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Why is ‘Tom Cruise dead’ trending?

• Sarah Hooper
• Published : 4:47 ET, Mar 10 2023
• Updated : 10:57 ET, Mar 10 2023

A NASTY rumor about Hollywood legend Tom Cruise terrified fans as reports of his death circulated in March 2023.

Here's what we know about how the rumor started and if the actor is in any danger.

Why is 'Tom Cruise dead' trending?

A Facebook post began circulating in early March 2023, claiming the actor had passed away on March 8.

The post read: "At about 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday (March 08, 2023), our beloved actor Tom Cruise passed away.

"Tom Cruise was born on July 3, 1962 in Syracuse.

"He will be missed but not forgotten.

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""Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.”

The page, titled "RIP Tom Cruise", attracted over a million likes, with fans sharing an outpouring of grief.

On March 9, 2023, representatives of Cruise confirmed the actor is in fact, alive and well.

They said: “He joins the long list of celebrities who have been victimized by this hoax.

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"He's still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the internet.”

Cruise has been a victim of this hoax many times over the years.

What have Tom Cruise's fans said?

The Hollywood actor's fans initially shared their grief for the beloved star.

But of course the page was soon outed as a hoax as no major news sites were reporting something that would certainly make global headlines.

The social media page was swiftly taken down, but not before many shared their love for the star online.

When did the hoax start?

The hoax began around March 7, 2023, when a Facebook page was created in "memory" of the actor.

Cruise is in fact alive and well and hoping to nab an Oscar at the 2023 ceremony .

He has been nominated in the Best Picture category for his film Top Gun: Maverick .

It is the highest grossing film of his career, making over $1.4billion at the box office, outranking his sixth Mission Impossible movie, Fallout, which grossed $791.1m in 2018.

Cruise is up against Steven Spielberg in the Best Picture category.

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The actor and director appear to have brushed aside their years-long beef after Spielberg allegedly told Tom: "You saved Hollywood's ass, and, you might have saved theatrical distribution. 

"Seriously. Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry."

• US Explainers

Tom Cruise Confirms He's Not Dead

On Friday morning (May 28), as the good people of America prepared themselves for the long Memorial Day weekend by packing their bags and heading off to the beach, a rumor began spreading online that Tom Cruise had died. Word was, the actor died in an accident while in New Zealand.

But MTV News can confirm that the "Knight And Day" star is very much alive, and we got the word from Cruise himself. He just happened to be on the phone with MTV News on Friday, calling from London with Will.I.Am to promote the Black Eyed Peas' single "Someday," the theme song from the upcoming film.

When asked if he could confirm that he was alive, he joked, "No, I'm not. I'm a hologram."

Cruise clearly seemed to be enjoying the rumor. "I'm really alive," he said. "Did the Internet get it wrong again?"

When told how he reportedly died, in a plumbing accident in New Zealand, he laughed saying, "Get out." But he got serious for a moment to reassure his fans. "Yes, you can send the message out [that I am still alive]."

Cruise is the latest celebrity whose death has been erroneously reported on the Internet. Everyone from Britney Spears to Justin Bieber to Jeff Goldblum has been the victim of a similar hoax.

Are celeb death hoaxes funny or sick? Sound off in the comments.

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Behind ‘top gun: maverick’s’ emotional val kilmer-tom cruise reunion.

Director Joseph Kosinski reveals secrets from making the film on the 'Behind the Screen' podcast.

By Carolyn Giardina , Aaron Couch June 10, 2022 2:25pm

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[This story contains spoilers for Top Gun: Maverick . ]

Top Gun: Maverick is full of cutting-edge filmmaking that transports audiences into the cockpit of an F/A-18.  But amid the thrills, there is a much more intimate scene that is also garnering a strong reaction.

Midway through the film, Tom Cruise ’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell reunites with Val Kilmer ’s Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, who in the years since the events of 1986’s Top Gun has become an admiral. In his office, during a moving conversation, Iceman tells Maverick why he brought him back to Top Gun.

For filmmaker Joseph Kosinski , seeing Kilmer and Cruise reunite was a highlight of filming. After all, it was the contentious relationship between Maverick and Iceman that propelled the film into the pop culture consciousness, where it remains decades later.

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“To see how much respect they had for each other as actors, and to see a friendship that has evolved over 36 years — it really mirrored what you see onscreen in the scene,” Kosinski said on this week’s episode of THR ’s Behind the Screen podcast. “They are just two actors at the top of their game doing this really beautiful scene for the film that’s so important. It was a very emotional day on set.”

Kilmer has been open about battling throat cancer, revealing in his acclaimed 2021 documentary, Val , that his voice was never the same after a tracheostomy in 2014.

“Val and Tom performed the scene, and then we enhanced Val’s voice by blending it with another one, mostly for clarity, more than anything else,” said Kosinski of the moment in which Iceman addresses Maverick.

In the new episode of  Behind the Screen, Kosinski also details filming the flying scenes, and how they prepared prototypes of Sony’s Venice extension system, Rialto, to film the actors in the F/A-18s during flight.

“That was a 15-month development process to figure out how to take a prototype system and integrate it into an $80 million military aircraft and make it capable of withstanding 7 g’s   of force and 35,000 feet of altitude, and it had to be clear for an ejection and safe for the pilots,” Kosinski relates.

Of working with Cruise (they previously teamed on 2013’s  Obilivion ), the director notes, “He’s not just an actor in your film. Obviously, he’s a producer on this, but it’s really a partnership. He’s involved with every aspect of the filmmaking, and that collaboration is what he really feeds off of and enjoys. … He’s just got this energy that is infectious.”

Below are excerpts from the conversation, edited for length and clarity, followed by a link to the podcast.

Let’s talk about filming the actors in the F/A-18s.

Director of photography Claudio Miranda and I had been testing a prototype of the Venice camera that Sony makes, and he told me that they were working on a prototype version of the Venice called the Rialto, which allowed you to split the lens from the recorder on the body. So you essentially could take this very high-quality 6K camera that is certified by IMAX, you could break it into two pieces with a fiber-optic cable that connects the two halves, and you end up with a very small lens and sensor that can fit in very small spaces.

Claudia sat with the Navy engineers and went through the F-18 cockpit and pointed at every piece of equipment that was mounted in there and asked them if they needed it to fly. And whenever they said “No,” we asked them if they could pull it out. It was surprising how much stuff they were able to pull out, actually. It’s like a Tetris game. We figured out how to fit six of these Venice cameras in the cockpit — four cameras facing the actor and then one on each side shooting over their shoulder looking backward.   And then we were able to mount two additional cameras pointing forward over the Top Gun pilot.

It’s important to give Claudio and his camera team credit for figuring out this camera system. That was a 15-month development process to figure out how to take a prototype system and integrate it into an $80 million military aircraft and make it capable of withstanding 7 g’s   of force and 35,000 feet of altitude — and it had to be clear for an ejection and safe for the pilots …   and making it all easy to operate for the actors.

Would you talk about shooting the very emotional scene with Val Kilmer?  

That’s one of those memories I’ll never forget, where you’ve got this actor in Val, someone who I admired through his whole career, and having him play one of his most iconic characters reuniting with one of Tom’s most iconic characters onscreen for the first time in 36 years. Just to see how much respect they had for each other as actors and to see a friendship that has evolved over 36 years. They’re just two actors at the top of their game doing this really beautiful scene for the film that’s so important. It was just a very emotional day on set. … It’s not often you get to do a scene with that much kind of emotional weight in a summer tentpole film.  

What moment during that shoot do you most remember?

My favorite part of that scene is the button at the end, that sense of competition is always there. Despite them being friends, there’s still that one-upmanship that exists between, I think, all these pilots, and I also think between Tom and Val. I think that competition is what kind of made their relationship in the first film feel so electric and real, in that there was a bit of a rivalry there as young actors. So just that moment at the end, that hug and that bit of humor to me is kind of what really makes the scene work.  

Sadly, Val was diagnosed with throat cancer. I would imagine that this involved some sort of work on his voice.  

Yeah. So for that scene, Val and Tom performed the scene, and then we enhanced Val’s voice by blending it with another one,  mostly for clarity, more than anything else.

There are numerous stylistic nods to the original.

There are moments that are so iconic, stylistically, that really define what makes something feel like a Top Gun movie. So certainly there are those moments where there is a subtle stylistic nod, but also history repeating itself in a way, for instance where Maverick, who was one of those students in the first film, is introduced as a teacher.

Another nod to the original is the football scene on the beach, reminiscent of the volleyball scene.

When I was prepping the movie, it was the thing that I got asked most about — is there going to be a volleyball scene? — which kind of surprised me. So   the challenge was, if we’re going to do a beach scene, we got to work it into the narrative of our story. We’re not just going to do one to do it. Our screenwriting team figured out a smart way to integrate that scene into Maverick’s training. There is a reason — this notion of dog fight football offense and defense at the same time is a nice foreshadowing of what we’re going to see in the third act.  

Once it was clear that we were able to push the story forward and continue the narrative, then it was a matter of just having fun and being able to shoot a beach scene for Top Gun and just making the best version of it that I could. Obviously, got to give a lot of credit to our cast who worked very hard to prepare themselves for that scene.

