Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

Risky Business Two. The smart money would be on him morphing into a
character or supporting actor in big films.”
His “divorce” from his long-time business partner Paula Wagner, who had
been by his side during his golden age, was a portent for the future. In August
2008 she departed as chief executive of United Artists, the studio she and Tom
had taken over with ambitious ideas to make “edgy” films. Originally the plan
was to release four films a year, but in two years they had released only Lions
for Lambs. Hollywood insiders, quoting MGM executives, cited Wagner’s
inability to green-light projects as the reason for the abrupt parting of the ways.
“It had been simmering for some time. Tom likes action, Paula was not doing the
business,” noted one movie veteran. Notably Tom snapped up the rights to
author Duncan Preston’s thriller, The Monster of Florence, a couple of weeks
after Wagner left.
Even as the studio issued statements that Tom was still “a full partner in
charge of UA,” events were rapidly moving out of his control. In September
2008, Wall Street went into meltdown as financial institutions struggled to cope

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with a mountain of bad debt resulting from the sub-prime mortgage scandal. One
of the casualties was United Artists’s financial backer, Merrill Lynch, the 100-
year-old firm sold in haste to the Bank of America to save it from bankruptcy.
As shell-shocked bankers dusted themselves off, the future of the movie industry
was not high on their agenda.
Although a spokesperson for MGM, the parent company for UA, stated that
the credit line was still in place, the New York Post quoted one banker as saying
that Tom and his company might have to wait in line for cash to fund future
films. “Reworking a $500-million-dollar credit line for UA is going to be way
down Bank of America’s list of things to do. It could take six months to a year
before they even get around to looking at it.”
In many ways the crisis on Wall Street could serve as a modest metaphor for
Tom’s career. They were all masters of the universe, indomitable, invulnerable
and inviolable, and they all fell crashing to earth. After their near-death
experience, they lived to fight another day. More contrite, more considered and
more controlled perhaps. But still standing.
It was a warm, balmy evening in mid-September, bringing out crowds of tourists
and theatergoers on Broadway. On West 45th Street, a line snaked one hundred
yards down the block as the audience waited patiently to take their seats for the
first public performance of Arthur Miller’s 1947 play, All My Sons, starring John
Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and a certain Katie Holmes.
The drama began several hours before the curtain went up. Outside the
venerable Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, which has hosted such luminaries as
Glenn Close, Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov and Tallulah Bankhead, about thirty
demonstrators from the Anonymous Internet group, some wearing Guy Fawkes
masks, gathered in protest. They held up banners reading, “Free Katie” and “Run
Katie Run,” and handed out fliers saying that Scientology is a “dangerous scam
that ruins lives.” For the most part the theatergoers who lined the sidewalk were
bemused or mildly irritated, but the demonstration was a welcome photo
opportunity for the banks of waiting TV cameras and paparazzi.
The predominantly white, middle-class audience did not seem particularly
interested in Scientology. There were the curious who had come to take a closer
look at the girl whose life had morphed into a daily tabloid drama; the thrill-
seekers who wanted to watch Katie’s high-wire act, without the safety net of a
retake; and, of course, theater buffs arriving to see award-winning director
Simon McBurney’s take on Miller’s family drama.
However Katie performed during the play’s run, she would inevitably be
measured by the success of Tom’s second wife, who had Broadway critics

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swooning after her performance in The Blue Room. It jet-propelled Nicole
Kidman’s movie career, bringing Oscar glory and success independent of her
former husband. Certainly the equally ambitious Mrs. Cruise III could do with a
boost for her film career.
Rather rashly, she had turned down the chance to reprise her Batman Begins
role in the latest blockbuster, The Dark Knight—Maggie Gyllenhaal took the