American actor Tom Cruise was BOTD in 1962. Born in Syracuse, New York, he had a turbulent childhood, marked by his father’s physical and psychological abuse and his family continually moving. After his parents’ separation, he lived with his mother in New Jersey, and began acting in high school plays. He moved to New York and later to Hollywood to pursue an acting career, impressing with supporting roles in Taps and The Outsiders. He made his breakthrough in the high school sex comedy Risky Business, memorably dancing onscreen in his underwear, and became an international star as a frequently shirtless pilot in 1986’s Top Gun, possibly the gayest Hollywood film ever made about straight men. He earned critical praise for dramatic roles in The Color of Money with Paul Newman, and earned an Oscar-nomination for playing a disabled Vietnam veteran in Born on the Fourth of July. In the 1990s, he combined commercial Hollywood hits A Few Good Men, The Firm, Jerry Maguire and the phenomenally successful Mission Impossible action film franchise with edgier roles as the gay vampire Lestat in Interview With the Vampire and a psychopathic misogynist in Magnolia. After a brief marriage to actress Mimi Rogers (who introduced him to the Church of Scientology), he married his Days of Thunder co-star Nicole Kidman in 1990, adopting two children together. Hailed as a Hollywood power couple, their curious lack of sexual attraction, both off- and onscreen, was intriguingly explored in Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut, in which they played a married couple in crisis. Filmed over two years in conditions of extreme secrecy, the film was widely read as a portrait of their troubled marriage. Cruise abruptly left Kidman in 2001, igniting frenzied media speculation about his sexuality and commitment to Scientology as a “cure” for his homosexuality. He married actress Katie Holmes in 2006, announcing their engagement during a bizarre TV interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he excitedly jumped up and down on a sofa. They had a daughter together, divorcing after seven years. A vigorous defender of his own image, he won lawsuits with tabloids who reported that he was secretly gay and living in a sham marriage, and successfully sued gay porn star Chad Slater for claiming that they had been lovers. In 2022, Cruise continued his dominance of Hollywood with a sequel to Top Gun and yet another Mission Impossible film, confirming him as one of the world’s most bankable (and highest-paid) film actors. In 2025, he was awarded an Honorary Oscar for his contribution to the film history. His current relationship status is unknown, though he is rumoured to be dating Cuban actress Ana de Armas.