British postcard by New Line, no. 121.

American actor and singer Don Johnson (1949) won a Golden Globe in 1986 for his lead role as James 'Sonny' Crockett in the police series Miami Vice, in which he played more than 100 episodes. Earlier, he was acclaimed for his lead role in the Science-Fiction film A Boy and His Dog (1975). Although he had been acting since 1970, he also released two music albums. His biggest hit was 'Heartbeat' from the 1986 album of the same name. His later films include Tin Cup (1996), Machete (2010), Django Unchained (2012) and Knives Out (2019).

Donnie 'Don' Wayne Johnson was born in Flat Creek, Missouri, in 1949. He is the son of Freddie Wayne Johnson, a farmer and Nell Johnson (née Wilson), a beautician. When he was six years old, his family moved to Kansas. In 1967, he graduated from Wichita South High School, where he was involved in the high school's theatre program. As a senior, he played the lead role of Tony in 'West Side Story'. He studied at the University of Kansas as a theatre major but dropped out after one year, and moved to San Francisco to study drama at the American Conservatory Theatre. In 1969, he starred in the Los Angeles stage production 'Fortune and Men's Eyes'. The play included a prison rape scene with Johnson as the victim. He made his film debut as Stanley Sweetheart in the quickly forgotten drama The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (Leonard Horn, 1970) about a confused college student's experiences with sex, relationships, and drugs. Johnson continued to work on stage, film and television without breaking into stardom. His notable films from this period were the acid Western Zachariah (George Englund, 1971), the coming-of-age film The Harrad Experiment (Ted Post, 1973), Lollipop and Roses (1974) and the ci-Fi black comedy A Boy and His Dog (L. Q. Jones, 1975). In 1976, Johnson was the roommate of actor Sal Mineo at the time Mineo was murdered. Every TV pilot in which Johnson starred failed to launch. He was nicknamed a six-time loser in Hollywood because he was part of six series that did not make it to television. In the 1980s, Johnson managed to get into a series that became successful, Miami Vice. He played the role of undercover police detective Sonny Crockett and formed a legendary police duo with Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs. John Russell at IMDb: "It revolutionized television with its modern fashion, pop music, unique style and use of real locations." Crockett embodied the masculine cool of the 1980s with his thousand-dollar Versace and Hugo Boss suits over pastel cotton T-shirts, his Ferrari, Rolex and Endeavour yacht. Miami Vice aired between 1984 and 1990. Johnson won a Golden Globe and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his role. Between seasons on Miami Vice, Johnson starred in TV miniseries such as the remake The Long, Hot Summer (Stuart Cooper, 1985). As a singer, he released the albums 'Heartbeat' (1986) and 'Let It Roll' (1989). His 'Heartbeat' cover version peaked at no. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. After the series ended he focused solely on his film career. Although films like Dead Bang (John Frankenheimer, 1989), The Hot Spot (Dennis Hopper, 1990) and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (Simon Wincer, 1991) with Mickey Rourke, did not fare well with the critics, quite a few of them have obtained a considerable cult following.

