Tom Cruise

An irrefutable Hollywood megastar who is equally magnetic and manic, revered and reviled, Cruise was just 21 when he landed his breakthrough role as a horny high-school hunk in 1983's sex romp Risky Business. With athletic good looks, a 1,000-watt smile and oodles of natural charm, he became an overnight celebrity, thanks in part to an iconic scene in which he danced around his living room to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" clad in a shirt, briefs and sunglasses. Eager to prove that he wasn't just another pretty boy, the young actor signed on to a number of diverse projects. Aside from a few bombs (the fantasy epic Legend, the flat comedy Cocktail), he was a hit at the box office, in lowbrow blockbusters (a cocky pilot in Top Gun, a cocky race-car driver in Days of Thunder) as well as in more high-minded fare (a protective younger brother in Rain Man, a disabled Vietnam vet in Born on the Fourth of July, which earned him an Oscar nod). Despite his fame, Cruise was — at least at this point in his life — fanatical about his privacy, including his devotion to the Church of Scientology. Yet a romance with his Days of Thunder costar Nicole Kidman — whom he married 10 months after divorcing his first wife, Mimi Rogers — landed him in the gossip columns. He starred opposite Kidman again in his next film, the 1992 flop Far and Away, but then reached new heights in a succession of hits: the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men, the action flick Mission: Impossible and the romantic comedy Jerry Maguire, which snagged him a second Academy Award nomination. At the apex of his fame, Cruise disappeared from the screen for three years in order to work with his wife under celebrated (and notoriously slow) director Stanley Kubrick on the sexual epic Eyes Wide Shut. Released in 1999, the convoluted film was neither a critical nor commercial success. But Cruise bounced back with an Oscar-nominated supporting turn as a sex guru in Magnolia that same year. It's ironic that so many of Cruise's roles revolved around sex considering that rumors abounded about his sexual orientation, leading the actor to file a number of defamation lawsuits. In 2001 his marriage to Kidman fell apart and their split dominated the tabloids for months, as did his subsequent relationship with Vanilla Sky costar Penelope Cruz. In the '00s, after two decades in showbiz, Cruise began averaging a blockbuster per year (Mission: Impossible II, Minority Report, War of the Worlds). However, in 2005 his off-screen antics began to sully his reputation, including his public feud with Brooke Shields over the merits of antidepressants; his constant championing of the controversial Scientology; and his bizarre romance with starlet Katie Holmes, which prompted him to proclaim his love standing atop a sofa on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Dubbed TomKat by the media, the couple enjoyed a whirlwind courtship and soon announced that they were engaged and pregnant. They welcomed a daughter in April, 2006 and tied the knot in November of that year. Their constant media attention earned them a 2006 Razzie award for being the year's most tiresome tabloid target.