Tom Cruise is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood right now. He has made a mark in the industry as the ‘savior of cinema’ when his film Top Gun: Maverick reportedly revived the theater industry after the pandemic. Cruise has been in the business for decades, beginning his career in 1981 and moving on to bigger films.
However, the actor has seen his share of failures in his four-decade-long career. Cruise starred in Ridley Scott’s Legend in 1985, but the film was reviewed as one of the worst films of his career. The film failed to recuperate its budget and was one of the biggest box office bombs. On top of that, Cruise suffered the loss of his father in the middle of the production.
After his Golden Globe-nominated role in Risky Business, Tom Cruise starred in Ridley Scott’s fantasy adventure film Legend in 1985. Inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, Scott envisioned the film as a dark fantasy with imagery similar to that of Disney’s Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The film was reportedly marred with production troubles due to the intense make-up required for most of the actors, especially actor Tim Curry who played the devilish Darkness. The set reportedly burned down when there were ten days left for production. Scott had to change the set and put it up again at a different studio and lost three days of filming.
Production reportedly shut down again when Tom Cruise had to leave after his father passed away due to cancer. The actor had a tough relationship with his father, whom he did not see for ten years while growing up. The actor reportedly told Parade,
“He was in the hospital dying of cancer, and he would only meet me on the basis that I didn’t ask him anything about the past. When I saw him in pain, I thought, ‘Wow, what a lonely life.’ He was in his late 40s. It was sad.”
Cruise returned and finished the shoot before going to work on Tony Scott’s Top Gun. However, Legend was again marred with studio troubles as the studio released a trimmed-down version of the film. Cruise reportedly supported Ridley Scott’s ‘Director’s Cut’, which was ultimately released in 2002.
Tom Cruise became one of the biggest stars in the world and has made a mark as a bonafide action star. However, the actor reportedly did not enjoy similar fanfare when he was a child as he described himself as being bullied and out-of-place most of the time. Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, but spent most of his childhood in Canada.
Cruise mentioned multiple times that he shared a difficult relationship with his father as the latter, Thomas Cruise Mapother III was abusive towards him when he was a child. He said to Parade,
“He was a bully and a coward. He was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life—how he’d lull you in, make you feel safe, and then, bang! For me, it was like, ‘There’s something wrong with this guy. Don’t trust him. Be careful around him.’ There’s that anxiety.”
The actor called his father a ‘merchant of chaos’ and Cruise mentioned that his father could never hold down a job. Tom Cruise’s mother reportedly left with the children when Cruise was 12 years old. He did not meet his father for ten years when he finally met him again after he was diagnosed with cancer. His father reportedly passed away in 1984.