Would you elaborate on the collaboration with the Navy?  

We couldn’t have made this film without the collaboration. The first thing I did after meeting with Tom and Jerry [Bruckheimer] and kicking off the project was to go out to the Teddy Roosevelt aircraft carrier and just embed with these men and women out there and start to figure out how to tell this story. The Navy was really helpful in kind of putting the whole mission together.

They were involved in the conception and the ideas and the execution. It was Top Gun pilots flying our actors and these planes doing real-world tactics. They gave us access to all their bases, including some places that are so secret, no one’s ever seen them before on camera. It was a really, really amazing collaboration with them. I was just so impressed with their professionalism and dedication and skill every step along the way.

Would you talk about collaborating with Tom Cruise?

This is my second film with Tom. He’s not just an actor in your film. Obviously, he’s a producer on this, but it’s really a partnership. He’s involved with every aspect of the filmmaking, and that collaboration is what he really feeds off of and enjoys. For me, it’s just great to have someone who’s so motivated and has made 50 films, so many of them with my heroes in terms of other directors. There’s always something to learn from him. And he’s just got this energy that is infectious. Everyone on the crew feeds off that and everyone’s inspired to do their best work, which obviously we do anyway, but you know, this being Top Gun , we all knew the bar was high and just wanted to make something really special. You can see there’s a lot of care put into it from every department on this film to deliver the best film we could.

For the full conversation, the Behind the Screen episode follows, below.

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These 60 Facts About Tom Cruise Will Tell You Everything You Need to Know

Otherwise ageless movie star tom cruise is celebrating his 60th birthday and here's a guide to the man behind the myth..

Tom Cruise , he of the ageless face, body and energy level, is celebrating a birthday July 3.

Contrary to what's visible to the naked eye, the actor is turning 60. 

He has the appropriate amount of work under what must be a utility belt to back that up, including his first-ever billion-dollar box office haul with Top Gun: Maverick . But it's Cruise's sheer zest for entertaining audiences that continues to awe and delight.

And his viral lecture  in December 2020, when COVID-19 pandemic protocol wasn't taken as seriously as he demanded on the set of Mission: Impossible 7 ,   proved that the world's biggest movie star isn't afraid to throw his hard-earned Hollywood weight around, either.

"I said what I said," he told Empire  in an interview published in May 2021. "There was a lot at stake at that point."

Alas, production was suspended anyway  in June 2021 after a positive COVID test, but after all sorts of pandemic-induced delays,  Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One is  finally  slated for July 14, 2023, with Part Two  to follow on June 28, 2024.

"I have an aggressive side, absolutely," Cruise told Cameron Crowe 36 years ago  for  Interview  magazine . "I need a creative outlet. Now I work out every day. I get up and work out 45 to 60 minutes. And that's how I start my day. Discipline is very important to me."

When Brad Pitt , who's only 58, told GQ Australia  a few years ago that he thinks making movies (or at least being in them) is "a younger man's game," you could practically hear Cruise's inimitable laugh.

So, with our need for speed recently fulfilled, in honor of his milestone birthday here are 60 things to know about Tom Cruise:

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1. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV  was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, N.Y., to  Thomas Cruise Mapother III , an electrical engineer, and Mary Lee Pfeiffer , both of Louisville, Ky. (His grandfather and great-grandfather were both Thomas Cruise Mapother, as well.)

2. He has two older sisters, Lee Anne and Marian , and one younger sister, Catherine , nicknamed Cass. 

3. Cruise wanted to act from around the time he was 4 and started doing impressions of everyone from Donald Duck to Humphrey Bogart and Elvis Presley .

4. In 1974, when the family was living in Ottawa, Mary Lee packed up and took the kids back to Louisville. She officially divorced Tom III in August 1975 and, six weeks later, he remarried, briefly. Joan Lebendiger , recently widowed, had four kids, one of whom later told biographer Andrew Morton that they never saw their stepbrother Tom again after the wedding.

"As a kid, I had a lot of hidden anger about that. I'd get hit, and I didn't understand it," Cruise  recalled to  Vanity Fair  in 1994.

"He was the kind of guy who really got picked on a lot at school himself when he was growing up," he said of his father. "He had also been small, though he ended up being six foot two. People had been quite brutal to him. Inside, I believe he was a really sensitive individual." Tom III could also "actually be quite loving." 

But in 2006 he told Parade  that his dad was "a bully and a coward—the 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!"

Cruise visited his father in the hospital before he died of cancer in 1984 and Tom III said he'd get better and they would "'talk about the whole thing,'" the actor told  VF , but that never came to pass.

5. Tom was very close to his mother, whom he described to James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio   as "a very warm, charismatic woman, very kind, very generous." She worked four jobs at any given time to take care of them, and Tom had a paper route to pitch in. "Every night I'd come home, bathe my feet and sit in the family room, and Tom would massage my feet for a half-hour," Mary Lee recalled to Rolling Stone . (She died at 80 in 2017.)

6. He was also protective of his sisters and, as the man of the house, took on the role of scrutinizing their boyfriends when they'd come by to meet the family.

7. Cruise was raised Catholic and he spent his freshman year of high school at St. Francis Seminary in Cincinnati, after a priest named Father Ric Schneider gave a talk at his (also Catholic) school in Louisville. "He was a typical teenager, trying to find his way in life," Schneider told the New York Daily News in 2013. "We would give them an IQ test, and he just about made the cut. The cutoff is 110, and he scored exactly 110."

It's been rumored that Cruise considered entering the priesthood, but he doesn't it remember it that way. "We didn't have the money back then, and I went for the education for a year, and it was free," Cruise has explained.

8. Mary Lee got remarried to Jack South in 1978 and the whole family moved to New Jersey when Tom was 16.

"In the beginning, I felt threatened by my stepfather," Cruise told Rolling Stone . "There's a part of you that's in love with your mother. But he is such a wise, smart man. He loved my mother so much that he took us all in, four young people. We'd bet on football games, and he was a terrible bettor, so I'd make lots of money."

As for his dad, Tom III, who had recently passed away, "I think that he felt remorse for a lot that had happened. He was a person who did not have a huge influence on me in my teens; the values and motivation really came from my stepfather. But he was important. Really important. It's all sort of complex. There wasn't one thing I felt."

9. He was always a daredevil, jumping off things, riding his bike too fast, sometimes into walls and, here and there, breaking bones. In high school he joined the glee club and did plays. He was also an athlete, over the years dabbling in soccer, baseball, basketball, football and ice hockey, and he wrestled. Sports and acting were where he really stood out and, shocker, the ladies have loved him since grammar school.

"I was a wild kid," Cruise admitted. "I'd cut school. Everything had to do with my wanting always to push the envelope to see: where do I stand with myself? How far can I go?"

10. Cruise has been open about his battle with dyslexia, calling himself "a functional illiterate" in school, though he "loved learning. I wanted to learn, but I knew I had failed in the system."

"My energy was always all over the place. Reading was not at the top of my list, because it took me so long," he told Cameron Crowe for Interview in 1986. "When I wrote a paper, my mother would help me with it. I would take a test and get very nervous. I would skip questions and skip lines. I've gotten better. I've learned to control my eyes. I used to have to use my finger all the time. I just wasn't relaxed about it."

11. Senior year of high school he got kicked off the football team after he was caught drinking, according to Morton, but that left him time to audition for the school musical, Guys and Dolls . He played Nathan Detroit, and a commercial director who happened to catch a performance told him he should pursue acting professionally. So, he started going to New York on weekends to audition for musicals—and he missed his graduation ceremony while performing in an amateur production of Godspell .

12. Cruise made his movie debut in the 1981 drama Taps , in a role that was bigger than the one he was originally cast in "because you could see right away that he had a giant talent," former Paramount head Sherry Lansing said in Stephen Galloway 's 2017 biography Leading Lady . "He was always extremely focused and exceptionally polite."

13. On the set of Francis Ford Coppola 's The Outsiders , featuring a veritable who's-who of '80s-era heartthrobs , prankster Cruise scrawled "Helter Skelter" on co-star Diane Lane 's mirror and put honey on her toilet seat.

14. The only direction Cruise received for his iconic Risky Business dance to "Old Time Rock and Roll" was one line in the script: "Joel dances in underwear through the house." He ad-libbed the rest, grabbing the candlestick, "using it as a guitar, jumping on the table. I waxed half the floor and kept the other half dirty, so I could slide in on my socks. As we went along, I threw more stuff in," he shared with Crowe in 1986.

15. Cruise dated his Risky Business co-star Rebecca De Mornay , who called him a "pure person." She told Rolling Stone in 1986, "There's something earnest and virtuous about him that's quite rare." According to Taps co-star Sean Penn , they were out at a club in New York one night and after realizing that a girl he was talking to was trying to pick him up, Cruise "screamed at her, 'I have a girlfriend I'm in love with!'" (Perhaps at the time readers thought Penn might be exaggerating.) He and De Mornay started dating in the summer of 1983 and maintained a long-distance relationship while he shot Ridley Scott 's Legend in London, but broke up when he returned to the U.S. to start making Top Gun .

