Unquestionably one of the world’s biggest box office draws, movies starring Tom Cruise have grossed more than US$3.7 billion in North America alone, with total global takings topping US$9 billion worldwide. Despite being touted as the actor with Hollywood’s most bankable grin, he remains a divisive figure, adored and despised by equally vocal contingents of cinema-goers.

Whichever side of the fence you fall on, however, Tom Cruise does deserve some credit for overcoming much of the adversity that made his early life something of a nightmare. Not only was he dyslexic, he was also routinely abused by his father. In his adult life, however, many of his problems have been of his own making. Willingly co-opted as the public face of Scientology – a quasi-religion with cult-like trappings – his reputation later barely survived a series of bizarre TV appearances, with the most infamous of these seeing him bounding around Oprah Winfrey’s sofa back in 2005 as he, somewhat unconvincingly, confessed his undying love for actress Katie Holmes, his third wife-to-be. He later went on to duly divorce Holmes in 2012.

To be fair, though, crazy-behaving, much-married, cult-loving Tom is a soft target, and it is all too easy to overlook his undoubted status as one of the all-time Hollywood greats.

From the moment he burst onto the scene in his breakout role as Joel Goodson, a doubt-ridden teen in the 1983 coming-of-age comedy Risky Business (1983), he has been unswervingly on course for A-lister superstardom. As proof of his abiding success, he’s currently ranked eighth on the list of all-time Hollywood high earners. With more blockbusters in the pipeline – most notably a sequel to Top Gun, his smash-hit 1986 romantic drama – he will, almost definitely, feature higher still in any future rankings.

Thanks to his boyish and enduring good looks, few probably realise that as of 3 July this year, Cruise is now 56. Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in 1962 in New York, he was the only boy of the four children born to Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer, and Mary Lee Mapother (née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher.

After a troubled childhood and adolescence, he briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a priest, before finally settling on acting as his chosen career. By his own admission, it’s not been a profession that has always come wholly naturally to him. Airing his own uncertainties, he says: “Every single time I start work on a picture, I always feel as if I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

This particular demon, though, seems to have hardly hampered his career. He first hit the big screen playing a minor role in Endless Love, a 1981 romantic drama co-starring Brooke Shields. Despite getting his first big break in Risky Business two years later, it wasn’t until 1986 that his starring role as Maverick in Top Gun – one of the highest grossing films of the year – suggested how bankable a performer he was destined to become.

While that reputation is now firmly set in stone, fame – and box office bankability – has not always sat easily with the star. Clearly not relishing all its trappings, he says: “I am forever being chased by the paparazzi. They run lights, they chase you and they harass you the whole time. And it is only getting worse.”

In truth, though, it’s Cruise’s antics off-screen that have kept scandal-minded journos on his trail for so long. After all, aside from the three official Mrs Cruises, there have been any number of high-profile, non-solemnised liaisons, as well as those lingering rumours that girls aren’t really his thing at all. And then of course, there’s Cruise’s self-confessed obsession with Scientology, the California-headquartered cult.

Notwithstanding such controversies, award-winning movies – and wives – have followed. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was nominated for awards for his performances in the Vietnam war drama The Fourth of July (1989) and the legal drama A Few Good Men (1992). This was also the time he became Mr Nicole Kidman for a comparatively lengthy 11 years after meeting the Australian actress on the sets of Days of Thunder (1990).

Although his love life may have been punctuated by special guest stars and one-off appearances, his celluloid career has remained stable and stellar. Most notably, his continuing role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible spy-thriller franchise has confirmed he has lost little of his bankability, even with his 60th birthday now firmly on the horizon.

So, will his boyish looks, Hollywood reign and penchant for middling bouts of matrimony see Tom Cruise cruise through another decade? While it’s certainly Risky Business, it’s no Mission Impossible.

Text: Robert Blain; Images: AFP