Tom Cruise has achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer, and philanthropist in a career spanning over three decades. He is a three-time Academy Award® nominee and three-time Golden Globe Award winner whose films have earned in excess of eight billion dollars worldwide—an incomparable accomplishment. Seventeen of Cruise’s films have grossed more than 100 million dollars in the United States alone, and 18 have grossed over 200 million dollars globally.
Since he first appeared on screen in the 1981 films Endless Love and Taps, Cruise’s versatility has been evidenced by the varied films and roles he chooses. He has made 34 films, had a producing role on 17, and worked with a remarkable list of acclaimed film directors, including Harold Becker, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Brickman, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Neil Jordan, Brian de Palma, Cameron Crowe, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, John Woo, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, J.J. Abrams, Robert Redford, Ben Stiller, Bryan Singer, James Mangold, Brad Bird and Adam Shankman.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol opened to critical acclaim in December 2011 and went on to gross close to 700 million dollars, making it the biggest box office success of Cruise’s career. Combined, the Mission: Impossible franchise has brought in more than two billion dollars worldwide since Cruise conceived the idea for the films and began producing them, also starring in all four films as the legendary spy Ethan
Hunt.
Following Rock of Ages, Cruise stars this December in Christopher McQuarrie’s suspense thriller based on the Lee Child book One Shot, from his hugely successful series about Jack Reacher, a former military policeman-turned-drifter. Cruise is now filming Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, to be released in April 2013. Later this year, he will begin work on the sci-fi thriller All You Need is Kill, to be directed by Doug Liman.
In 2010, Cruise starred with Cameron Diaz in the romantic action-comedy Knight and Day. Two years earlier, Cruise portrayed German officer Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in the critically acclaimed worldwide hit Valkyrie, an historical thriller about the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler during World War II, which grossed $200 million globally, making it one of the top five WWII-themed films of all time. Cruise also appeared in Ben Stiller’s comedy smash Tropic Thunder, as the hip hopping, foulmouthed Hollywood movie mogul Les Grossman. This performance, based on a character he created, earned him praise from critics and audiences, as well as his seventh Golden Globe Award nomination.
Cruise received Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, in addition to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar® nomination for Magnolia. He also garnered three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Actor wins for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, and one for Best Supporting Actor for Magnolia, as well as nominations for his roles in Risky Business, A Few Good Men, and The Last Samurai. In addition, Cruise has earned acting nominations and awards from BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild®, the Chicago Film Critics Association, and the National Board of Review.
His list of memorable credits also includes such diverse films as Collateral, Minority Report, Interview with the Vampire, The Firm, Rain Man, The Color of Money and Top Gun.
Cruise has also been honored with tributes ranging from Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Award, to the John Huston Award from the Artists Rights Foundation, and the American Cinematheque Award for Distinguished Achievement in Film.
While continuing to explore new artistic challenges, Cruise has used his professional success as a vehicle for positive change, becoming an international advocate, activist and philanthropist in the fields of health, education and human rights. He has been honored by the Mentor-LA organization for his work on behalf of the children of Los Angeles and around the world, and in May 2011, he received the Simon Wiesenthal Humanitarian Award. This June, he will receive the Entertainment Icon Award from the Friars Club for his outstanding accomplishments in the entertainment industry and in the humanities. He is the fourth person to receive this honor after Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra.
This biography/filmography of Tom Cruise is courtesy of Warner Brothers and the film, Rock of Ages