16. Top Gun producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson envisioned no one other than Cruise playing Maverick after they saw a magazine story about the elite flying school at San Diego's Miramar Naval Air Station and went down to see the hot shots in person. "From the first time we went down to Miramar—even before the script was written—we said, 'These guys are Tom Cruises,'" Bruckheimer told Rolling Stone .

17. Although Cruise also told Rolling Stone in 1986 that he wasn't sure he would be able to get married in his "present state of mind," he tied the knot with  Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987, two years after meeting her at a dinner party. Emilio Estevez  was Cruise's best man.

18. Paul Newman , his co-star in 1987's The Color of Money , turned him on to race car driving and Cruise has been feeling the need for speed on land and in the air (and sometimes on the water) ever since. Years later the student became the teacher when, in 2010, Cruise taught Zac Efron  about motorcycles. "I don't know," Efron told Details when asked why Cruise offered to do that. "I don't even want to know. It's just so cool that he gave a s--t, the fact that he cared at all."

19. Mimi and her first husband, Jim Rogers , were both members of the Church of Scientology (Jim was a high-level auditor) and she's said to have introduced Cruise to the organization, giving him L. Ron Hubbard 's Dianetics and other literature. His immersion in Scientology coincided with the release of Top Gun and the actor becoming one of the biggest stars in the world, and to this day Cruise remains the most famous member of the church.

20. Despite being critically panned, 1988's Cocktail , starring Cruise as a playboy bartender, gave Disney its biggest opening weekend ever at the time: $11.8 million.

21. According to Morton's 2008 biography  Tom Cruise , director Oliver Stone wanted Tom to be injected with a chemical that would have rendered him temporarily paralyzed so he could better identify with the role of real-life Vietnam War veteran and activist Ron Kovic in 1989's  Born on the Fourth of July . The insurance company understandably shut that idea down. The film still won two Oscars, best editing and best director for Stone, so it worked out.

22. People named Cruise its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1990. Soon after, he and Rogers divorced. When Vanity Fair  asked about his first marriage in 1994, Cruise replied tersely , "It was a long time ago. I really don't think about it."

23. Cruise met Nicole Kidman  during casting for the racing drama Days of Thunder and they tied the knot on Dec. 24, 1990. They adopted two children, Isabella and Connor , and starred in two more movies together, Far and Away and Eyes Wide Shut .

After Isabella arrived, Cruise told Vanity Fair in 1994 , "We talked about children from time to time, but there was always the work. But then we went, When is it ever going to be the right time? That's how the conversation started. You're lying in bed at night and you're trying to sleep, so you roll over and you go, What would happen if we had this in our life?

"One of the things that Nic and I talk about is that now suddenly we're a family. We're at that point where we're trying to define where we are. Can we still party? Are we really boring? Oh, my God . . . we're old!"

24. Disney had Cruise in mind when they created the look of the title character in 1992's Aladdin . "There's a confidence with all of his attitudes and his poses," lead animator Glen Keane said in a DVD extras feature.

25. An old tabloid go-to back in the 1980s and '90s was to claim that this or that star was gay, and Cruise was aware that the rumor was out there.

"First of all, I don't think it's an indictment," Cruise told Vanity Fair in 1994. "But I hadn't heard those rumors till about three months ago myself… I don't know why they say it. I've heard everything from I've cheated on my wife to my wife was there on the set of  The Firm  because she was pissed off about my love scene on the beach. It's not true, but people are going to say what they want to say."

26. Cruise wanted Brian De Palma to direct Mission: Impossible , which would mark his debut as a producer with his agent turned partner Paula Wagner , even though De Palma was in movie jail following several flops. Cruise even deferred his $20 million salary (not including his back-end deal) so they could raise the movie's budget. Mission accomplished: M:I made almost $500 million worldwide and spawned a franchise . De Palma, however, didn't attend the film's premiere in May 1996, reportedly because he and Cruise didn't always see eye to eye during production.

27. Shooting M:I , Cruise insisted they use a fan big enough to create the 120 mile-per-hour wind he'd be facing if he was really clinging to a bullet train while a helicopter exploded behind him. A crew member told Galloway, "He said, 'I want the wind blowing in my face and I want my jaws to be blowing.' That's Tom. He's a guy's guy."

28. The intense Eyes Wide Shut shoot was scheduled to last four months but ended up keeping Tom and Nicole in London for 18 months. Also during their time in England, as fate would have it, they attended Princess Diana 's funeral in September 1997, as did with Tom Hanks  and Steven Spielberg , who were in town making Saving Private Ryan .

29. "All I can say is that I hope we are together when we are 80," Nicole Kidman told  Talk  in 2000. "I can't say we will be, but I will be so devastated if we are not." Alas, they announced their separation on Feb. 5, 2001. "She knows why, and I know why," Cruise cryptically told Vanity Fair later that year. "She's the mother of my children, and I wish her well. And I think that you just move on. And I don't say that lightly. I don't say that with anything."

30. Penélope Cruz  successfully sued an Australian tabloid in June 2003, winning damages and a retraction over a story claiming she and then-boyfriend Cruise had postponed their impending marriage because she had cheated on him. They broke up in January 2004 after more than two years of dating, a source telling People the relationship "just ran its course."

31. The Church of Scientology denied a 2012 Vanity Fair report that Homeland actress Nazanin Boniadi , then a church member, had basically been recruited to date Cruise for a few months, starting in October 2004 with a group outing that included renting the skating rink at Rockefeller Center and dinner at Nobu. "I'd rather not talk about that," Boniadi told the New York Post in 2013.

32. Cruise specifically held out for J.J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible III —Abrams' feature film debut—after watching some episodes of Alias . Paramount was freaking out, wanting M:I3 for a summer 2005 tentpole release, which wasn't going to happen if Cruise and Abrams—busy at the moment with a show called Lost —got their way, but it turned out Cruise had an ace up his sleeve. Spielberg was ready to roll with War of the Worlds in time to give Paramount the summer blockbuster it needed while they waited for Abrams to become available.

33. On May 23, 2005, a giddy Cruise raised his arms in victory, got down on one knee and did a couple of fist pumps, and then jumped up on Oprah Winfrey 's couch (also twice), fueled by love for his new girlfriend, Katie Holmes . "You're gone," the talk show host observed.

"I've got so much energy, I can't help it," Cruise said.

They were both laughing hysterically and the studio audience was cheering, but… maybe you had to be there?

Lest anyone forget, Holmes was at the taping and Winfrey led a chant for her to come out. "She's gonna run!" Cruise exclaimed. "She is freaking out ." Then he took off for backstage to go get her, the camera trailing him, and once they had emerged Cruise enveloped the Dawson's Creek star in a hug.

That moment unwittingly set the tone for Cruise and Holmes' entire relationship, romantic to many but to everyone… just a lot .

34. A month later, Cruise accused Matt Lauer  of being "glib" when the Today host questioned his take on mental health care—specifically, his dismissal of psychiatry and his criticism of Brooke Shields ' "irresponsible" use of medication to treat postpartum depression.

35. Cruise and Holmes' daughter, Suri Cruise , was born on April 18, 2006.

36. Mission: Impossible III came out on May 5, 2006, and did… fine. It was (and remains) the lowest-grossing installment of the franchise, making $134 million domestically, but more memorably it marked the moment where folks started wondering if Cruise had lost his movie-star mojo, if his unadulterated zeal had turned off audiences for good. Not making it better: Paramount severed its 14-year relationship with Cruise's production company that August, and then-Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone actually told the Wall Street Journal , "We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

37. Suri was introduced to the world on the September 2006 cover of Vanity Fair , zipped up in her father's leather jacket akin to how Paul McCartney   snuggled daughter Mary on the cover of his 1970 solo album McCartney . The first glimpse at the cover was a huge get for Katie Couric 's first night as lead anchor of the CBS Evening News .

38. Cruise and Holmes' wedding at the 15th-century Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Rome on Nov. 18, 2016, reportedly cost upward of $3 million . Guest Giorgio Armani designed the bride's ceremony and reception dresses and attendees included Will Smith  and Jada Pinkett Smith , John Travolta  and Kelly Preston , David  and Victoria Beckham , Jim Carrey  and Jenny McCarthy , Leah Remini  and Angelo Pagan , and Jennifer Lopez  and Marc Anthony . Andrea Bocelli performed.

39. Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige was Cruise's best man. According to Remini, who left the church in 2013, a traditional Scientology wedding ceremony includes the vow "to never close their eyes in sleep on a disagreement or an upset."

40. Shields and husband Chris Henchy were also in attendance, Cruise having apologized for publicly disparaging his Endless Love co-star's use of medication to treat postpartum depression. "If you get invited to that wedding, you go," Shields recalled on The Jenny McCarthy Show in 2016. The actress even provided the bride's "something old": an antique enamel compact.

41. 2010's Knight and Day with Cameron Diaz  was widely treated as some sort of "comeback" movie for Cruise, a test to see if he could still have a monster action movie hit after Mission: Impossible III underwhelmed.

"I don't understand why people think that," he marveled to the U.K.'s Telegraph . "I've been working the whole time."

42. His roles in the interim had included his unrecognizable—and hilarious—surprise turn as crass, bullying, bald and fat studio exec Les Grossman in Ben Stiller 's Tropic Thunder , for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination.

