Tom Cruise

Net Worth

$570,000,000

Born in (City)

New York

Born in (Country)

Date of Birth

03rd December, 1962

Date of Death

Mother

Mary Lee Pfeiffer

Father

Thomas Mapother III

Children

Suri Cruise
Connor Cruise
Isabella Jane Cruise

About

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor and producer. He has received various accolades for his work, including three Golden Globe Awards and three nominations for Academy Awards. With a net worth of $570 million as of 2020, he is one of the highest-paid actors in the world. In addition, his films have grossed over $4 billion in North America and over $10.1 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box office stars of all time.

Early Life

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, to electrical engineer Thomas Cruise Mapother III (1934–1984) and special education teacher Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer; 1936–2017). His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Cruise has three sisters named Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass. One of his cousins, William Mapother, is also an actor who has appeared alongside Cruise in five films. Cruise grew up in near poverty and had a Catholic upbringing. He later described his father as "a merchant of chaos", a "bully", and a "coward" who beat his children. He elaborated, "[My father] was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life—how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.'" Cruise spent part of his childhood in Canada. When his father took a job as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces, his family moved in late 1971 to Beacon Hill, Ottawa. He attended the new Robert Hopkins Public School for his fourth and fifth grade education. He first became involved in drama in fourth grade, under the tutelage of George Steinburg. He and six other boys put on an improvised play to music called IT at the Carleton Elementary School drama festival. Drama organizer Val Wright, who was in the audience, later said that "the movement and improvisation were excellent ,it was a classic ensemble piece". In sixth grade, Cruise went to Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa. That year, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sisters back to the United States. In 1978, she married Jack South. Cruise's father died of cancer in 1984. Cruise briefly took a church scholarship and attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio; he aspired to become a priest before he became interested in acting. 24–26 In total, he attended 15 schools in 14 years. In his senior year of high school, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game. He went on to star in the school's production of Guys and Dolls. In 1980, he graduated from Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

Road to Success

Cruise began acting in the early 1980s and made his breakthrough with leading roles in the comedy film Risky Business (1983) and action drama film Top Gun (1986). Critical acclaim came with his roles in the drama films The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988), and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). For his portrayal of Ron Kovic in the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. As a leading Hollywood star in the 1990s, he starred in several commercially successful films, including the drama A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (1993), the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994), and the romance Jerry Maguire (1996). For his role in the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and received his second Academy Award nomination. Cruise’s performance as a motivational speaker in the drama film Magnolia (1999) earned him another Golden Globe Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. As an action star, he has played Ethan Hunt in all six of the Mission: Impossible films from 1996 to 2018. He also starred in science fiction and action films, including Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Knight and Day (2010), Jack Reacher (2012), Oblivion (2013), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and The Mummy (2017).

Challenges

In January 2004, Cruise made the controversial statement "I think psychiatry should be outlawed." Further controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil (paroxetine), an antidepressant to which Shields credits her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. In response, Shields argued that Cruise "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them". This led to a heated argument between Matt Lauer and Cruise on NBC's Today on June 24, 2005. Medical authorities view Cruise's comments as furthering the social stigma of mental illness. Shields herself called Cruise's comments "a disservice to mothers everywhere." In late August 2006, Cruise apologized in person to Shields for his comments. Scientology is well known for its opposition to mainstream psychiatry and the psychoactive drugs which are routinely prescribed for treatment. It was reported that Cruise's anti-psychiatry actions led to a rift with director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg had reportedly mentioned in Cruise's presence the name of a doctor friend who prescribed psychiatric medication. Shortly thereafter, the doctor's office was picketed by Scientologists, reportedly angering Spielberg.

Failures

Tom Cruise expressed his frustration with crew members on the set of “Mission: Impossible 7” after he saw them breaking COVID-19 guidelines, two sources close to the production confirm to Variety. As first reported by The Sun, after Cruise saw two crew members standing too close to one another in front of a computer screen, he told the crew: “If I see you do it again you’re f—ing gone.” In audio obtained by The Sun, Cruise can be heard saying: “We are the gold standard. They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us. Because they believe in us and what we’re doing. I’m on the phone with every f—ing studio at night, insurance companies, producers and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf—ers. I don’t ever want to see it again. Ever!” Cruise spent his childhood trying to hide his dyslexia from his peers. Diagnosed at the age of seven, Cruise describes his younger self as a "functional illiterate". He could barely read in high school or through his earliest roles. Cruise got his first big acting job at the age of 19. As he started to embrace his love of acting, Cruise realized that his inability to read would hold him back if he didn’t work hard at it. He eventually adopted L. Ron Hubbard’s learning method of "Study Technology," which helped him develop his reading and study habits. "I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read," said Cruise.

Achievements

Tom Cruise is the recipient of three Golden Globe awards, including Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama in 1990 for ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ and Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical in 1997 for ‘Jerry Maguire’.|In 2011, Cruise was awarded a humanitarian award from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Museum of Tolerance for his work as a dedicated philanthropist.|

Quotes

I’ve never done work for money ever. If your choices are based on grosses and the film doesn’t do well, what does that mean? It leaves you with nothing.
With each one (film), I love working on the story and the characters. The stunts, each time, we keep pushing ourselves harder and harder. And they are stunts, so there’s always a danger in doing them, but fortunately, I have not had a problem. I have not missed a day of work, ever, in my career. I’m always there early. And I train very hard, and we prepare very carefully for each one.
I don’t hide from cameras or anything. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t seek our press for the women I’m dating, but if it finds me, it finds me.