Thursday, March 11, 2010

Cruise biography entertains more than actor's recent films

Published 10 February 2008 in Winnipeg Free Press:

Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography
By Andrew Morton
St. Martin's Press, 342 pages, $28.95

Reviewed by Michael Stimpson

Contrary to longstanding rumours, Tom Cruise is not gay.

In fact, he has a history of being a ladies' man with an aggressive courtship strategy, Andrew Morton writes in his much-discussed new biography of the Hollywood Top Gun.

That's one of the book's few nuggets not related to Scientology, the controversial and alleged religion to which Cruise belongs.

But even then there is a Scientology connection, as any gal of Tom's must embrace the faith. Joining the cult was part of the deal for actress Katie Holmes when she became the third Mrs. Cruise in 2006. If she didn't join, she couldn't marry him.

Their marriage was a big thing for Scientologists because it meant their leading celebrity spokesman was now half of their leading glamour couple.

Simply everything in Cruise's life nowadays is related to Scientology, writes Morton, a British journalist best known for his 1992 biography of Princess Diana.

Morton has built quite a reputation, with the Diana tome and books on Madonna and Monica Lewinsky, as a talented digger of dirt. He's renowned for his ability to find juicy details (or at least allegations) about his subjects.

This latest project presented a challenge as Cruise and everyone around him refused interviews.

To circumvent the Cruise camp's stonewalling, Morton turned to former friends and associates, many of whom are quoted anonymously. The megawatt-smile actor and Scientology have criticized Morton for that, but they gave him no choice.

The first two chapters are padded with tedious details about Cruise's genealogy (he was born in Syracuse, N.Y. as Thomas Cruise Mapother IV) and his boyhood in Ottawa, Kentucky and New Jersey. Who cares, for instance, if Cruise mowed lawns for $2 a shot as a kid in Ottawa?

Bizarrely, Morton mentions that the high school Cruise attended in New Jersey was the scene of a rape scandal years after Cruise's graduation. The relevance to Cruise is never explained.

The book's latter half is most interesting, as much of it is about Cruise's increasing immersion in Scientology and his emergence as the cult's most outspoken celebrity member.

Much of what Morton writes has already been reported, though perhaps not in as much detail and certainly not all in one book.

The story that Scientology volunteers laboured to create a flowery meadow for Cruise and second wife Nicole Kidman to traipse through, for instance, is old though perhaps not well-known.

Morton's assertion that Cruise is effectively Scientology's second-ranking member (after leader David Miscavige) is new but questionable. Morton offers no proof.

Similarly, Morton says Cruise-Kidman household staff "had to sign an eight-page confidentiality agreement in which they waived their First Amendment rights to free speech." But no evidence of this agreement is put before readers.

It would have been nice if at least a photo of the document's first page was included in the book's 32 pages of pictures. After all, an immigration document for "Tom's first known ancestor" is reproduced. If that's important enough for inclusion, then surely the contract, if it exists, is too.

This book is, ultimately, entertaining not as a movie-star bio but as an examination of a movie star's involvement in a cult.

Morton presents stories about Cruise's work in blockbusters like Mission: Impossible and Jerry Maguire, but that's not the meat of the book. The good stuff, and what's been causing a stir and generating litigation, is about Scientology and how it seems to pertain to every facet of Cruise's life.

In that respect, Morton has scored with a book that entertains more than most of Cruise's recent cinematic efforts.