"I had about a dozen people making the silicone prosthetics for his head, neck, chest, and hands," makeup designer Barney Burman recalled to Grantland . "We made him special gloves. I did the sculpting, someone else did the molds, someone else was casting them. I had six different people punching hairs into the scalp piece, so his entire head was one-at-a-time, hand-punched hairs; his arms were hand-punched one at a time; his chest was hand-punched."

Added Aida Caefer , "I made the fat suits for Tom Cruise. He was all for  the more ridiculous, the better . The suit went from his neck all the way down to his ankles…The character moved around a lot and he was so soaked in sweat that we had rotating suits for him—one in the morning and one after lunch."

"Tom choreographed all his own moves," Stiller said. "I remember watching him do this stuff and thinking this is so frigging funny."

43. The rumor that Cruise turned down the role of Iron Man, which would have changed the whole vibe of the Marvel Universe, is not true, he says. "Not close," he told ComicBook.com in 2018 when asked if he was really almost Tony Stark. "Not close, and I love Robert Downey Jr. I can't imagine anyone else in that role, and I think it's perfect for him."

44. For 2011's Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol , Cruise hung off the edge of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai—the world's tallest building—without a double (though with the appropriate wires). And while he'd been doing as much of his own physical laboring as possible for decades, this reinvigorated Cruise's reputation as the guy who does all the death-defying stunts the insurance companies will allow. The film's $695 million worldwide box office also signaled that Cruise's reputation had preceded him—in a good way.

45. Holmes filed for divorce in June 2012. Her father, attorney Martin Holmes , had helped draft their prenuptial agreement and all was remarkably settled within weeks. And neither of them have ever talked about what happened . They've acknowledged that they were once married to each other, but why it ended has remained anyone's guess. And, oh, how the people have guessed.

46. Eyebrows were raised when the 5-foot-7 Cruise was tapped to play 6-foot-5 vigilante Jack Reacher from Lee Childs ' best-selling novel series.

"Size in my books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force," Childs explained. "Cruise portrays that in his own way."

47. Not as initially OK with the creative license was Interview With the Vampire   author Ann Rice , who according to Vanity Fair was livid in the early '90s when Cruise was cast to play Lestat, having written the character with Rutger Hauer in mind.

"It always helps if one is controversial in casting a movie," director Neil Jordan said. "I just thought that if Tom was willing to go the distance this character demands—and he was—then we could end up with something quite extraordinary, and we did."

48. Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation was legendary before it hit theaters in 2015 for Cruise's viral airplane stunt, in which he hung onto the door of an Airbus A400M as it took off. For real. He also did his own motorcycle chase and learned how to hold his breath for six and a half minutes for the underwater document swap.

49. He was back on the bike for Mission: Impossible—Fallout and "when the [safety] rigs didn't work, we just went for it," director Christopher McQuarrie told the New York Times . "Everything that you're seeing Tom doing, he's doing free riding on cold cobblestones. Sometimes there was rain; sometimes there was morning dew. There was always a danger of skidding and wiping out."

Cruise also did his own skydiving along with Henry Cavill 's stunt double, dangled from a rope attached to a flying helicopter, and piloted a helicopter for a mid-air chase scene, getting his certification in six weeks. It normally takes three months, McQuarrie said, but Cruise trained for 16 hours a day to cut the time in half.

"Tom was having the time of his life," the director said.

50. Cruise has social media accounts but they are strictly for un-risky business, and he prefers to not know everything that's happening online. "Sometimes I have to for work, but I keep it very limited," he told E! News in 2016. "I don't spend time doing that kind of stuff."

51. Cruise isn't one to let himself go in between physically taxing roles. "Sea-kayaking, caving, fencing, treadmill, weights, rock-climbing, hiking… I jog… I do so many different activities," he has said.

In fact, he refers to his personal workout space—a version of which he takes with him everywhere—as the "Pain Cave."

"Only the motivated can enter," he explained to the AP at the 2017 premiere of The Mummy . "All you got to do is just be motivated. Anyone can come in, we have the crew come in, and we just make it available to everyone."

As co-star Jake Johnson   revealed: "You start every morning with the daily challenge. So before work starts, you're in there. His hair and makeup team is in there, his crew is in there, so there's about 15, 20 people every day doing their squats and jumping jacks. And then I kinda got into it with him…I wanted to be in a Tom Cruise movie and do it the Tom Cruise way."

That includes, alas, avoiding sugar.

"I love sugar," Cruise assured James Corden  on The Late Late Show in 2018, "but I can't eat it because when I'm training, I'm doing all these movies—so I send it to everyone." And then, "I wait for the calls. Like, 'tell me about it.'"

52. Don't tell anyone, but Cruise is human: Aside from what he did to himself running around in childhood, he threw out his back making Legend ; developed an ulcer while shooting Eyes Wide Shut ; tore his labrum scaling a cliff at Dead Horse Point, Utah, for Mission: Impossible 2 ; and broke an ankle on Mission: Impossible—Fallout .

"It was the easy one where I'm running and I jump from one building to the next," Cruise later described the fateful stunt on  The Tonight Show .

53. But this guy commits . In addition to doing three months of helicopter pilot training in six weeks and learning how to hold his breath like he's David Blaine , he played pool for 12 hours a day to play Fast Eddie Felson's protegee in The Color of Money. He lost 18 pounds and read classic books out loud to work on his diction to play centuries-old Lestat in Interview With the Vampire. He learned German to better embody a World War II-era officer in Valkyrie . He actually spent a year and a half learning how to fly a helicopter for  Mission: Impossible—Fallout  (before his whirlwind certification).

54. "I haven't seen him in awhile, but he has sent me a birthday gift every year since I was 11 years old," Dakota Fanning  said on Watch What Happens Live in 2016 about her dad in 2005's War of the Worlds . "Beautiful gifts, it's really kind. I always think, 'Oh, when I'm 18, he'll probably stop. Oh, 21, he'll stop. But every year."

What does Team Cruise pick out? "It's usually shoes," the actress, then 22, shared.

55. In 1986, he told Cameron Crowe , "Let's face it, I'm not saving lives here. I feel fortunate, but this is just one aspect of my life. I love my work, but my family is very important to me, too. You pick up the paper and see that there are many things happening outside my little world."

Since then, the real-life heroics include, all within a few years in the '90s: He lifted two boys over a barricade to prevent them being crushed at the Mission: Impossible premiere in London; he sent his own yacht's skiff to rescue a family whose sailboat was on fire in the Mediterranean in 1996; he rushed to the aid of a woman who had been mugged in London; and he paid the $7,000 emergency room bill for an uninsured cashier who was injured in a hit and run—an accident Cruise witnessed.

"It's just an impulse," Cruise told People in 2000 about his spate of good deeds. "I was never a Boy Scout, so maybe I'm making up for it now."

Or, as he said in the video of an interview for his church that went viral in 2008, "You can't drive past an accident, because as a Scientologist you are the only one who can help"

56. Though he's the most famous face of Scientology, Cruise is incredibly protective of his beliefs and doesn't say too much about it publicly. But in October 2016, he told ITV at the London premiere of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , "It's something that has helped me incredibly in my life. I've been a Scientologist for over 30 years. It's something that is, you know...without it, I wouldn't be where I am. So, it's a beautiful religion. I'm incredibly proud."

57. Cruise has been nominated for three Oscars: Best Supporting Actor for Magnolia and Best Actor for Jerry Maguire and Born on the Fourth of July . He has seven Golden Globe nominations and three wins, for those three films.

58. He  returned all three Globes  in 2021 as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association came under fire for its lack of diversity in its ranks.

59. Cruise's movies have collectively grossed more than $11 billion at the box office worldwide, though Top Gun: Maverick  is his first  film to cross the billion-dollar threshold on its own.

Prior to the release of the 36-years-in-the-making, pandemic-delayed sequel, his highest-grossing movie worldwide was Mission: Impossible—Fallout , with $791 million. Domestically, his biggest film was War of the Worlds with $234 million—though adjusted for inflation, it was the original  Top Gun  ($180 million in 1986 vs. $444 million in 2022). Top Gun: Maverick has made $534 million in the U.S.

60. Of course those are real F-18s and the actors are really flying in  Top Gun: Maverick .  "It is aggressive. You can't act that, the distortion in the face," Cruise explained in a making-of featurette . "They're pulling 7 1/2, 8 G's. That's 1,600 pounds of force."

As he recalled to  Empire , he told the studio before they got started, "'You don't know how hard this movie's going to be. No-one's ever done this before.'" But he was firm about not wanting to do any "CGI stuff."

And in the end, Cruise said, "There's never been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don't know if there ever will be again, to be honest."

61. When Tom Cruise wants to tell you he appreciates you, he sends dessert. The White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake from Doan's Bakery  in Woodland Hills, Calif., has become the stuff of holiday-gift-giving legend, sent to the likes of Tom Hanks , Rosie O'Donnell  and, more recently,  Top Gun: Maverick co-stars Miles Teller  and Jon Hamm .

When December comes around, the staff at Hanks' production company Playtone "start eyeing what mail has come in," Hanks shared on the Mythical Kitchen YouTube series  Last Meals . "Is the big box coming in? Are we getting what has essentially been called 'the Tom Cruise cake?'"

