25 Years of Tom Cruise

09-10-2008 11:42

Love him or hate him, and he really is splitting the vote at the moment with his rather odd behaviour, this year Tom Cruise is celebrating his twenty fifth year as a Hollywood star.

And despite his slightly strange actions when the cameras have stopped rolling he remains one of the most bankable stars with his most recent blockbusters War of the Worlds and Impossible II doing well at the box office.

And although he began his career in 1981 it was his role in Risky Business that proved to be his breakthrough performance just two years later and a star was born. And the scene with the young actor lip-syncing to Old Time Rock and Roll in just his undies was one of the movie images of the decade.

But the role that cemented him as bona fide leading man was in Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson's American fighter pilot film Top Gun. The movie was the biggest grossing picture of 1986, grossing in excess of $354 million , and propelled Cruise to heart-throb status.

More serious role in Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July rounded off the eighties as Cruise earnt critical acclaim for his work, securing a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the latter, and proved that he didn't just rely on his good lucks and action roles.

Despite this early success the nineties was the most successful decade for Cruise with A Few Good Men, Interview with a Vampire and the beginning of the Mission impossible franchise, to name but a few of his successes.

Into the nineties and he had split with his first wife Mimi Rogers and, after a whirlwind romance, married Nicole Kidman becoming the golden couple of Hollywood.