Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

Ark, giving all his notes to the final director, Barry Levinson, who had made Tin
Men and Good Morning, Vietnam. Before he left, Spielberg told Levinson that
the movie would make $100 million.
First, however, the movie had to get made. As Tom now realized, there is no
such thing in Hollywood as an automatic green light, and for a long time it
seemed that the project would get lost in the mire of development. So Tom flew
to New York and did a major tour of the bars of Manhattan. He even took up
bartending, learning how to mix the perfect martini under the watchful gaze of
bartender John “JB” Bandy. In a few weeks he visited around thirty-four bars as
he learned his new craft—with the promise of a $3 million payday for a

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maximum of three months’ work at the end. Nice work if you can get it. His new
life hanging out with barflies in Manhattan was part of his research for the
Disney movie Cocktail, which he agreed to make while the production glitches
for Rain Man were being ironed out.
In Cocktail, Tom played a former serviceman who comes to New York to
make his fortune and ends up working in a bar with Australian Bryan Brown,
where they fall out over a girl, played by Elisabeth Shue. Eventually their pursuit
of easy money—and rich women—ends in tragedy, a fitting metaphor for the
“greed is good” ethos of the 1980s. During filming on location in Jamaica and
elsewhere, Cruise experienced the ugly side of celebrity, whispers circulating in
the American tabloids that the recently married star was having an affair with
Elisabeth Shue. In fact, the Harvard-educated Shue was wondering why she was
involved in a film that was so “empty and superficial.” Dismissing the rumored
affair as one of the “silliest stories” about her, she later remarked, “If I’d known
it was just going to be about these guys throwing drinks around, then I might
have had some second thoughts.”
While the film was, as Tom’s agent Paula Wagner put it, “eviscerated” by the
critics as a cocktail of emotional clichés, it demonstrated Tom’s star quality
nevertheless. Not only did he refuse to knock a penny off his $3 million fee,
forcing economies among the production and cast, but, in spite of the critical
drubbing, the movie cleaned up at the box office, becoming the seventh most
popular film of 1988. “Congratulations, you are now able to open a movie,” a
delighted Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Disney studios, told him. It was the
biggest opening in Disney history, taking in $11.8 million, proof that a big name
could carry a bad movie. While Tom didn’t quite appreciate it at the time, it was
a defining moment in his Hollywood career.
In any event, Tom had little time to reflect on his career trajectory. No sooner
had he forsaken his cocktail shaker than he was rehearsing for Rain Man, which
finally started shooting in May 1988. It meant that Tom missed his first wedding
anniversary and was on the road for his twenty-sixth birthday and the July
opening of Cocktail, which, given the reviews, was perhaps just as well. It also
meant that he was too focused on filming to get particularly agitated about
tabloid stories suggesting that Mimi was finding it difficult to get pregnant. The
fact that they were both working hard, often in different parts of the world, was
discounted by the gossips. These emotional discomforts were a small price to
pay for working alongside Dustin Hoffman. As with his initial collaboration with
Paul Newman, he harbored doubts that his own ability would be able to match
the older man’s screen presence. He saw himself as the student, Hoffman the

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tutor. “I wasn’t sure if I could play in that league. I was excited enough just to be
there.”
As on the shoot for The Color of Money, the chemistry between the two
leading men and the coaxing creativity of director Barry Levinson ensured a
happy if hardworking set. “I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and I didn’t
want to finish at the end of the day,” recalled Tom, who started the day with a
4:30
A.M.
workout. “He was like a machine in that sense,” commented Hoffman.
“There is a joy in achieving excellence. It’s all about the work.”
The work paid off handsomely, artistically and financially. Rain Man made
more than $400 million at the box office and, in another first for Tom, he
received a share of the final profits as well as a $5 million fee. It was
compensation for the disappointment he felt at failing to receive an Oscar
nomination. Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were
apparently unmoved by his performance as the cocksure hotshot who by the end
of the third act is a reformed egomaniac.
However, it pleased the audience and some reviewers, Roger Ebert describing
him as a “genuine star and a genuine actor,” though not everyone was impressed.
Acerbic, influential film critic Pauline Kael described him as “patented”: “His
knowing that a camera is on him produces nothing but fraudulence.” She was no
kinder to his screen partner, dismissing Hoffman’s efforts as “a one-note
performance.” Hoffman’s note, however, struck a chord with Oscar voters, his
quirky performance earning him the award for Best Actor. The film itself went
on to win Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture.
While hindsight gives the impression that Tom’s acting career was a series of
carefully considered stepping-stones, in reality much depended on chance and
the clout of his agency, Creative Artists. For example, had it not been for the
delays and uncertainty surrounding the production of Rain Man, he would not
have had time to star in Cocktail, the movie that sealed his reputation as an actor
whose name alone could carry a film. Nor would he have tackled his next film,