In the late 1990s, Don Johnson became successful again as Nash in the television series Nash Bridges (1996-2001) about a detective with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Johnson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996. In 2005, Johnson briefly starred in the courtroom television drama show Just Legal as a jaded lawyer with a young and idealistic protégé/partner (Jay Baruchel). It was cancelled after just three episodes. Johnson appeared in the West End of London production of 'Guys and Dolls' (2007). He also appeared in films like the sports film Tin Cup (Ron Shelton, 1996) with Kevin Costner, the Neo-Noir comedy Goodbye Lover (Roland Joffé, 1998) with Patricia Arquette, the romantic comedy When in Rome (Mark Steven Johnson, 2010) with Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel, and the exploitation action film Machete (Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis, 2010). Johnson travelled to Europe to make the Norwegian screwball comedy Lange flate ballær II/Long Flat Balls II (Harald Zwart, 2008) and the Italian films Bastardi/Bastards (Federico Del Zoppo, Andres Alce Meldonado, 2008) with Franco Nero, and Torno a vivere da solo/I'll Be Back to Living Alone (Jerry Calà, 2008). In 2012, Quentin Tarantino, a fan of Miami Vice, gave Johnson a role in his film Django Unchained. Johnson played a southern plantation owner named Spencer 'Big Daddy' Bennett. In 2014, he played seasoned Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series. In 2019, Johnson played Richard Drysdale in the murder mystery Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019) starring Daniel Craig and acted as Police Chief Judd Crawford in the superhero series Watchmen (2019). Don Johnson married actress Melanie Griffith twice, the first time for a short period in 1976. Between 1981 and 1985, Johnson lived with actress Patti D'Arbanville. They have a son, actor Jesse Johnson (1982). Johnson had a relationship with Barbra Streisand. Together, they recorded the single 'Till I Loved You'. Between 1989 and 1996, Johnson was married for the second time to Melanie Griffith. In 1989, they had a daughter, film star Dakota Johnson. Johnson married Kelley Phleger in 1999, with whom he had three children: a daughter, Atherton Grace (1999), and two sons, Jasper Breckinridge (2002) and Deacon (2006).

Sources: John Russell (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

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British postcard by New-Line, no. 211.

Patrick Swayze (1952-2009) was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He had his big break with a starring role in the hit Dirty Dancing (1987). Swayze scored big again with a tough-guy role in the rollicking action drama Road House (1989), as well as the romantic lead in the supernatural drama Ghost (1990).

Patrick Wayne Swayze was born in Houston, Texas, in 1952. His mother, Patsy Swayze (née Yvonne Helen Karnes), was a well-known choreographer whose credits include choreography for Urban Cowboy (James Bridges, 1980) and other films. His father, Jesse Wayne, was a chemical plant engineer and a former rodeo cowboy. Patrick went through school and soon found that both dancing and acting were in his blood. With his mother as his first dance teacher and a father who encouraged him to keep up with sports, young Patrick soon found himself on stage as a dancer as well as an actor. He was also a member of his university's gymnastics team. He took classes with the Houston Jazz Ballet Company, Harkness Ballet Theatre School (New York) and Joffrey Ballet Company, among others. Finally, he joined Eliot Feld Ballet Company as a dancer. The role of Danny Zuko in the original Broadway production of 'Grease', which had already made John Travolta famous, was the opening to Hollywood for Swayze. In 1975, he married the dancer, actress and lyricist Lisa Niemi, whom he had known since he was 19 and she was 15 and a student at his mother's dance school. From 1979 he played leading and supporting roles in film and television productions such as the television movie The Renegades (Roger Spottiswoode, 1982) and the feature film The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983) with C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise. He became known to a wider audience in the action film The Red Dawn (John Milius, 1984). Worldwide success was the Miniseries North and South (Richard T. Heffron, 1985), based on the trilogy of novels 'North and South' by John Jakes. In the twelve-part miniseries, Swayze played plantation owner Orry Main, one of the two main roles alongside George Hazard, portrayed by James Read. Swayze had a close friendship with James Read for a time.

Patrick Swayze became best known for his role as a dance teacher in the highly successful dance film Dirty Dancing (1987), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Before his starring role, few fans knew that Swayze was an excellent dancer. In addition to his acting, he also worked as a singer for the film. He contributed the power ballad 'She's Like the Wind' to the film's soundtrack, which charted worldwide. He played an expert barroom bouncer in the action drama Road House (Rowdy Herrington, Joel Silver, 1989) opposite Kelly Lynch and Ben Gazzara. For his portrayal of Sam Wheat alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Demi Moore in Ghost (Jerry Zucker, 1990), Swayze received his second Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in 1990. The tragicomedy was the highest-grossing film of 1990 and ended up grossing more than $200 million. The surfing thriller Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991), with Swayze opposite Keanu Reeves, became another worldwide box-office success. He earned another Golden Globe nomination for playing a drag queen in To Wong Foo, thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (Beeban Kidron, 1995). After the death of his father in 1982, Swayze struggled with alcohol problems. After his sister committed suicide in 1994, he decided to go to rehab. After a three-year break from the film business, Patrick Swayze returned to the screen in Black Dog (Kevin Hooks, 1998) as trucker Jack Crews. After that, he mostly appeared in supporting roles and independent productions such as the dark mystery drama Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) starring James Gyllenhaal, Waking Up in Reno (Jordan Brady, 2002) and 11:14 (Greg Marcks, 2003). In December 2003, he returned to Broadway as a replacement for the lead role of Billy Flynn in the acclaimed revival of John Kander & Fred Ebb's musical, 'Chicago'. In 2008, a spokesman for Swayze announced that he had pancreatic cancer. The spokesman denied that the actor had a short time to live. At the time, Swayze was responding well to treatment and was able to continue his daily activities. However, his condition worsened and a year and a half later, in 2009, Swayze died at the relatively young age of 57.

