Tom Cruise: The Life and Legacy of a Hollywood Icon
Introduction:
Thomas Cruise, born on July 3, 1962, is a prominent American actor and film producer. He has often been referred to as one of the most prominent stars of Hollywood. He has won numerous awards including three Golden Globe awards and an Honorary Palme d’Or. Tom Cruise films have amassed more than 12 billion dollars in revenue throughout history. They are making him one of the highest-grossing actors ever. From the years 2012 to 2018, Cruise held a Guinness World Record for the most number of consecutive movies grossing over 100 million dollars.
Cruise’s rise began in the 1980s with memorable performances in Risky Business and Top Gun. Tom Cruise also received further recognition for his work in The Color of Money, Rain Man, and Born on the Fourth of July, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Meanwhile, the 1990s marked his reign as Hollywood’s top-grossing actor. Notably, films like A Few Good Men and Jerry Maguire secured him a second Golden Globe award. Consequently, Cruise cemented his status as a major Hollywood force during this era..
It is in wild and ambitious films as Mission Impossible that Cruise dares to perform the most. He has been starring in the Mission: Impossible series since 1996 and has done nearly all of the stunts himself. His movie credits are also impressive: Minority Report, The Last Samurai, Top Gun: Maverick etc.
| Born | July 3, 1962 (age 62) |
| Occupations | Actor, producer |
| Year Active | 1980–present(44 years) |
| Works | 54 Movies, 2 Television shoes |
| Spouses | Miami Rogers(m. 1987; div. 1990) Nicole Kidman(m. 1990; div. 2001) Katie Holmes(m. 2006; div. 2012) |
| Children | 3 Children’s |
| Relatives | William Mapother (Cousin) |
| Website | tomcruise.com |
| Awards Win | 132 |
| Awards Nominations | 417 |
Tom Cruise Early life and education:
Tom Cruise was born on July 3 1962 in Syracuse, New York. Thomas Cruise Mapother who was an electrical engineer and his mother Mary Lee who was a special education teacher. Born and raised as a Roman Catholic, he had three sisters as siblings and reportedly lived a financially strained childhood. His father was also a dominant personality in his life. And Cruise described him as a brute, assaulter and one cannot trust him.
His developmental years were spent moving around and changing schools. He went to fifteen different schools in the space of fourteen years. His family moved to Ottawa Canada in early seventies and during a phase in elementary school. He began to take an interest in acting. His mother filed for divorce in 1974, and she brought young Cruise and his sisters back to the United States.
Cruise nominated for a catholic scholarship for a year but dropped out of seminary thus briefly considering a career in priesthood. During high school he got engaged in sports but he was expelled from the football team. He finally identified his passion as acting and acted in the school play Guys and Dolls; he left Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey in 1980.
Acting career:
1980s: Rise to Fame and Breakthrough Success
Tom Cruise left his home backing from his mother and stepfather when he was 18 years to start acting in New York City. He was a busboy before joining LA for TV opportunities. Finally he joined CAA and appeared in a movie Endless Love (1981). After that, he shined in Taps where his character’s acting part was increased because of him.
In 1983, Cruise gained attention with The Outsiders and All the Right Moves. Risky Business then marked another breakthrough for him. By 1986, when Top Gun was released, Cruise had firmly established his megastar status. He went further with The Color of Money in the same year, and audiences loved the chemistry that Schmeling shared with Newman.
In the following year he featured in Cocktail, which though it was commercial success, was a critical disaster and his acted got him a Razzie nomination. Around the same time he starred in Rain Man along side Dustin Hoffman for which he bagged the Kansas City Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Cruise’s Vietnam War veteran role was in 1989 in Born on the Fourth of July. His dominant act led him claiming a Golden Globe award, besides, his first Oscar nomination. Roger Ebert and other critics, drawing attention to his performances in those films particularly Walking Tall, have appreciated on his ability to build up a good ’serious’ career.
1990s: Tom Cruise Mastering Dramatic Roles
The ‘90s began with two more movies based on Days of Thunder (1990) and Far and Away (1992) in which Tom Cruise worked with Nicole Kidman, his first wife. Soon after, he was to start with The Firm (1993), a legal thriller that really received good critics and strong box office response. The following year, Interview with the Vampire was released with Cruise starring alongside Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. First, his author Anne Rice scolded for his casting but after watching this motion picture, she complimented him in public.
