Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (; born July 3, 1962), better known by his screen name of
Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer.
Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity in 2006.
He has been nominated for three
Academy Awards and won three
Golden Globe Awards. His first leading role was the 1983 film
Risky Business , which has been described as "A
Generation X classic, and a career-maker" for the actor.
After playing the role of a heroic naval pilot in the popular and financially successful 1986 film
Top Gun, Cruise continued in this vein, playing a secret agent in a series of
Mission: Impossible action films in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to these heroic roles, he played other parts such as the
misogynistic male guru in
Magnolia (1999) and a cool and calculating sociopathic
hitman in the
Michael Mann crime-thriller film
Collateral (2004).
In 2005, the Hollywood journalist,
Edward Jay Epstein argued that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being
George Lucas,
Steven Spielberg and
Jerry Bruckheimer) who are able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar movie franchise.
Since 2005, Cruise and Paula Wagner have been in charge of the
United Artists film studio,
with Cruise as producer and star and Wagner as the chief executive. Cruise is also known for his controversial support of and adherence to the
Church of Scientology.
[ Scientology News: Tom Cruise Tops List of Scientology Celebrities at Celebrity Centre International 34th Anniversary Church of Scientology; 2006. Retrieved March 23, 2007.]