Asked about the criticism that he hadn't really played any grown-ups yet, Cruise told Cameron Crowe for Interview  in 1986, "God forbid if I do everything I want to do before I'm 26. When I get to [ Paul ] Newman 's age, I'm looking to still be playing the great characters he plays.

"I hope the public and everyone realize that I'm still growing. I'm still feeling my oats here. I'm working toward the long range of what I can be as an artist. And I work my ass off trying. Because I know what I want to be."

Mission: accomplished.

( Originally published July 3, 2019, at 3 a.m. PT )

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Actors In Tom Cruise Movies You May Not Know Are Dead

Tom Cruise has been a major film star for decades, thanks to such blockbusters as the "Mission: Impossible" and "Top Gun" franchises, "Risky Business," "Rain Man," "Jerry Maguire," "War of the Worlds," and other projects. Thanks to his box office clout, he's been able to collaborate with top talent in front of and behind the camera: Cruise has worked on films for directors like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Mann, Ron Howard, and Sydney Pollack. His choice of co-stars, too, has been nothing short of stellar, and allowed Cruise to share the screen with such figures as Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, former spouse Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, and Willem Dafoe.

Cruise's career is now in its fourth decade, which by Hollywood standards, is an epic length. Countless actors and other creative types have risen to spectacular heights and then vanished from view within that time frame. Many of Cruise's screen collaborators have retired or settled into different careers during the course of his screen fame; still others have passed away. Below is a list of memorable actors in Tom Cruise films who've since passed away.

George C. Scott was Cruise's commanding officer in Taps

Though a cadre of up-and-coming young actors anchored 1981's "Taps," including Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Evan Handler, Giancarlo Esposito, and in his first major film role, Cruise, Harold Becker's 1981 drama was top-billed by George C. Scott . The celebrated actor and Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe, and Genie winner starred as the aging head of a military school that becomes a war zone when cadets fight back against its closure.

An imposing figure with a commanding sandpaper bark, Scott's list of credits included some of the most popular, critically-praised feature films of the 20 th century, including "The Hustler" (with Paul Newman), Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," and " Patton ," which earned him an Oscar ( which he refused ). Scott also worked extensively on television, earning Emmy nominations for a 1977 version of "Beauty and the Beast" and an acclaimed 1984 production of " A Christmas Carol ." 

Scott worked into the 1990s in features like "Malice" and Sidney Lumet's remake of "Gloria" and in high-profile TV productions like "Tyson," "12 Angry Men" and "Inherit the Wind," the latter two of which paired him with another acting great, Jack Lemmon. "Wind" was Scott's final small screen appearance; he died of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 71 on September 22, 1999.

Billy Barty brought laughs to the dark Legend

In Ridley Scott's " Legend ," Cruise's Jack O'the Green was accompanied on his quest to rescue Mia Sara's princess from Darkness (Tim Curry) by a trio of woodland creatures: the elf Honeythorn Gump (David Bennett) and a pair of dwarves, Brown Tom (Cork Hubbert, who died in 2008) and Screwball, played by the veteran character player Billy Barty . As his name suggested, Screwball was the more comic of the two small heroes, and Barty clearly relished his chance to bring a dose of levity to Scott's epic, sometimes alarming fantasy.

Barty, who stood 3'9" due to cartilage-hair hypoplasia dwarfism, began acting in the 1930s, often playing small children due to his size. He graduated to bit and minor roles in features and on television, often playing fantasy figures or donning costumes to play various pint-sized creatures for Sid and Marty Krofft. Barty also performed with comic musician Spike Jones's anarchic band and hosted his own kids' series on Los Angeles television in the 1960s. He eventually graduated to character parts, again mostly in comic roles for films like "Foul Play," "Willow," and "Masters of the Universe," but he also showed a dramatic side as an agent in the bitter Hollywood drama "The Day of the Locust."

In addition to his acting work, Barty was a tireless advocate for others with dwarfism, founding the non-profit Little People of America , which aids individuals of short stature and their families, in 1960. Barty remained active on screen until 2000, when he was hospitalized for heart and lung issues in May of that year. Barty died of heart failure at the age of 76 on December 23, 2000.

Paul Newman reprised an iconic role opposite Cruise in The Color of Money

Twenty-five years after his Oscar-nominated turn as jaded pool player "Fast Eddie" Felson in "The Hustler," actor Paul Newman reprised the character for "The Color of Money." The 1986 film, directed by Scorsese and written by Richard Price ("The Wire," "The Night Of") teamed Newman's Felson with Cruise's Vincent Lauria, a young pool talent with the same degree of brashness Felson had shown in his past. The pair decides to team up in order to scale the heights of the pool world with their combined skills.

As director Ethan Hawke would underscore in his documentary " The Last Movie Stars ," Newman was one of the most popular and respected actors of the 1960s and 1970s, lending both rugged determination and emotional complexity to films like "Hud," Alfred Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting," and "Slap Shot." At the time of the "Money" release, he was rebounding from a career decline in the late '70s with a string of hits that included "The Verdict" and "Absence of Malice"; Newman remained a star well into the 1990s and beyond with features like "Nobody's Fool" and "The Road to Perdition," as well as TV work like "Empire Falls" and even voice-acting roles in "Cars."

A noted philanthropist who supported an array of causes through his food products and other efforts, Newman retired from screen acting in 2007 with twelve Oscar nominations, including three wins (he won an honorary Oscar in 1986 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994), four Golden Globes, an Emmy, and a Tony Award nomination. Diagnosed with cancer, the 83-year-old Newman died of the disease at his home in Westport, Connecticut on September 26, 2008.

One of TV vet Reg E. Cathey's earliest film roles was in Born on the Fourth of July

At first glance, you might not recognize Reg E. Cathey in Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July," but you'll certainly recognize his resonant, theatrically-trained voice as the speaker at a Vietnam protest in Syracuse, New York. Cathey is only on screen for a moment during the scene, in which Cruise's Ron Kovic is separated from his childhood friend Donna (Kyra Sedgwick); prior to his appearance, Cathey was best known for children's television in the 1990s, most notably on "Square One Television," and similarly small roles in films like "Quick Change" and "What About Bob?"

Cathey's commanding, confident presence eventually found an audience through work on acclaimed series like "Homicide: Life on the Street" and films like "Clear and Present Danger" and "Se7en" (for which he played the coroner). He moved into breakout character roles on "Oz" and "The Wire," and netted a 2015 Emmy Award as Freddy Hayes, confidante of Kevin Spacey's Frank Underwood, on "House of Cards." Feature film work has included "The Machinist," "St. Vincent," "Fantastic Four," and "Hands of Stone," for which he appeared uncredited as promoter Don King.

Cathey died at the age of 58 at his home in New York City on February 9, 2018. He had reportedly been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Before Law & Order, Fred Dalton Thompson ran NASCAR in Days of Thunder

When Tom Cruise's Cole Trickle and Michael Rooker's Rowdy Burns become injured after locking horns at the Firecracker 400 race in Florida, the pair is brought up before "Big John," the head of NASCAR, the governing body for stock car racing. Fred Dalton Thompson , an imposing actor best known for a long run as District Attorney Arthur Branch on the " Law & Order " franchise (and a high-profile political career), plays Big John as a steely, no-nonsense type who spells out the racers' future if they continue to butt heads ("I'm gonna black flag the two of you and take apart your racecars for three hundred laps. Then, if you pass inspection and you put your cars back together, I might let you back in the race.")

Thompson brought the full weight of his long career as a former U.S. attorney, Watergate Committee counsel and senator for the state of Tennessee to his acting roles. He began by playing himself in "Marie," a 1985 film about a corruption case against the Tennessee governor; this set in motion a string of turns as authority types in "The Hunt for Red October," "Die Hard 2," "Cape Fear," and "Sinister," among many other films and TV series.

Thompson ran for president of the United States in 2007 but returned to acting after failing to secure the nomination. He busied himself on nearly all of the "Law & Order" franchise series while also recovering from a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2004. The disease later claimed his life at the age of 73 on November 1, 2015.

Robert Prosky was Far and Away's good bad guy

Stage and television actor Robert Prosky played 19 th century landowner Daniel Christie opposite Cruise in Ron Howard's "Far and Away" (1992). On paper, Christie is the villain of the piece: his men (led by Thomas Gibson ) burn down Cruise's family home when he fails to pay the rent, promptings Cruise to show up at Prosky's door with a shotgun and murder in mind. Christie is revealed to be more pushover than boss – his wife (Barbara Babcock) is the real brains of the operation – and their encounter ends on a positive note, as it introduces Cruise to Christie's daughter, played by Nicole Kidman.

Prosky was a familiar face to TV audiences thanks to his long run as Sgt. Stan Jablonski on " Hill Street Blues ," and guest shots on "Coach" and "Cheers" (for which he was initially considered to play Coach Ernie Patusso). But Prosky also enjoyed a long and diverse string of film roles, which ranged from formidable bad guys ("Thief," "The Natural," "Christine") and gruff businessmen ("Mrs. Doubtfire") to seen-it-all types ("Broadcast News," "The Last Action Hero") and comic performances in "Outrageous Fortune" and "Gremlins II: The New Batch (as TV horror host Grandpa Fred). Prosky, who was also a staple of the Washington D.C. and New York theater scenes (and netted a Tony nomination in 1988), died from complications of heart surgery at the age of 77 on December 8, 2008.

