Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise

Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York,^[6] the son of Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer.^[7] Cruise's surname originates from his great-grandfather, Thomas Cruise O'Mara, who was adopted by a Welsh immigrant and renamed "Thomas Cruise Mapother".^[8][9][10] Cruise is of German, Irish, and English ancestry.^[11] His oldest sister, Lee Anne, was born in his parents' native Louisville, Kentucky, while his older sister Marian was born in Syracuse, as were Tom and his younger sister, Cass.^[12]
Cruise attended Robert Hopkins Public School for grades three, four, and five. The Mapother family then moved to the suburb of Beacon Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, so Cruise's father could take a position as a defence consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. There, Cruise completed grade six at Henry Munro Middle School, part of the Carleton Board of Education,^[13] where he was active in athletics, playing floor hockey almost every night, showing himself to be a ruthless player, and eventually chipping his front tooth. In the game British bulldogs, he then lost his newly capped tooth and hurt his knee.^[14] Henry Munro was also where Cruise became involved in drama, under the tutelage of George Steinburg.^[15] The first play he participated in was called IT, in which Cruise won the co-lead with Michael de Waal, one playing "Evil", the other playing "Good." The play met much acclaim, and toured with five other classmates to various schools around the Ottawa area, even being filmed at the local Ottawa TV station.^[16]
When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her.^[17]
In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati (on a church scholarship) and aspired to become a Catholic priest. In his senior year, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but he was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game.^[18]

Cruise said that he was bullied in school, and by his father who he said was "a merchant of chaos", and that he learned early on that his father was – and, by extension, some people were – not to be trusted: "I knew from being around my father that not everyone means me well."