CRUISE CONTROL
HE’S been a vampire, a fighter pilot, a hit man, a lawyer, a bar tender, a sports agent and an all-round action hero.
Tom Cruise is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but was originally headed for a career in the priesthood and enrolled in a Franciscan seminary when he was 14.
He left after a year and found his calling in acting, going on to appear in some of the world’s top-grossing movies.
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born 60 years ago on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, and made his film debut with a brief appearance in the 1981 movie Endless Love directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
That same year, aged 19, he sported a military haircut for the film Taps appearing with Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton playing students at a military academy.
Film comedy Losin’ It followed in 1982, but it was The Outsiders and Risky Business in 1983 that saw Tom really begin to make his mark.
The Godfather’s Francis Ford Coppola directed The Outsiders, about rival gangs in 1960s America, and the cast also included Rob Lowe making his film debut, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez and Matt Dillon. The movie featured one of Tom’s early stunts when he did a backflip from the top of a truck.
“I remember Sean Penn and Emilio Estevez and I used to drive by [Marlon] Brando’s house and [Jack] Nicholson’s house,” Tom later recalled. “We’d see a light go on inside and go ‘There he is – let’s knock on the door’ and go ‘Nah, nah, they’ll never let us in’”.
Risky Business, about a teenager home alone, gave Tom a chance to show his talent for comedy and he improvised his famous Old Time Rock ’n’ Roll dance scene.
Tom later said: “I remember getting through high school and thinking, ‘Boy, I’m glad I got that behind me’. Then, when I was 19, I got Risky Business and I realised, ‘Ah, so this is life. It’s a little bigger than I thought’.”
Success continued throughout the 1980s with The Color Of Money with Paul Newman, Rain Man alongside Dustin Hoffman, Born On The Fourth Of July and 1986 blockbuster Top Gun.
Daredevil US pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell was a larger-than-life character and Tom also learned to ride a motorbike for the film. He said: “I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person and when I become interested in something I give it may all.”
Top Gun was the highest-grossing movie of 1986, taking $356m worldwide, but fans had to wait 36 years before the sequel Top Gun: Maverick was released. It hit cinemas in May and quickly became one of the top box office hits of 2022 so far.
By the 1990s, Tom was one of the highest-paid film stars in the world earning on average $15m a movie.
Success continued with Interview With The Vampire, Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men, The Firm and, the first Mission: Impossible film, in 1996. The $3.5bn franchise will continue next year with the release of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One on July 14.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 2018 grossed a total of £24.4m.
The movies have cemented Tom’s reputation as an action man and he does many of his own stunts.
He climbed the exterior of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and broke his ankle while working on Fallout. The accident happened while filming a chase sequence in London in which he had to jump from one building to another.
Tom said: “I knew it was broken... But I thought I would climb up, go and cross camera because I knew there was a camera there and I had to get over the wall so that we could retain the shot.”
Tom has broken quite a few bones over the years during film stunts, but loves doing them too much to stop. He told The Graham Norton Show: “I am a very physical actor and I love doing them.”
He even surprised his mother by taking her skydiving in Florida for Mother’s Day when he was filming 1990 racing movie Days Of Thunder.
He filmed their joint aeroplane jump and sent the footage to his three sisters. Tom also passed his pilot licence in 1994.
The Hollywood A-lister, who took part in Queen Elizabeth’s recent Platinum Jubilee celebrations in Windsor, certainly shows no signs of slowing down after four decades of making movies.
He once revealed: “Here’s how I’ve lived my life – I’ve never been late to a set. I make films I believe in. I feel privileged to be able to do what I love.”