J.T Walsh took a sympathetic turn in A Few Good Men

Character actor J.T. Walsh made the darker, more unpleasant sides of human behavior not only palatable but also positively magnetic. In films like "Sling Blade," "Breakdown," "Good Morning, Vietnam," and "The Grifters," Walsh played morally corrupt figures whose inherent intelligence and force of personality made their behavior almost acceptable – if not to others, at least to themselves. His exceptional talent made him a critical and viewer favorite, and he worked steadily until his sudden death from a heart attack at the age of 54 on February 27, 1998.

On occasion, Walsh also played less nefarious characters. The most notable of these was Lt. Col. Matthew Markinson in Rob Reiner's film adaption of Aaron Sorkin's play " A Few Good Men ." Markinson was the linchpin in military lawyer Tom Cruise's defense case involving two Marines accused of murdering a third: he knew that the dead Marine sought and was denied the transfer that would have saved his life by Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson). Markinson was haunted by his own failure to intervene on the Marine's behalf, and ultimately took his own life rather than face questioning or further abuse by the volcanic Nicholson.

Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey also acted in Jerry Maguire

For a period of time, rocker Glenn Frey enjoyed a modest career as a film and television actor. The co-founder of the Eagles and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member guested on "Miami Vice," "Nash Bridges," and "Wiseguy," and appeared opposite Robert Duvall and Mark Harmon in the 1986 action-drama "Let's Get Harry." Frey was also briefly the star of his own network series, the detective comedy-drama "South of Sunset," which fizzled after a single episode , despite heavy promotion during the 1993 World Series.

Frey's other feature film appearance was a minor role in Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire." Cast as the fictitious general manager of the Arizona Cardinals football team, Frey's Dennis Wilburn is resistant to a request for a sizable new contract for wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr. in his Oscar-winning role). Wilburn isn't having it, citing Tidwell's "attitude problem," and makes Tom Cruise's Jerry sweat out his decision — and endure Rod's "Show me the money" rant — until finally agreeing to an even larger contract in the film's finale.

"Maguire" was Frey's final film appearance. He remained active with the reunited Eagles until 2015, when the band postponed appearances while Frey underwent surgery for abdominal problems related to medication he took for rheumatoid arthritis. Frey never made it to the operation; complications from pneumonia led to a medically induced coma from which he never recovered, and he died at the age of 67 on January 18, 2016.

Philip Baker Hall gave a sad, subtle performance in Magnolia

Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" gives nearly all of its large ensemble cast , which includes Tom Cruise, with moments in the spotlight where they unveil remarkable performances, but Philip Baker Hall earns several standout scenes in the course of the 1999 film. Cast as Jimmy Gator, the terminally ill and alcoholic host of a children's game show, Hall is tasked with lifting some ponderous emotional weight — Jimmy wants to make up for his past failings, including the abuse of his daughter (Melora Walters) — and shoulders the burden with quiet desperation and determination.

Hall came to fame late in life: though he appeared on television and in features throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he didn't enjoy widespread acclaim until the end of the latter decade, when a powerful turn as Richard Nixon and a recurring part on "Seinfeld" as library cop Lt. Bookman put him on many viewers' radars. He began collaborating with Anderson soon after, and appeared in "Hard Eight" and "Boogie Nights." His world-weary face and persona drew in other filmmakers as well, and led to appearances in "The Rock," "The Truman Show," "Zodiac," "Rush Hour," and "Argo."

Hall also worked on television, appearing on "Modern Family," "BoJack Horseman," and "Messiah," which proved to be his final screen appearance. He died of emphysema at the age of 90 at his home in Glendale, California on June 12, 2022. Hall wasn't the only one of Cruise's "Magnolia" castmates to pass away: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards, Ricky Jay, Henry Gibson, and Danny Wells all died in the decades since its release.

Jerry Maguire gave Kelly Preston one of her best screen moments

Though a popular, well-liked actress, Kelly Preston rarely got an opportunity to show her talents in film and television projects. Roles in hit productions like "Twins," "Citizen Ruth," and "Jack Frost" hinged on her empathetic qualities, but rarely afforded her a chance to dig into real dramatic territory. However, her turn in "Jerry Maguire" as Tom Cruise's fiancée provided her with one genuine show-stopping scene. Upon discovering that Cruise's Jerry has been fired after writing a letter advocating that his agency should make money less of a goal, Preston's Avery unleashes a gush of emotions: she decks him (repeatedly), owns her brittle and fragile sides and refuses to apologize for either of them, and then reveals the vulnerability behind her all-business persona. It's an extraordinary scene, and one that Preston nails with exceptional power.

Preston kept busy throughout her career, excelling at light comedies like "The Cat in the Hat" and "Sky High," as well as several projects with her husband, actor John Travolta ("Old Dogs"). She could play earthy and sexy, too, as her work in teen comedies like "Mischief" and "Secret Admirer" displayed, and she could handle heavier material like "Death Sentence," for which she played Kevin Bacon's ill-fated wife, and subtler comedies like Alexander Payne's satirical "Ruth." Preston also worked extensively on TV, including recurring roles on "Medium" and "CBS: Cyber."

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018, Preston sought treatment at various facilities until 2020. She died of the disease at the age of 57 at her home in Clearwater, Florida on July 12 of that year. Her final film project, "Off the Rails," was dedicated to her memory.

Bill Paxton helped Tom Cruise fight aliens in Edge of Tomorrow

Cruise's ambitious science fiction epic "Edge of Tomorrow" enjoyed a huge promotional push with advertising at Comic-Con in 2013 as well as a flood of television commercials and social media content. However, the box office response was somewhat tepid, though Cruise and his castmates certainly couldn't have been the cause of its slow trudge through the box office. The film's cast included Emily Blunt, Noah Taylor, and film and TV favorite Bill Paxton , who played Master Sergeant Farell, the hard-bitten soldier tasked with taking Cruise's inexperienced public relations officer into battle against alien invaders.

Best known for his collaborations with James Cameron on "The Terminator," "Aliens," and "Titanic," Paxton drew critical and audience praise early in his career for unbridled performances in features like "Weird Science" and "Near Dark." The former musician changed his career path in the 1990s with a subtle turn as a reluctant small town sheriff in Carl Franklin's "One False Move," which led to character and lead roles in films like "Apollo 13" and "Twister."

Paxton also took top billing for the critically praised HBO drama "Big Love," and later enjoyed a recurring role as John Garrett on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." However, his tenure on the show was cut short; surgery to repair heart damage led to a stroke that claimed Paxton's life at the age of 67 on January 25, 2017. His son, actor James Paxton, later played a younger version of Garrett on "S.H.I.E.L.D."

Henry Darrow lent class to the teen comedy Losin' It

One year before his breakout role in "Risky Business," Cruise earned top billing in " Losin' It, " a comedy that on the surface appears to be another in the seemingly endless list of raunchy teensploitation movies that sprouted up in the wake of "Porky's." 

The basic premise, in which Cruise and three pals travel to Tijuana to lose their virginities, supports that idea, but the film itself has more on its plate than just prurient yucks. Directed by future Oscar winner Curtis Hanson and written by Bill L. Norton, a prolific screenwriter/director whose credits include '70s cult favorites like "Cisco Pike" and numerous TV series ("Angel," "Tour of Duty"), "Losin' It" also tries to deliver characters fueled by more than hormones. An impressive supporting cast, including Jackie Earle Haley , John Stockwell, and Shelley Long, help with that effort.

Opposing the boy's efforts to become men in "Losin' It" is veteran character actor Henry Darrow . A frequent presence on television from the early 1960s through the late '90s, Darrow, whose parents hailed from Puerto Rico, earned critical and fan praise for a wide variety of characters on series. He was the roguish Manolito on the "The High Chaparral" in the 1960s, a savvy police detective on the '70s cult crime drama "Harry O," and earned a Daytime Emmy as a frequently absent father on the soap opera "Santa Barbara." Between these efforts, Darrow also turned up on "Wonder Woman," "Star Trek: Voyager," and "Simon & Simon," among many other series before his death from natural causes at the age of 87 on March 14, 2021.

Darrow plays a Tijuana sheriff in "Losin' It," and the character sits somewhere between all of his best-known roles. Though outwardly courteous, the sheriff is a tough customer with no love for Americans like Cruise and his pals who tear up his town each weekend. He does, however, covet Stockwell's convertible, and manufactures a handful of criminal charges in order to take possession of the car. Darrow's role on paper isn't much more than a stock villain, but he invests it with the considerable charm that he brought to all of his roles.

Legendary actor Max von Sydow was Cruise's nemesis in Minority Report

Cast as Lamar Burgess, the founder of the federal "Precrime" program in the futuristic world of Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," actor Max von Sydow brought his considerable skill to embodying a complex character. Though Burgess extolled the virtues of law and order, he also committed murder – and prepared to kill Cruise's Precrime cop John Anderton – in order to preserve his legacy. That von Sydow was able to make this cold-blooded figure somehow sympathetic was a testament to his talents, which made him one of the most respected actors of the 20 th century.

