Tom Cruise

Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Mary Lee, a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. Cruise has German and Colonial English ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotte Louise Voelker; and purportedly Welsh ancestry from his paternal great-great-grandfather, Dylan Henry Mapother, who emigrated from Flint, Wales to Louisville, Kentucky in 1850. Cruise's first film role came in 1981, when he had a small role in Endless Love, a drama/romance film starring Brooke Shields. Later that same year he had a more substantial role in the film Taps, appearing alongside George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. Cruise was welcomed with similar success the following year when he received Academy Award nominations for Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, which was based on the best selling autobiography of Anti-Vietnam War hero Ron Kovic. In 1990, Cruise starred as hot-shot race car driver "Cole Trickle" in Tony Scott's Days of Thunder. In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best selling novel which was also very well received, although Rice was outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film. In 2000, Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the second installment of the Mission Impossible films, releasing Mission: Impossible II. The film was directed by Hong Kong director John Woo and branded with his Gun fu Style, but it continued the series' blockbuster success at the box office, taking in almost US$546 M in worldwide figures, like its predecessor, being the third highest grossing film of the year. Cruise partnered with producer Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions which has co-produced several of Cruise's films,the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer. He won a Nova Award (shared with Paula Wagner) for Most Promising Producer in Theatrical Motion Pictures at the PGA Golden Laurel Awards in 1997 for his work as a producer for the film Mission: Impossible. On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Tom Cruise. In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Tom Cruise's value as an actor and producer from his controversial public behavior and views. According to an Associated Press report on November 2, 2006, Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they will be in charge of the United Artists film studio. Cruise will produce and star in films for United Artists, while Wagner will serve as UA's chief executive. In 1990, 1991 and 1997, People magazine rated him among the 50 most beautiful people in the world. In 1995, Empire magazine ranked him among the 100 sexiest stars in film history.Two years later, it ranked him among the top 5 movie stars of all time.In 2002 and 2003, he was rated by Premiere among the top 20 in its annual Power 100 list. In 2006, Premiere magazine established Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor, as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazines 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor. On 16 June 2006, Forbes magazine published 'The Celebrity 100', a list of the most powerful celebrities, which Cruise topped. As of August 2006, "a USA Today/Gallup poll in which half of those surveyed registered an "unfavorable" opinion of the actor" was cited as a reason in addition to "unacceptable behavior"for Paramount's non-renewal of their production contract with Cruise.