Tom Cruise's 65th Birthday Countdown

Tom Cruise Timeline

About Tom Cruise

Across more than four decades, Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, the Mission: Impossible saga, Cruise became synonymous with the summer blockbuster, famous for performing his own increasingly dangerous stunts.

A busted knee and a school musical

At Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey, Tom Cruise was a varsity wrestler with hopes of a college scholarship - until a knee injury ended that plan. Recovering and restless, he auditioned for the school production of Guys and Dolls and landed the lead role of Nathan Detroit. That detour became the whole road: he left for New York at 18, took a small part in Endless Love, and by 1983 Risky Business - a $63 million hit - had made the 21-year-old a movie star.

The $1.49 billion victory lap

Cruise's insistence on doing his own stunts is the stuff of legend: he scaled the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, for Ghost Protocol and clung to the side of an Airbus A400M during takeoff for Rogue Nation. The payoff came in 2022, when Top Gun: Maverick grossed $1.49 billion worldwide - the first billion-dollar film of his four-decade career - and Cannes surprised him with an honorary Palme d'Or, one of only a handful ever awarded.

Quiet checks for Hollywood's own

Cruise's most consistent cause is the Motion Picture and Television Fund, the charity that provides healthcare, housing, and services to entertainment-industry workers in need. In 2012 he hosted a charity auction that raised more than $1.2 million for the fund, and he was a key contributor to its $350 million fundraising campaign. He has also lent support to children's health charities, including the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes.

Quick facts

• Born July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York
• A high-school knee injury ended his wrestling hopes and led to his first musical role
• Climbed the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, for Ghost Protocol
• Top Gun: Maverick grossed $1.49 billion, the first billion-dollar film of his career
• Four-time Academy Award nominee
• Received an honorary Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival

Tom Cruise's biggest films