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Cammila Collar (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.

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British postcard by New-Line, no. 193. Photo: Paramount. Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Rick Rossovich and Anthony Edwards in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

American actor and producer Tom Cruise (1962) became with his charismatic smile the most successful member of Hollywood's Brat Pack, the golden boys and girls of the 1980s. Top Gun (1986) made him an action star, but with his roles in The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) he proved himself to be an all-round star and excellent actor. During the 1990s, he continued to combine action blockbusters like Mission Impossibe (1996) with highly acclaimed dramas like A Few Good Men (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Magnolia (1999). He received more praise for his roles in Minority Report (2000) and Collateral (2002) and was for years one of the highest paid actors in the world. Although he continued to score major box office hits with the Mission Impossible franchise, his later work was overshadowed by his outspoken attitude about Scientology which alienated him from many of his viewers.

Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in 1962 in Syracuse, NY. He is the only son of Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. He has three sisters: Marian, Lee Anne De Vette, and Cass. In 1974, when Cruise was 12, his parents divorced. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband. Deeply religious, he enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with the ambition to join the priesthood. He dropped out after one year. In high school, he was a wrestler until he was sidelined by a knee injury. Soon taking up acting, he found that the activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated his need for attention, while the memorisation aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia. Moving to New York in 1980, he studied drama at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, in conjunction with the Actors Studio, New School University, New York. He signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and began acting in films. His film debut was a small part in Endless Love (Franco Zeffirelli, 1981), starring Brooke Shields. It was followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps (Harold Becker, 1981), starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983). The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the 'Brat Pack', a group of twenty-something actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early 1980s. Cruise's first big hit was the coming-of-age comedy Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), in which he entered film-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents' absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. From the outset, he exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. Cruise played the male lead in the dark fantasy Legend (Ridley Scott, 1985) and the action film Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986) with Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer. Top Gun (1986) established Cruise as an action star. However, he refused to be pigeonholed and followed it up with a solid characterisation of a fledgling pool shark in The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), for which co-star Paul Newman earned an Academy Award. In 1988, he played the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in the drama Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988). However, Cruise had not yet totally convinced critics he was more than a pretty face while he also starred in Cocktail (Roger Donaldson, 1988), which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. His chance came when he played paraplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989). For his role, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

In 1990 Tom Cruise renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. He was introduced to Scientology by his ex-wife Mimi Rogers. Though Cruise's bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away (Ron Howard, 1990) with his then-wife Nicole Kidman, A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992) brought him back into the game. By 1994, the star was undercutting his own leading man image with the role of the slick, dastardly vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), opposite Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. Although the author was vehemently opposed to Cruise's casting, Rice famously reversed her decision upon seeing the actor's performance, and publicly praised Cruise's portrayal. In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the reboot of Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), but it was with his multilayered performance in Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996), that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. For Jerry Maguire, he won another Golden Globe and received his second Oscar nomination. According to IMDb, Cruise is the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in the United States: A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996). 1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1990). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The film, which was the director's last, had been the subject of controversy, rumour, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood's most well-placed movers and shakers. Cruise's enviable position was again solidified later in 1999 when he earned a third Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a loathsome 'sexual prowess' guru in Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)."

