Tom Cruise

The cocky, charming demeanor that Tom Cruise puts on display as leading man and action hero belies a rocky childhood full of uncertainty and sadness. Unlucky enough to have an abusive father, the young Tom Cruise was also forced to endure a childhood and adolescence spent on the road. When he graduated from a New Jersey high school in 1980, it was not far from his birthplace of Syracuse, New York, but in between he had attended nearly a dozen schools in cities throughout the United States and Canada.

Luck started to change for Cruise in high school, when a sports injury led him to try acting—an event that would have a profound impact on his life and the face of Hollywood. Cruise’s fluke participation in his high school’s production of Guys and Dolls awakened an acting bug that would drive him to Hollywood—and in 1981 land him alongside Brooke Shields in his first screen role in the critically dubious Endless Love.

His innate talent and excellent performance in this film quickly led to other roles working with Hollywood heavyweights such as Sean Penn, George C. Scott, Patrick Swayze and Shelley Long. Within a few years he had worked with noted directors Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese and had made a name for himself as one of Hollywood’s rising stars.

Audiences associated Cruise with high-profile, low-substance films such as Top Gun and Cocktail until being paired with seminal actor Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Awardâ winning flick Rainman revealed his acting chops. Days of Thunder was a swift return to form, and shortly to follow were a standout role in Far and Away and subsequent marriage to Nicole Kidman, his costar in both films.

Later years have seen Cruise take on a variety of roles. He continues to play the modernized Byronic hero he helped define and who is exhibited in such films as Days of Thunder and the Mission Impossible films, but is also acknowledged for his dramatic power, thanks to performances in films such as Magnolia and Vanilla Sky.

He currently balances his acting career with the responsibilities of fatherhood, devotion to wife Katie Holmes and his duties as an advocate for the church of Scientology.