Tom Cruise

Born as Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3rd, 1962 in Syracuse New York, Tom Cruise gets a German and Welsh descent from his paternal side and a German and Irish descent from his maternal side. As a child, he led an itinerant life, moving from town to town attending around eight different elementary schools and three high schools. He took up acting in high school when he had to give up wrestling due to knee injury. Memorizing the script and dialogues helped young Tom Cruise to come to grips with his dyslexia. Tom Cruise got his first break into films in 1981, when he bagged a small role in Endless Love that also starred Brooke Shields. He did a string of movies after that were moderately successful. Thereafter, his role in the '1983 Risky Business' escalated him to star status. He did the film Top Gun in 1986, which became the highest grossing film of the year. 1986 saw the release of another Tom Cruise movie 'The Color of Money' by Martin Scorsese. He was nominated for a Razzie award for his role in the 1988 film, Cocktail. The movie Rain Man also starring Dustin Hoffman received critical acclaim and won four Academy Awards. In 1990, Tom met his future wife Nicole Kidman on the sets of 'Days of Thunder'. He did another film with her 'Far and Away'. He got nominated for MTV and Golden Globe for his role in the military thriller 'A Few Good Men'. He starred in the film, 'The Firm' based on the book by the same name written by John Grisham. In 1996, he starred and produced the film 'Mission Impossible' that became the third grossing film of the year. He got another Oscar nomination for his role in 'Magnolia'. He continued the tradition of the secret agent Ethan Hawk with the release of the second and third 'Mission Impossible' film in 2000 and 2006 respectively.