In 2000, Tom Cruise scored again when he returned as an international agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000), which proved to be one of the summer blockbusters. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year and had a mixed critical reception. He then reteamed with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997) titled Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz. Though Vanilla Sky's sometimes surreal trappings found the film receiving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year's massively successful Sci-Fi chase film Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2001), or of the historical epic The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003). For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he'd ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the psychological thriller Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004). He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he'd built his career on, and for doing so convincingly. He teamed up with Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The summer blockbuster was in some ways overshadowed, however, by a cloud of negative publicity. It began, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to combat her postpartum depression, going so far as to call the psychological science a "Nazi science" in an Entertainment Weekly interview. In 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a "pseudoscience," and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. This behaviour caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise's enthousiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he jumped up and down on the couch, professing his love for the newly-Scientologist Holmes. The actor's new public image alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring release of Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006), his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years. Despite this, the film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office. Cruise moved on to making headlines on the business front when he and corporate partner Paula Wagner in 2006 officially " took over" the United Artists studio, which was all but completely defunct. One of the first films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), with Redford, Cruise, and Meryl Streep. The film took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war but was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by the World War II thriller Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) with Kenneth Branagh and Carice van Houten.

Tom Cruise would find a solid footing as the 2010s progressed, with blockbusters like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie, 2015). He is known for doing many of his own stunts in these films, even exceptionally dangerous ones. The Mission Impossible franchise earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Cruise reteamed with Cameron Diaz in the action-comedy Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010). He starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012). He also starred in big-budget fantasy projects like Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). Tom Cruised was married three times. His first wife was actress Mimi Rogers, with whom he was married from 1987 till their divorce in 1990. His second marriage with Nicole Kidman from 1990 till 2001. They adopted two children Isabella Jane Cruise (1992) and Connor Antony Cruise (1995). he lived together with Vanilla Sky (2001) co-star Penélope Cruz from 2001 - 2004. His 2006 marriage to Katie Holmes ended in divorce in 2012. They have one daughter, Surie Cruise (2006). Recently, Cruise returned on the screen as Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018). In 2020, he will also return as Pete " Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2020), in which Val Kilmer will also reprise his role from the first film.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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British postcard New-Line, no. 229. Photo: Madonna and Warren Beatty in Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990).

Madonna or Madonna Louise Ciccone (1958) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. During the MTV craze in the 1980s, Madonna pushed boundaries with her song texts and her provocative performances. She frequently reinvented herself and her music and stayed the 'Queen of Pop' for decades. Her global bestsellers were hits such as Like a Virgin (1984) and True Blue (1986), but for us she became more interesting with songs like Like a Prayer (1989), Vogue (1991) and Frozen (1998). And we're still fan, even of some of her films, including Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Truth or Dare (1991), and Evita (1996). The remarkable, hyper-ambitious Material Girl who never stops reinventing herself, Madonna is a seven-time Grammy Award-winner who has sold over three hundred million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide.

Madonna was born Madonna Louise Ciccone in 1958 in Bay City, Michigan. Her father is Italian, her mother was French-Canadian. Her siblings are Anthony Ciccone (1956), Martin Ciccone (1957), Paula Ciccone (1959), Christopher Ciccone (1960), and Melanie Henry (1962). In 1962, Madonna's mother, pregnant with her sixth child, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She delayed treatment until her baby was born, but by that time it was too late. A harrowing, yearlong battle with the disease ensued. She lost her battle with cancer in 1963. In 1978, Madonna moved to New York and studied with renowned choreographer Alvin Ailey. She joined up with the Patrick Hernandez Revue, formed a pop/dance band called 'Breakfast Club', and began working with then-boyfriend Stephen Bray on recording several disco-oriented songs. New York producer/D.J. Mark Kamins passed her demo tapes to Sire Records in early 1982 and the rest is history. The 1980s was Madonna's boom decade, and she dominated the music charts with a succession of multimillion-selling albums. Madonna first appeared on screen in two low-budget films marketed to an adolescent audience: A Certain Sacrifice (Stephen Jon Lewicki, 1979) and Crazy for You (Harold Becker, 1985), starring Matthew Modine. Her first film, A Certain Sacrifice (1979), was released in 1985, after she became a star, but was actually shot in two parts, the first in 1979, and the other, in 1981. However, she scored a minor cult hit with Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985) starring alongside spunky Rosanna Arquette. In 1984, she started fashion trends with her unique look using rosaries and crosses as jewelry and black rubber typewriter bands as bracelets. Legions of adolescent girls mimicked her look and a Madonna clothing store was opened in New York. Again in 2001, another huge fashion trend was set off by the "Material Mom", this time with western wear - cowboy hats and mud-splattered jeans. In 1986, she starred with then-husband Sean Penn in Shanghai Surprise (Jim Goddard, 1986), which was savaged by critics. She managed to somewhat improve her standing in the cinema with her next two films, the off-beat Who's That Girl (James Foley, 1987) and the quirky Damon Runyon-inspired Bloodhounds of Broadway (Howard Brookner, 1989).

