Oscar Profile #286: Tom Cruise

Born July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as simply Tom Cruise, was the son of a special education teacher and electrical engineer, the only boy out of four children. The family moved to Canada where his father took a job working for the Canadian Air Force. After his parents’ divorce, his mother and the children returned to the U.S. Cruise entered a Catholic monastery intent on becoming a priest but left to pursue a career in acting.

Cruise made his film debut in 1981’s Endless Love and had a breakout role in the same year’s Taps. He had another important role in 1983’s The Outsiders and had his first hit, a huge one, as a star in the same year’s Risky Business. He has remained a star ever since.

By 1986 Cruise had become a major star with the box-office sensation, Top Gun, but wanting to be taken seriously as an actor also took the second lead in support of Paul Newman in the same year’s The Color of Money, which earned Newman his long overdue Oscar. Two years later he played the second lead to Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man for which Hoffman won his second Oscar. In 1989 he earned an Oscar nomination of his own for Born on the Fourth of July.

Married to Scientologist Mimi Rogers from 1987-1990, he renounced his Catholic faith and joined Scientology himself in 1990, claiming it cured him of dyslexia. Later that year he married Nicole Kidman with whom he had two adopted children. Their marriage ended in a highly publicized divorce in 2001. He was later married to Katie Holmes from 2006 to 2012, with whom he had a daughter.

Among Cruise’s box office hits of the 1990s were Far and Away, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview with the Vampire, Mission: Impossible, Jerry Maguire (his second Oscar nomination), Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia (his third Oscar nomination).

Cruise continued to be a major box office star in the first decade of the new millennium with such films as Mission: Impossible II, Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, Collateral, War of the Worlds, Mission: Impossible III, Tropic Thunder and Valkyrie.

Although his pace slowed in the first years of the current decade, Cruise’s films were still capable of stirring up big box-office receipts if not necessarily the critical huzzahs of the past. His recent films have included Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Rock of Ages, Edge of Tomorrow and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

Approaching his fifty-fourth birthday, Cruise has no less than six films in various stages of production. He is the star in all of them.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986), directed by Martin Scorsese

Cruise had the biggest hit of his early career with Tony Scott’s Top Gun released in May, 1986. Five months later he received the best critical notices of his career so far for his portrayal of Paul Newman’s cocky protégé in Scorsese’s The Color of Money in which Newman reprised his Oscar nominated portrayal of Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler, made twenty-five years earlier. Nominated for an Oscar for the eighth time, Newman finally won. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Cruise’s girlfriend would be nominated, but Cruise himself would have to wait his turn.

RAIN MAN (1988), directed by Barry Levinson

Critics weren’t too thrilled with what was perceived as Cruise’s slumming in the summer hit Cocktail, but they were once again thrilled with his performance as Dustin Hoffman’s brother in Rain Man which was nominated for eight Oscars and won four. Cruise’s performance wasn’t nominated either by the Academy or the Golden Globes which had nominated him five years earlier for Risky Business. He would eventually receive nine Golden Globe nominations to date and win three as opposed to three Oscar nominations and no wins.

BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989), directed by Oliver Stone

Ron Kovic’s autobiography was originally supposed to go before the cameras nine years earlier with Al Pacino in the lead, but things didn’t work out. Cruise, still seen as something of a lightweight, was thought to be wrong for the part but surprised critics and audiences alike with his standout performance, earning his first Oscar nomination as the paralyzed Vietnam War hero turned anti-war activist. He and Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy were considered front-runners for the Oscar as well but lost to Daniel Day-Lewis in a handicapped role of his own My Left Foot.

JERRY MAGUIRE (1996), directed by Cameron Crowe

Having won his first Golden Globe for his dramatic tour-de-force in Born on the Fourth of July, Cruise won his second for his comedic turn in Jerry Maguire and would win a third for his supporting role in Magnolia three years later, conquering all three of the Globes’ acting categories. Although he was nominated for an Oscar for all three performances, he failed to win for any of them, but may have come closest for this one in which co-star Cuba Gooding, Jr. won as Best Supporting Actor. Alas, it wasn’t to be. He lost to Geoffrey Rush in Shine.

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005), directed by Steven Spielberg

Modern audiences know Cruise best as an action hero exemplified by his roles in the still popular Top Gun and the Mission: Impossible series that he appeared in variously through two decades. A Top Gun sequel has been announced and so has the sixth iteration of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Aside from those films, everyone has their favorite Cruise film, ranging from Spielberg’s Minority Report to Michael Mann’s Collateral to Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie. Mine is Spielberg’s 2005 update of the 1953 science fiction classic.