Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

Confidential. Certainly Drabinsky was more enthusiastic about the movie and
Tom’s input than the actor himself. “He was terrific,” he says. “Respectful,
hardworking, and humble, with a very professional approach on set.”
As in his school days, however, trouble had a way of finding Tom. When a
late-night fight broke out near his trailer on the set of Losin’ It, rather than call
for assistance, he tried to break up the brawl himself. He later claimed that he
“nearly got killed.” As the actor held down one guy, he kept dodging his
pumping fist, and it was only after members of the crew heard the shouting and
came to help that they discovered that the thug was trying to hit Tom with an ice

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pick.
Even after film production moved from the border town of Calexico back to
Los Angeles, Tom got himself into more scrapes. He was apparently threatened
with a gun when he and several members of the film’s production team visited
the infamous Lingerie Club on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. The young actor was
dancing with an attractive Asian girl while some crew members were drinking at
the bar. The next thing they knew, she had pulled a gun on her dance partner.
“We grabbed Tommy and got the hell outta that club as fast as possible,” an
anonymous cast member told writer Wesley Clarkson.
Later that year, when Tom headed back east to meet up with his Glen Ridge
buddies, his roving eye nearly cost him his career. Tom and his friends Michael
LaForte and Vinnie Travisano were out barhopping in Manhattan and ended up
at the Ritz nightclub, which then hosted hip-hop bands like Rock Steady Crew
and Bow Wow Wow. As was his wont, Tom started trying to pick up every girl
in the joint. He was hitting on two girls at the bar, oblivious to the fact that they
were with a couple of unamused muscle men. Vinnie saw one guy reach into his
pocket and slip brass knuckles on his hand, ready to punch the budding movie
star. Michael and Vinnie intervened and hustled their friend out of harm’s way.
“We always used to say that we had saved his career because we saved his
beautiful teeth,” recalls Vinnie.
Indeed, Tom’s career was nearly over before it had begun. When Drabinsky
tried to sell his movie, he found the studios cool to hostile. Fox Studios had first
option on the film, but when Fox’s vice chairman Norman Levy sat through a
screening, his verdict was damning. He hated the film. Nor did he have kind
words for Tom Cruise. He told Drabinsky bluntly: “The film will never sell and
Tom Cruise will not be an important actor.” Understandably, Drabinsky has
never forgotten that meeting—or the verdict on Tom Cruise. At the time the idea
of a sequel was out of the question.
What saved his career was the release of Taps just before Christmas 1981,
several months before the disastrous Losin’ It came out. While the movie opened
to cool critical notices, it made money, attracting the notoriously fickle youth
market and earning plaudits for the central performances of Tim Hutton and
Sean Penn. Although Tom passed unnoticed when he attended his first black-tie
gala premiere, joining Hollywood notables like Michael Douglas and Ali
MacGraw as well as fellow cast members at the AVCO movie theater in
Westwood, Los Angeles, his portrayal of the psychotic David Shawn did create
something of a stir among Hollywood insiders.
The director and writer Cameron Crowe identified the buzz around the young
actor at a party for the film version of his book Fast Times at Ridgemont High,

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which propelled Sean Penn to stardom. “The legend of Taps was in the air,” he
recalled. “Sean and Tom had acquired these reputations. Sean was sort of Sean
De Niro, this character actor extreme. Tom had both moves, character, and
leading man. He was The Guy.”
At that time The Guy was still licking his professional wounds after the
creative train wreck that was Losin’ It. The experience taught the nineteen-year-
old a degree of humility. Even though the film put his name up in lights, he
realized how inexperienced he was. “I had been offered some lead roles, but I
didn’t feel that I could carry a film,” he said of this period in his career. “I hadn’t
learned enough and I felt that I would be eaten alive to try and carry a movie by
himself.” Not for the first time, however, fortune smiled on the young man.
When he heard that Francis Ford Coppola, the genius behind The Godfather,
was casting for a screen version of S. E. Hinton’s best-selling book about
teenage life, The Outsiders, Tom was determined to hustle for a role. At the
auditions he literally pulled Coppola aside and told him, “I’ll do anything it
takes; I’ll play any role in this.” His tactics paid off: Tom was offered the small