading action star. He also appeared in a number of other critically acclaimed films in that decade, including The Color of Money (1986) and Rain Man (1988), which won that year's Academy Award for Best Picture.

After ending the 1980s on a high note by earning his first Academy Award nomination for Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Cruise began the decade with two critical and commercial flops: the car-racing drama Days of Thunder (1990) and the Irish immigrant saga Far and Away (1992).

Cruise then began an impressive string of hits. A Few Good Men (1992) was one of several Cruise films questioning those in authority. As a Navy attorney with a reputation for laziness, Cruise’s character discovers his true character while defending two Marines accused of murder. In The Firm (1993), Cruise played an even more naïve lawyer expected to sell his soul to succeed with a powerful yet sinister law firm. The moral choices made by Cruise’s characters in the comparatively anything-goes 1980s became harder in the 1990s.

Interview with the Vampire (1994) offered Cruise one of the most controversial roles of his career up to that point because Anne Rice, author of the novel from which the film was adapted, strongly opposed his casting in this adaptation of her popular 1976 novel but came to praise his work. The vampire Lestat was his first true villain, who seduces a Louisiana plantation owner (Brad Pitt) into a perpetual life of sin. Cruise’s star power helped turn Mission: Impossible (1996) into more than just another callous version of a popular television series. While not making great demands on Cruise as an actor, the role allowed the star to showcase his physical skills as he performed most of his own stunts.

Jerry Maguire (1996) was Cruise’s most popular film up to that point with reviewers and audiences. The title character, played by Cruise, is a sports agent fired because of a crisis of conscience over the long-term needs of his clients. Left with a single client (Oscar winner Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and a one-person staff (Renée Zellweger), Maguire sets about changing his life. Writer-director Cameron Crowe’s romantic comedy brought Cruise his second Academy Award nomination.

Cruise ended the 1990’s by tackling two more serious roles. In Eyes Wide Shut (1999), the final film by legendary director Stanley Kubrick, Cruise played a Manhattan physician obsessed by sexual fantasies. Cruise then earned his third Oscar nomination, as Best Supporting Actor, for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999). As a cynical self-help expert teaching male sexual prowess, Cruise’s Frank Mackey is estranged from his dying father (Jason Robards, Jr.) before finding some reconciliation.

In 2000, Cruise reprised his previous role of Ethan Hunt in the sequel film Mission: Impossible II. He spent the rest of the decade appearing in a film a year, including starring roles in the action crime Minority Report (2002); the alien invasion film War of the Worlds (2005); the third Mission: Impossible film (2006); and the action film Knight and Day (2010). Cruise played Hunt again in Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011) and Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015). He also appeared in the comedy Rock of Ages (2012) and the science fiction films Oblivion (2013) and Edge of Tomorrow. In 2012, Cruise starred as the titular character in the action thriller Jack Reacher, a role he reprised in the 2016 sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. He then starred in The Mummy (2017), a reboot of the 1999 film of the same name, before playing Hunt for the seventh time in Mission: Impossible—Fallout (2018).

Cruise maintained his status as one of Hollywood's most profitable stars through the end of the 2010s and into the 2020s. A sequel to the original Top Gun, entitled Top Gun: Maverick (2022), saw Cruise reprise his original role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, an elite United States Navy fighter pilot. The film was released in 2022 to critical acclaim and became the highest-grossing film of Cruise's career up to that point, taking in over $1 billion in the global box office within two months of its release. In 2024, Cruise was filming Mission Impossible 8.

Cruise was married to actor Mimi Rogers from 1987 to 1990. He married his second wife, actor Nicole Kidman, in December 1990. The couple adopted two children, Isabella Jane and Connor Antony, before divorcing in 2001. Cruise married actor Katie Holmes in November 2006. The couple’s daughter, Suri, was born earlier that year. They divorced in 2012. Cruise is also well known for his involvement with the Church of Scientology.

Impact

A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview with the Vampire, Mission: Impossible, and Jerry Maguire were worldwide hits, as Cruise solidified his position as a superstar. In addition, many of Cruise’s characters reflected the decade’s concern with shedding the materialistic values of the 1980s. The release of Top Gun: Maverick in 2022 was seen by many critics as a return to form for large blockbuster action films, and help Cruise cement his reputation as one of Hollywood's most profitable actors.

Bibliography

Crowe, Cameron. “Conversations with Cruise.” Vanity Fair, June, 2000, pp. 218-233.

McArdle, Tommy. "Tom Cruise Seen Sprinting Down Street in London as He Shoots Next Mission: Impossible Movie." People, 26 Mar. 2024, people.com/tom-cruise-seen-sprinting-in-london-while-filming-mission-impossible-8-8620393. Accessed 22 May 2024.

Morton, Andrew. Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography. St. Martin’s Press, 2008.

Sperling, Nicole. “Hollywood's Last Real Movie Star.” The New York TImes, 20 May 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/business/media/tom-cruise-top-gun-maverick.html. Accessed 22 May 2024.