The Swedish-French von Sydow rose to international prominence in the 1960s in the thought-provoking, dreamlike films of director Ingmar Bergman, including "The Seventh Seal," which featured the iconic image of a knight (von Sydow) playing chess with Death . The success of these films led to work in the West, which resulted in von Sydow playing a remarkably diverse array of characters, from Jesus in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and the Devil (in the guise of Leland Gaunt) in "Needful Things" to  Father Merrin in "The Exorcist," Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon," Blofeld in "Never Say Never Again," the voice of Vigo in "Ghostbusters II," the mute Renter in "Extremely Loud and Incredible Close," Lor San Tekka in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," and the Three-Eyed Raven in "Game of Thrones."

Twice nominated for Oscars, Golden Globes, and Emmys, von Sydow closed his career with the 2021 Greek drama "Echoes of the Past." He died at the age of 90 at his home in Provence, France on March 8, 2020.

A very permissive Shirley Knight co-starred in Endless Love

Tom Cruise kicked off his screen acting career with 1981's "Endless Love," a completely over-the-top romance-drama about an intense attraction between the daughter (Brooke Shields) of permissive ex-hippie parents and an older boy (Martin Hewitt) so tightly wound that he attempts to win her over by burning down her family's house. It's that kind of a relationship. 

Cruise appears briefly as a somewhat dopey, totally shirtless pal of Hewitt's who suggests the arson idea as the best way to win back a girl. He's not the only future star on display in "Endless Love": James Spader (billed as "Jimmy Spader"), Jami Gertz, and a very young Ian Ziering also pop up in various capacities.

The adults in "Endless Love" are quite a handful: Don Murray is Shields' free-wheeling and alarmingly close dad, while Shirley Knight plays her mom, who's so cool with her daughter's relationship with Hewitt that she actually watches them have sex (and later makes a pass at Hewitt). Richard Kiley and Beatrice Straight ("Poltergeist") play Hewitt's folks, who are so rigidly uptight that his psychosis almost seems understandable.

Of the four actors, only Murray remains alive today;  Knight , a two-time Oscar nominee and eight-time Emmy nominee (including two wins), was a gifted but underrated lead and character player in films like "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" and "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" before her death at age 83 on April 22, 2020. Kiley won a Tony and four Emmys and starred in series like "The Thorn Birds" and "A Year in the Life" (he was also the voice of the park tour in the novel and film version of "Jurassic Park") before his death at age 76 on March 5, 1999, while Beatrice Straight won an Oscar for "Network" and appeared in "Poltergeist" (among other films) prior to her passing at age 86 on April 7, 2001.

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Did Tom Cruise Just Die Suddenly In Hospital?!

Did Tom Cruise just mysteriously die suddenly in a hospital, from an unspecified cause of death?!

Take a look at the viral claims, and find out what the facts really are!

Claim : Tom Cruise Just Died Suddenly In Hospital!

A number of YouTube channels are claiming that the Tom Cruise just mysteriously died suddenly in a hospital, from an unspecified cause of death!

5 Minute Ago / Suddenly famous actor Tom Cruise died and everyone is saying farewell

Tom Cruise Has Passed Away At The Age Of 61, Fans Can Not Stop Crying At His Funeral.

5 minutes ago / Hollywood sends condolences to the family of 61-year-old actor Tom Cruise.

10 minutes ago /At Tom Cruise’s tragic funeral. Our condolences to Tom Cruise’s family

Tom Cruise Funeral – Millions of people cry over the sudden death of actor Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise’s last moments at the funeral, his family and thousands of fans burst into tears

Tom Cruise was seriously ill, Before his death, he returned to America to say goodbye one last time

At Tom Cruise’s funeral, thousands of fans shed tears and did not believe this fact.

Recommended : Did Justin Bieber Just Die In A High Speed Car Crash?!

Truth : Tom Cruise Did Not Just Die Suddenly!

This is yet another example of celebrity FAKE NEWS reated and propagated by people to generate income from page views and YouTube advertising, and here are the reasons why…

Fact #1 : No Legitimate Media Outlet Reported His Death

These YouTube videos have been circulating for weeks and months, but people don’t seem to notice that no legitimate media has reported that Tom Cruise has died.

Tom Cruise is more than just a famous actor, he is a Hollywood icon. Even if he only tripped in public and fell on his butt, it would have been breathlessly reported by the celebrity blogs, if not the mainstream media.

No legitimate media outlet reported that Tom Cruise was sick or hospitalised, never mind mysteriously dying suddenly. That’s because it never happened!

Fact #2 : Tom Cruise Is Still Alive + Well!

Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on 3 July 1962) is very much alive, as of Sunday, 31 December 2023. But of course, you want “proof of life”, don’t you?

Well, Tom Cruise was seen with a former Russian model and socialite, Elsina Khayrova, at a party in London’s Mayfair on Saturday, 9 December 2023. They later went on a date in London’s Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.

But frankly speaking – people should really be asking for proof of Tom Cruise’s sudden death, whenever they see one of those viral videos or articles claiming that he suddenly died!

Recommended : Did Harrison Ford Just Die In Hospital / Plane Crash?!

Fact #3 : Tom Cruise Funeral Photos Are Fake

I analysed the photos used in these videos, and traced the origin of two examples used in many of these videos.

This photo of a large funeral was not of Tom Cruise, but of Irish makeup artist Cathriona White , taken on October 10, 2015.

If you look carefully, you can spot actor Jim Carrey looking sombre next to the pallbearer. He dated Cathriona White for three years, from 2012-2015. She died from a suicide by prescription drug overdose on September 28, 2015.

The fake news creator just added a photo of Tom Cruise, making it look like Jim Carrey and the lady beside him were carrying it. The truth is there was no photo, and they were just holding hands.

Recommended : Did Lucy Liu Just Die In A Training Accident?!

And this photo is so absurd, it beggars belief that so many people fell for it! After all, it was a poorly-edited photo with the overly large heads of John Travolta and Connor Cruise (Tom Cruise’s son) overlaid onto the real photo.

The original photo was taken on 17 November 2017, at the funeral of Margaret McAlorum, the 63 year-old mother of murdered schoolgirl, Megan McAlorum, at the Belfast City Cemetery in Northern Ireland.

Fact #4 :  Tom Cruse Death Hoax Is Driven By Fake Fact Check Too

This Tom Cruise death hoax is, ironically, also being driven by a fake fact check article by the MediaMass Project , which keeps “updating” the dates in their fake fact check article:

News of actor Tom Cruise’s death spread quickly earlier this week causing concern among fans across the world. However the December 2023 report has now been confirmed as a complete hoax and just the latest in a string of fake celebrity death reports. Thankfully, the actor best known for his roles in Mission: Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Rain Man or Top Gun is alive and well.

Rumors of the actor’s alleged demise gained traction on Friday after a ‘R.I.P. Tom Cruise’ Facebook page attracted nearly one million of ‘likes’. Those who read the ‘About’ page were given a believable account of the American actor’s passing:

“At about 11 a.m. ET on Friday (December 29, 2023), our beloved actor Tom Cruise passed away. Tom Cruise was born on July 3, 1962 in Syracuse. He will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.”

Hundreds of fans immediately started writing their messages of condolence on the Facebook page, expressing their sadness that the talented 61-year-old actor was dead. And as usual, Twittersphere was frenzied over the death hoax.

Where as some trusting fans believed the post, others were immediately skeptical of the report, perhaps learning their lesson from the huge amount of fake death reports emerging about celebrities over recent months. Some pointed out that the news had not been carried on any major American network, indicating that it was a fake report, as the death of an actor of Tom Cruise’s stature would be major news across networks.

Their claim of a viral R.I.P. Tom Cruise  Facebook page is false. There is no such Facebook page. It is their standard fake fact check spiel for fake celebrity deaths.

The statement from Barry Gibb’s unnamed rep confirming that he is not dead is exactly the same as statements from other reps of celebrities MediaMass claimed were victims of death hoaxes, like Arnold Schwarzenegger , Barry Gibb , Bruce Willis , Celine Dion , Cristiano Ronaldo , Clint Eastwood , Dolly Parton , Harrison Ford , Justin Bieber , Lionel Messi , Lucy Liu ,  Madonna , Melanie Laurent , Mike Tyson , Morgan Freeman , Oprah Winfrey , Robert Pattinson , Simon Cowell , Sylvester Stallone , Taylor Swift , Toby Keith , and Tom Hanks .

He joins the long list of celebrities who have been victimized by this hoax. He’s still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet.

Hidden in the description page for the MediaMass Project is a disclaimer that they are a “satire” website. That’s the usual “cover” for websites peddling fake news.

Regardless of their reasons, anything posted by MediaMass.net must be considered as fake news , until proven otherwise.

Recommended : Did Sylvester Stallone Just Die Suddenly In Hospital?!

