Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

Vampire, Tom was on location or in preproduction from October 1993 onward,
spending time in Ireland, Paris, Louisiana, and San Francisco. Only occasionally
was he accompanied by Nicole and Bella. As a result, while Hollywood was
their home, they used their private Gulfstream jet the way others hail taxicabs.
Their differing attitudes to this privileged lifestyle provide some telling insights
into the space growing between them.
When he settled back into his kid leather seat, Tom would often look around
the beautifully furnished cabin in wonder, literally pinching himself at his good
fortune. “I can’t believe I have all this,” he would say. He never forgot that not
so long ago he was stealing flowers to give his girlfriend, but now he was able to
provide a life of luxury for the woman he loved. Not that she was overly
impressed. Even though Nicole was struggling to establish herself as an actress
in her own right, on occasion she behaved like a full-fledged Hollywood diva. If
the jet wasn’t stocked with beluga caviar and all the trimmings, she appeared
deeply irritated, exhibiting a jaded petulance that seems to be the prerogative of
the super-rich—or immensely talented.
Perhaps her attitude was born of frustration that her acting career was in a
slump. At this stage Nicole was mostly known for her supporting role as Mrs.
Cruise, rather than enjoying the spotlight in her own right. A star in Australia,
she was seen by Hollywood movers and shakers to be hanging on Tom’s
coattails, relying on him for introductions, scripts, and projects. She was being
paid, as her biographer David Thomson points out, “bimbo money” to appear in
movies where she invariably had to disrobe. While she enjoyed a mutual love
affair with the camera, with or without her clothes, it was ultimately
discouraging.
Even though she was only twenty-six, she questioned her ability sufficiently
to enroll at the Actors Studio in New York to help get the creative juices
flowing. In interviews she made it clear that she wanted to get her teeth into

---

meatier character roles. So it is easy to imagine her utter distress when her friend
from Sydney, director Jane Campion, turned her down for the part of the
tragically vulnerable Isabel Archer in her proposed film adaptation of the Henry
James novel Portrait of a Lady. Campion’s decision was the more disappointing
as she had initially given Nicole the green light.
As far as the Australian director was concerned, Hollywood—or rather the
roles she had accepted since arriving there—had somehow corrupted or blunted
Nicole’s talent. Doubtless one of those movies was Batman Forever, where she
played sexy psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian—interestingly, the very profession
her faith vowed to wipe from the face of the planet—playing opposite Val
Kilmer. “She’d made quite a few films I didn’t think suited her, and I don’t think
she felt suited her, either,” Campion later explained. Eventually, after many
tears, much heartache, and the indignity of auditioning, Nicole won Campion
over and earned her coveted role.
That was in the future. As Tom marched firmly toward the summit of success,
it seemed to Nicole that she was spending her days slipping and sliding in the
foothills. Her own difficulties in finding a sure footing in the Hollywood hills,
even with the help of an expert guide, serve as another reminder of how far and
how quickly Tom had come. It was perhaps a sign of her intense desire, even
desperation, to succeed that propelled her to dispense with the usual channels
and phone director Gus Van Sant and plead for the lead role in his movie To Die
For. That the producers’ first choice, Meg Ryan, had turned it down only
seemed to spur Nicole on. She told Van Sant that she felt “destined” to play the
cold, calculating, ruthlessly ambitious TV weather girl who has her husband
killed by her student lover because she feels he is impeding her career.
For once the outlook was sunny, Nicole winning the role in what was to be her
breakout movie. During her research for the part in late 1993, she proved herself
as single-minded and driven as her husband, who was on hand to help her with
character research. On one occasion the couple checked into a hotel in Santa
Barbara on the California coast, not leaving for three long days as they immersed
themselves in schlock television. Her new project meant that the Cruise family
was on the move once again, renting a house in Toronto, Canada, for the
summer of 1994.
While Nicole filmed—she banned her husband from the set when she was
involved in steamy sex scenes with costars Matt Dillon and Joaquin Phoenix—
he earned his pilot’s license, on at least one occasion taking Nicole for a joyride
in a two-seater biplane where she climbed out onto the wing, performed an
arabesque, and then parachuted to safety. The actor later credited Hubbard’s

---

teaching techniques for enabling him to read sufficiently well to understand the
technical jargon in the flying manuals. He claimed that when he first became
interested in learning to be a pilot, during the filming of Top Gun before he
joined Scientology, he had to drop out because he couldn’t understand the
technical terms.
Fortuitously, the high-profile Scientology couple left Toronto before their
church was embroiled in yet another controversy. In February 1995, hearings
started in a libel case that resulted in the Church of Scientology being ordered to
pay $1.6 million in damages, the largest amount in the country’s history. The
high-profile case made the church’s boasts that it had left its dark past behind
seem rather hollow. After almost a decade of David Miscavige’s leadership,
Scientology was as litigious and aggressive as ever.
If his faith was not for turning, one lady was: Tom’s toughest critic, Anne
Rice. Shortly before Interview with the Vampire was released in November
1994, producer David Geffen took the risk of sending a video of the movie to the
New Orleans home of the author. She was entranced and told Geffen so. He in
turn called an astounded Cruise with the news. “She likes you, she loves it, you
know. She really loves it.” Tom was amazed at Geffen’s chutzpah. “You have
the luck of the Irish, David Geffen,” Cruise said. The about-face was complete
when Rice took out advertisements in The New York Times and Vanity Fair
praising the film and Tom Cruise for a performance that “perfectly captured”
Lestat’s strength, humor, and boldness.
While his bisexual character encouraged yet more rumors about his own
sexuality, Nicole and Tom were focused on adding to their family. After
spending their fifth wedding anniversary that Christmas in their own ski chalet in
Telluride, the chic Colorado resort where they married, the couple quietly filed
adoption papers. In late February they became parents for a second time,
adopting a baby boy they named Connor Antony Kidman Cruise. His mother
was an African-American New Yorker who had given birth on February 6, 1995.
While Connor and his sister, Bella, were too young to appreciate it, they were
now part of a family of traveling troubadours. Only weeks after Tom and Nicole
signed the paperwork for the adoption, baby Connor was flown out of America.
It marked a new stage in the couple’s marriage, a journey that took them away
from their home for longer than any of them anticipated.

---