By 1996, Cruise took on his iconic role as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible, a blockbuster. The same year he was a leading role in Jerry Maguire for which he got a Golden Globe for Best Actor and got his second Oscar nomination. Another was in the movie that he acted with Renee Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr. This was also a success for this actor.
The next year, 1999, Cruise worked again with Kidman in Stanley Kubrick’s psychological thriller Eyes Wide Shut. The reviewers including Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian also noted both actors’ efforts and presented them as intense. Later that year, he delivered a much smaller appearance as a inspirational sales trainer in another memorable performance in Magnolia. It brought him a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for him.
2000s: Cementing His Legacy
In 2000, Tom Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Challenging 2, shot by John Woo. Filled with Woo’s signature action style, the film recouped $547 million and became the year’s number-one blockbuster, despite the mixed reviews. Despite this, Cruise won the MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance the same year.
In the following years, Cruise went on with his success of delivering more box office and critics highly acclaimed movies. In 2001, he was a part of Vanilla Sky with Cameron Diaz and Penélope Cruz. After that, He was in the movie Minority Report by Steven Spielberg in the year 2002 Based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. The next year, he received another Golden Globe nomination for Last Samurai in 2003 he starred in The Last Samurai. He was also appreciated for his performance as the bad guy in Collateral released in 2004.
In 2005, Cruise backed War of the Worlds for Spielberg with total collections of $591.4 million that ranked it as the fourth highest grossing film of that year. Furthermore, he also got a MTV Generation Award and also got nominated for a Saturn Award and a People’s choice Award.
Cruise returned to the Mission: Impossible series in 2006 with Mission: Impossible III. Critics acclaimed the film, and it grossed almost $400 million at the international box office. In 2007, Cruise appeared in Lions for Lambs, but the film did not fare well commercially.. On the other hand, the man received a nomination for a Golden Globe while acting as a comedic version of Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder in 2008. He closed the decade headlining Valkyrie (2008), which is an action-adventure that did well at the box office.
2010s: Tom Cruise Dominating the Action Genre
In March 2010, Tom Cruise filmed his scenes for Knight and Day, an action-comedy with Cameron Diaz. The film launched in mid-June 2010. Later that year, he confirmed his role in Mission: Unattainable – Ghost Protocol, released in December last year. This film was his most successful at the box office up to that point and had tremendous reviews.
In December of that year, Cruise was honored with the humanitarian award by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Philanthropy. Shortly afterward he starred in Rock of Ages (2012) as the rock vocalist Stacee Jaxx. Nevertheless, the film was not successful at the box office. People didn’t like Cruise’s acting as the representative of the rock-and-roll image.
Another Shot which was released in 2012, starred Cruise as Jack Reacher in a novel by Lee Child. The film won positive reviews and the movie earned $217 million at the International box office. In 2013 he starred, a science fiction movie that was critically meh but commercially decent grossing out at $286 million. After this, Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow (2014) received mostly favorable box office & collected more than $370M.
This installment was liked by the critics and also the audience and made decent business at the box office. In 2017, he acted in The Mummy, a reboot which though criticized earned more than $400 million. By 2018, Cruise reprised Ethan Hunt in Mission: Unrealistic, Impossible Fallout which has grossed over $791,000,000. Thus far becoming his highest-grossing film.
Production:
Cruise began a production company called Cruise/Wagner Productions with former talent agent, Paula Wagner back in 1993. Their first project was Mission: Its Impossible (1996), which was the first movie as producer for the leading actor Tom Cruise. Besides the movies he acting in, Cruise also as a producer released The Others, Shattered Glass, Elizabethtown and some others.
Cruise signed some of Hollywood’s most lucrative contracts and gained appellations for one of Hollywood’s top moguls. However after that, on August, 2006, the cooperation between Paramount Pictures and Cruise came to an end of 14 years due to financial losses caused by his peculiar activity. Cruise/Wagner Productions said that Paramount’s action was due to the fact that the company has secured other sources of funding.
In November 2006, Cruise and Wagner bought United Artists. Cruise then acted in features like Valkyrie and Lions for Lambs while also producing films for United Artists. By August 2008 finally walking away from United Artists with him exiting the joint partnership. Since then, Cruise has mainly operated his future productions through TC Productions, but the company relaunched as Don Griffith Productions in December 2012.
Cruise resumed working with Paramount as a producer and star on Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Latter, he partnered with him on one final project in Jack Reacher for Paramount studio series.
