Born in Syracuse, NY

July 3, 1962

Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Mary Lee, a sales lady, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. Cruise has German and Colonial English ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotte Louise Voelker; and purportedly Welsh ancestry from his paternal great-great-grandfather, Dylan Henry Mapother, who emigrated from Flint, Wales to Louisville, Kentucky in 1850.

Moved From Canada to Kentucky

March 1, 1975

In the Spring of 1975 Mrs. Mapother spirited Tom and his sisters out of Canada and returned to Kentucky as her relationship with her husband ended.

Glen Ridge High School

September 1, 1976 - June 15, 1980

Glen Ridge High School

Born in Toledo, OH

December 18, 1978

Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio, the youngest in a family of five children (four daughters, one son) of Kathleen A., a homemaker and a philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr., an attorney specializing in divorces.[6] She lived in the Corey Woods section of Sylvania Township, Lucas County, in a brick 1862 Italianate-style home. Her siblings are Tamera (born c. 1968), Holly Ann (born c. 1970), Martin Joseph, Jr. (born 1970), who works as a lawyer in Ohio, and Nancy Kay, Mrs. Blaylock (born c. 1975).

First film role

July 17, 1981

Cruise's first film role came in 1981, when he had a small role in Endless Love, a drama/romance film starring Brooke Shields.

Risky Business

August 5, 1983

Also in 1983, Risky Business was released, widely thought to be the film that propelled Cruise to stardom. One sequence in the film, featuring Cruise lip-syncing Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in his underwear, has become an iconic moment in film history. The film has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise".

Top Gun

May 16, 1986

Cruise was then selected as the first choice by producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson for an upcoming American fighter pilot film. Cruise at first apparently turned down the project, but helped to alter the script he was given and developed the film. After being taken for a flight with the Blue Angels, Cruise changed his mind and signed on with the project. The project was titled Top Gun and opened in May 1986, becoming the highest grossing film of the year, taking in US$353,816,701 in worldwide figures.

Mimi Rogers

May 9, 1987 - Feburary 4, 1990

Cruise was married to Mimi Rogers. Rogers is generally believed to have introduced Cruise to Scientology

Nicole Kidman

December 24, 1990 - August 8, 2001

Cruise met Nicole Kidman on the set of their film Days of Thunder. He and Kidman adopted two children, Isabella Jane (b. December 22, 1992) and Connor Antony (b. January 17, 1995). They separated when Kidman was three months pregnant, just before their tenth wedding anniversary; she later miscarried.

Interview with the Vampire

November 11, 1994

In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best selling novel which was also very well received, although Rice was outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film.

Turned down lead in Buffy the Vampire

January 1, 1997

In January 1997, Holmes went to Los Angeles for pilot season, when producers cast and shoot new programs in the hopes of securing a spot on a network schedule. The Blade reported she was offered the lead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer but she turned it down.

Dawson's Creek

January 20, 1998 - May 14, 2003

Dawson's Creek ran from 1998 to 2003, and Holmes was the only actor to appear in all 128 episodes. "It was very difficult for me to leave Wilmington, to have my little glass bubble burst and move on. I hate change. On the other hand it was refreshing to play someone else", she said in 2004. Holmes confirmed that, as is often the case on soaps, the character was a caricature of the actor:

"I miss her spirit, and her spunk, and I miss her anxiety. She always had these long speeches about her fears and her future and love. It was a great tool for me personally because I got to get it all out. I was able to psychoanalyze all of it everyday with her and then I wouldn't have to do it on my own. So much of me is in Joey and it really felt like I grew up on television."

Joshua Jackson

January 29, 1998 - March 7, 1999

Holmes dated her Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson for all the first season and part of the second season, the relationship ending peacefully. She told Rolling Stone, "I fell in love, I had my first love, and it was something so incredible and indescribable that I will treasure it always. And that I feel so fortunate because he's now one of my best friends."

Disturbing Behavior

July 24, 1998

Her first leading role came in Disturbing Behavior (1998), a Scream-era Stepford Wives-goes-to-high school thriller, where she was a loner from the wrong side of the tracks. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote her character, Rachel, "dresses in black and likes to strike poses on the beds of pickup trucks and is a bad girl who is in great danger of becoming a very good one." The actress won a MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance for the role, though Holmes said the film was "just horrible."

Chris Klein

June 10, 2000 - March 7, 2005

Holmes met actor Chris Klein in 2000. A Midwesterner like Holmes—he grew up in Illinois and Nebraska—Klein and Holmes were engaged in late 2003, but in early 2005 she and Klein ended their relationship. Press accounts cited the distance imposed by their careers as a factor. In the fall of 2005, Klein said of the split, "We grew up. The fantasy was over and reality set in."

Penelope Cruz

December 1, 2001 - January 10, 2004

Cruise was next romantically linked with Penelope Cruz, the lead actress in his film Vanilla Sky. In March 2004, he announced that their relationship had ended in January.

Tom Cruise

April 29, 2005 - Now

Weeks after her relationship with Chris Klein ended, Holmes began dating actor Tom Cruise. Their first public appearance together was on April 29, 2005, in Rome, Italy, at the David di Donatello Awards, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars. Her family expressed support, with her father stating, "We're very excited for Katie", and saying his daughter was "a very mature young lady with a good head on her shoulders. From all we have read and heard about [Cruise], he's a humanitarian and a real class act. From the perspective of a parent, we're very excited for both of them". Holmes's sister Tamara said, "They're both wonderful people.

Couch Incident

May 23, 2005

Cruise has made several expressions of his feelings for Holmes to the media, most notably the "couch incident" which took place on the popular Oprah Winfrey Show of May 23, 2005. Cruise "jumped around the set, hopped onto a couch, fell to one knee and repeatedly professed his love for his new girlfriend."

Katie Holmes

June 17, 2005 - Now

In April 2005, Cruise began dating Katie Holmes, before announcing on 17 June 2005 that he had proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. She accepted his proposal, and the couple married in Bracciano, Italy on November 18, 2006.

On April 18, 2006 Katie gave birth to a baby girl named Suri at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Cruise stated that the name derives from the Hebrew word for "princess" or the Persian word meaning red rose. (See also Sarah.) She is the first child for Holmes and third for Cruise, who (as previously mentioned) has two adopted children with Nicole Kidman.

Criticized actress Brooke Shields

June 24, 2005

A controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil (paroxetine), an anti-depressant, to which Shields attributes her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. This led to a heated argument with Matt Lauer on The Today Show on June 24, 2005. Brooke Shields responded to Cruise's comments by calling them "irresponsible and dangerous".

Suri is Born

April 18, 2006

On April 18, 2006 Katie gave birth to a baby girl named Suri at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.[33] Cruise stated that the name derives from the Hebrew word for "princess" or the Persian word meaning red rose.[34] (See also Sarah.) She is the first child for Holmes and third for Cruise, who (as previously mentioned) has two adopted children with Nicole Kidman.