HOWZAT

7 Tom Gun

In 1986, Cruise went stratospheric as a navy pilot in Top Gun, a feature-length advert for Reaganite military muscle that grossed $300 million, boosted navy recruitment and impelled small boys on BMXs to yell: “I feel the need - the need for speed!”

8 Finding his religion

In 1987, Cruise married the actor Mimi Rogers, seven years his senior, who is a Scientologist. He later joined the religion and is now rumoured to be an Operating Thetan level 7, one of Scientology's elite beings who are reputed to be able to use telekinesis, leave their bodies at will and telepathically control human beings and animals.

9 Playing with the big boys

Cruise starred opposite Paul Newman in The Colour of Money (1986) and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (1988), and earned the first of three Oscar nominations as a paraplegic Vietnam veteran in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989).

10 Thunderbolt

He then felt the need for more speed. But all he got from the motor-racing drama Days of Thunder (1990) were scathing reviews and a second wife, his co-star Nicole Kidman. They would later adopt two children, Isabella and Connor.

11 Bloodsport

The closest the relentlessly heterosexual Cruise has come to playing gay - not counting the famously homoerotic shirtless volleyball scene in Top Gun - was as Lestat the ambiguous bloodsucker in Interview with the Vampire (1994), an adaptation of Anne Rice's novel. “Tom Cruise is no more my Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler,” Rice snorted, although having seen his performance she changed her opinion.

12 Show me the money

With his Oscar-nominated turn as a sports agent in Jerry Maguire (1996), Cruise became the first actor to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in the US.

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