Madonna played in the big-budget and star-filled Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990) bad girl Breathless Mahoney flirting with Warren Beatty. The epic failed to catch fire at the box office. Taking an earthier role, Madonna was much more entertaining alongside Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own (Penny Marshall, 1992), a story about female baseball players during W.W.II. However, she again drew the wrath of critics with the whodunit Body of Evidence (Uli Edel, 1992) with Willem Dafoe, an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of the sexy Sharon Stone thriller Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992). Several other minor screen roles followed, then Madonna starred as Eva Perón opposite Jonathan Pryce and Antonio Banderas in Evita (Alan Parker, 1996), a fairly well-received screen adaptation of the hugely successful Broadway musical, for which she received a Golden Globe for Best Actress. The Material Girl stayed away from the film cameras for several years, returning to co-star with Rupert Everett in the lukewarm romantic comedy The Next Best Thing (John Schlesinger, 2000), followed by the painful Swept Away (2002) for husband Guy Ritchie. If those films weren't bad enough, she was woefully miscast as a vampish fencing instructor in the James Bond adventure Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002) starring Pierce Brosnan. Madonna began a directing career in 2008 with the comedy Filth and Wisdom (Madonna, 2008), and a year later she reunited with Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) director Alek Keshishian to develop a script about the relationship between the Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor that led to his abdication in 1936: the result, a movie named W.E. (Madonna, 2011), starring James D'Arcy and Andrea Riseborough as the infernal but still royal couple. The film was released in 2011 to lukewarm critics but it gathered one Oscar nomination for costumes and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for 'Masterpiece'. Madonna has 6 children: daughter, Lourdes Leon (1996) with an ex-boyfriend, Carlos Leon, son, Rocco Ritchie (2000), and adoptive son, David Banda Mwale Ciccone Ritchie (2005) with ex-husband, Guy Ritchie, and adoptive daughters, Mercy James Ciccone (2006), Estere Ciccone and Stella Ciccone (2012).

Source: Wikipedia and IMDb.

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British postcard by New Line, no. 64. Photo: Transworld B.V. Entertainment.

American actor and producer Tom Cruise (1962) became with his charismatic smile the most successful member of Hollywood's Brat Pack, the golden boys and girls of the 1980s. Top Gun (1985) made him an action star, but with his roles in The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) he proved himself to be an all-round star and excellent actor. During the 1990s, he continued to combine action blockbusters like Mission Impossibe (1996) with highly acclaimed dramas like A Few Good Men (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Magnolia (1999). He received more praise for his roles in Minority Report (2000) and Collateral (2002) and was for years one of the highest paid actors in the world. Although he continued to score major box office hits with the Mission Impossible franchise, his later work was overshadwowed by his outspoken attitude about Scientology which alienated him from many of his viewers.

Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in 1962 in Syracuse, NY. He is the only son of Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. He has three sisters: Marian, Lee Anne De Vette and Cass. In 1974, when Cruise was 12, his parents divorced. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband. Deeply religious, he enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with the ambition to join the priesthood. He dropped out after one year. At high-school, he was a wrestler until he was sidelined by a knee injury. Soon taking up acting, he found that the activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated his need for attention, while the memorisation aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia. Moving to New York in 1980, he studied drama at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, in conjunction with the Actors Studio, New School University, New York. He signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and began acting in films. His film debut was a small part in Endless Love (Franco Zeffirelli, 1981), starring Brooke Shields. It was followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps (Harold Becker, 1981), starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983). The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the 'Brat Pack', a group of twenty-something actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early 1980s. Cruise's first big hit was the coming-of-age comedy Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), in which he entered film-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents' absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. From the outset, he exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. Cruise played the male lead in the dark fantasy Legend (Ridley Scott, 1985) and the action film Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986) with Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer. Top Gun (1986) established Cruise as an action star. However, he refused to be pigeonholed, and followed it up with a solid characterszation of a fledgling pool shark in The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), for which co-star Paul Newman earned an Academy Award. In 1988, he played the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in the drama Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988). However, Cruise had not yet totally convinced critics he was more than a pretty face while he also starred in Cocktail (Roger Donaldson, 1988), which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. His chance came when he played paraplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989). For his role, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

In 1990 Tom Cruise renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. He was introduced to Scientology by his ex-wife Mimi Rogers. Though Cruise's bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away (Ron Howard, 1990) with his-then wife Nicole Kidman, A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992) brought him back into the game. By 1994, the star was undercutting his own leading man image with the role of the slick, dastardly vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), opposite Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. Although the author was vehemently opposed to Cruise's casting, Rice famously reversed her decision upon seeing the actor's performance, and publicly praised Cruise's portrayal. In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the reboot of Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), but it was with his multilayered performance in Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996), that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. For Jerry Maguire, he won another Golden Globe and received his second Oscar nomination. According to IMDb, Cruise is the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in the United States: A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996). 1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1990). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The film, which was the director's last, had been the subject of controversy, rumour, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation, and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood's most well-placed movers and shakers. Cruise's enviable position was again solidified later in 1999, when he earned a third Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a loathsome 'sexual prowess' guru in Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)."

In 2000, Tom Cruise scored again when he returned as international agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000), which proved to be one of the summer blockbusters. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year, and had a mixed critical reception. He then reteamed with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997) titled Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz. Though Vanilla Sky's sometimes surreal trappings found the film receiving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year's massively successful Sci-Fi chase film Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2001), or of the historical epic The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003). For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he'd ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the psychological thriller Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004). He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he'd built his career on, and for doing so convincingly. He teamed up with Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The summer blockbuster was in some ways overshadowed, however, by a cloud of negative publicity. It began, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to combat her postpartum depression, going so far as to call the psychological science a "Nazi science" in an Entertainment Weekly interview. In 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a "pseudoscience," and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. This behaviour caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise's enthousiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he jumped up and down on the couch, professing his love for the newly-Scientologist Holmes. The actor's new public image alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring release of Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006), his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years. Despite this, the film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series, and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office. Cruise moved on to making headlines on the business front, when he and corporate partner Paula Wagner in 2006 officially "took over" the United Artists studio, which was all but completely defunct. One of the first films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), with Redford, Cruise and Meryl Streep. The film took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war but was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by the World War II thriller Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) with kenneth Branagh and Carice van Houten.

Tom Cruise would find a solid footing as the 2010s progressed, with blockbusters like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie, 2015). He is known for doing many of his own stunts in these films, even exceptionally dangerous ones. The Mission Impossible franchise earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Cruise reteamed with Cameron Diaz in the action-comedy Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010). He starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012). He also starred in big budget fantasy projects like Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). Tom Cruised was married three times. His first wife was actress Mimi Rogers, with whom he was married from 1987 till their divorce in 1990. His second marriage with Nicole Kidman from 1990 till 2001. They adopted two children Isabella Jane Cruise (1992) and Connor Antony Cruise (1995). he lived together with Vanilla Sky (2001) co-star Penélope Cruz from 2001 - 2004. His 2006 marriage to Katie Holmes ended in a divorce in 2012. They have one daughter, Surie Cruise (2006). Recently, Cruise returned on the screen as Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018). In 2020, he will also return as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2020), in which Val Kilmer will also reprise his role from the first film.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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