Fact #6 : This Is Just Fake Celebrity News

This is yet another example of fake celebrity news created to generate page views and money through advertising, just like these examples:

• Did Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees just die suddenly?!
• Celine Dion Just Died Suddenly In Hospital?!
• Did Lionel Messi Just Die In High Speed Car Crash?!
• Biden said America lost Revolutionary War over lack of airports?!
• Did Simon Cowell Just Die Suddenly In Hospital?!
• Did Mike Tyson Just Die Suddenly In Tragic Accident?!
• Did Bruce Willis Just Die Suddenly At Home / Hospital?!
• Was Stephen Colbert Arrested For Fraud + Child Sex?!
• Cristiano Ronaldo Just Died Suddenly In Car Crash?!
• Is This The Only Official Michelle Obama Pregnancy Photo?!
• Is Bill Gates Facing Life Behind Bars For Child Rape?!

Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out, and please SUPPORT our work!

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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Tom Cruise makes video appearance to mourn loss of lawyer to the stars

The top gun star reminisced on good times.

Tom Cruise made a surprise appearance at the memorial service for Bert Fields, a lawyer to the stars who passed away at the age of 93.

MORE:  Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise's daughter Bella shares amazing career news

The actor appeared through a video at the service held earlier in the month, two months after his passing in August, which was obtained by TMZ , and it sees him reflecting on his life with Bert.

VIDEO: Tom Cruise is swamped by fans on dinner date with Salma Hayek

He talked first of how he met the lawyer, which was back in 1989 as he was having dinner with Dustin Hoffman ahead of the release of Rain Man .

"I sit next to this extraordinary person," he shared. "I didn't really know who he was. We just sat there and I ended up talking to him the whole evening. He's the most fascinating person that I'd ever met." 

MORE:  Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise's son Connor's new fishing video leaves fans in awe

With a laugh, he continued: "I said, 'I'm sorry but who are you, who do you know,' and he said, 'I'm Dustin's lawyer.' I said, 'Really? I want you to be my lawyer, can you be my lawyer please?' And he said, 'Absolutely.'

Tom was introduced to the lawyer by Dustin Hoffman

"From that moment on, we were incredible friends. He really is an extraordinary friend and we've had many adventures, wonderful dinners, incredible stories all around the world."

He seemingly felt overcome as he looked to the side and paused for words through his speech, calling him an "exceptional human being" and someone "you can count on."

MORE:  Tom Cruise's London move was influenced by his daughter with ex Nicole Kidman

MORE:  Tom Cruise recalls scary near-death experience: 'I'm gonna die'

"I'm just very grateful to him," he concluded. "Bert, I'm very happy that you've lived and I'm very grateful to have known you. I love you dearly and always will."

Bert was not only the lawyer for Tom and Dustin, but also to several other stars like Michael Jackson, James Cameron, Madonna, George Lucas, and even the Beatles.

Bert represented several major stars in Hollywood and beyond

Dustin also delivered a speech at the service and was choked up doing so as he said: "What I respected most was his loyalty — he was a friend, a true friend. I miss him."

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Queen Elizabeth ‘really hit it off’ with Tom Cruise before she passed away

They got on so well they set up a lunch date

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The Royal Family counts many celebrities amongst their close friends, from Ellie Goulding to the Beckham family . A new report from the Sunday Times has revealed Queen Elizabeth struck up a very surprising friendship before her passing, namely with Mission Impossible actor Tom Cruise.

According to the report, Tom was meant to meet the Queen over the course of the Platinum Jubilee - however she was too unwell to see him. 

A source told the Sunday Times : "The Queen let it be known that she was really disappointed not to have met Tom at the pageant, so he was invited to a special tour of Windsor Castle with everything laid on for him."

While Tom did join in the fun of the Platinum Jubilee - saying a few lines during the larger celebrations at Buckingham Palace - he also visited the Queen at Windsor. He was given the action star treatment as he reportedly helicoptered into the grounds and was allowed to fire a ceremonial gun, one of the rarer weapons he’s fired off in his career.

The pair got on so well that they reportedly set up another lunch date, but Queen Elizabeth sadly passed away before it came to happen.

The source continued: "[The Queen] loved seeing him and they really hit it off, so much so that she invited him back for lunch."

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Queen Elizabeth passed away in September earlier this year after her Jubilee celebrations in Balmoral Castle, which led to a nationwide period of mourning. She was 96 years old.

Tom has spent quite a bit of time in the UK over the past years, especially last year as parts of his most recent Mission: Impossible film were set in England. 

He caused a stir last August amongst the local community, when he had to make a surprise helicopter landing in a family’s garden in Baginton as a nearby airport had been closed temporarily.

Megan is a freelance journalist who covers entertainment and all things lifestyle, with a particular passion for fashion, beauty, travel and Keanu Reeves stories. She has previously worked on staff for titles including Marie Claire UK, CNN Style and The Evening Standard and has written for titles such as Bustle UK, Wallpaper*, Forbes and Hong Kong Tatler. She splits her time between London and her hometown Hong Kong, where she currently lives with the love of her life - an elderly dog named Poppy - and her husband. 

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Tom Cruise Was Considered For De-Aging In Opening Sequence Of ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’

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Tom Cruise appears ageless in his films. But Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning director Christopher McQuarrie was close to de-aging Cruise as a gimmick in the new film’s opening sequence.

The process was recently seen in the latest Indiana Jones film, where 81-year-old Harrison Ford had the odometer rolled back. At age 61, Cruise still is safe from that. But the sequence where it would have been used would have happened more than 30 years ago.

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“Originally, there had been a whole sequence at the beginning of the movie that was going to take place in 1989,” McQuarrie said. “We talked about it as a cold open. We talked about it as flashbacks in the movie. We looked at de-aging.

“One of the big things about [the de-aging] I was looking at while researching, I kept saying, ‘Boy, this de-aging is really good’ or ‘This de-aging is not so good.’ Never did I find myself actually following the story,” he said. “I was so distracted by an actor that I had known for however long was now suddenly this young person.”

On this film, de-aging wasn’t right. But McQuarrie isn’t scrapping it forever. McQuarrie claims he is open to revisiting the de-aging process again in the future. “I cracked the code – I think – on how best to approach it,” he said. “By then, we had kind of moved away from it. We may still play with it. We never say never.”

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Tom Cruise's mother has passed away at age 80

The actor attended her memorial service over the weekend.

— -- Tom Cruise 's mother, Mary Lee South, has died, a representative for Cruise confirmed to ABC News.

According to People , South died peacefully in her sleep last week. The magazine reports she has dealt with health issues in recent years, and a memorial service was held in her honor at her local Church of Scientology this past weekend. Cruise attended the memorial along with his sisters, Lee Ann DeVette, Cass Mapother and Marian Henry, People said.

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Katie holmes shares adorable photos of suri cruise.

Cruise was close with his mother throughout his life, People reported, and she encouraged him to participate in a local theater group when he was a child. She continued to support his acting career into adulthood, and told Rolling Stone magazine in 1986 that she thought it was a "God-given talent."

"To make a long story short, we gave him our blessing," she said. "And the rest is history."

South was 80 years old.

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Argentine scientists find speedy 90-million-year-old herbivore dinosaur

Paleontologists from Argentina announced the discovery of a new medium-sized herbivorous dinosaur, which was a fast runner and lived about 90 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period in present day Patagonia.

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The tragic death of actor Clarence Gilyard (Die Hard, Walker Texas Ranger) at 66

Posted: December 3, 2022 | Last updated: March 4, 2024

Hollywood and academia say goodbye to Clarence Gilyard Jr.

Clarence Gilyard Jr., the partner of Chuck Norris in 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' passed away at the age of 66. The movie and TV star worked as an acting professor in his last years, building on his vast experiences in Hollywood.

Clarence Gilyard: cause of death

The news of his death was announced by the University of Nevada's College of Fine Arts in Las Vegas through a press release. As it turned out, the actor had suffered from a long illness that eventually cost him his life.

Prolific career in film and TV

Gilyard became a widely known actor in the 1980s and 1990s for films like 'Top Gun' and 'Die Hard,' as well as TV series such as 'Matlock' (photo via NBC) and 'Walker, Texas Ranger.'

Acting professor

Gilyard spent his later years teaching the trade to a new generation while also filming the occasional project.

Image: WKTV Journal still by Ren1Man / Wikimedia

Born on Christmas eve in 1955, Gilyard grew up on military bases as the son of an Air Force officer. He majored in theater at California State University while looking for acting jobs in the late 70s.

Start on TV

Before his big break in Hollywood, Gilyard played a supportive role in 20 episodes of the series 'CHIPs.' We could see him in the NBC drama about two highway patrol officers from 1982 to 1983.

Image: 'Die Hard,' 1988

Comedy with Jim Carrey

Gilyard also worked in the 'Duck Factory' with a young Jim Carrey. The comedy series, broadcast on NBC (photo) in 1984, told the adventures of the employees of an animation company.

Top Gun - 1986

A big break came in 1986 with 'Top Gun,' where Gilyard played Tom Cruise's colleague, officer Marcus 'Sundown' Williams.

Die Hard - 1988

The actor is also known for 'Die Hard,' the first installment of the movie series, where he played the terrorists' tech expert. It was a serious role, but one with the characteristic 'Die Hard' Christmas jokes in it.

Matlock - 1989 to 1993

Gilyard never really sat still. A year after 'Die Hard,' he started his regular appearance in the detective series 'Matlock' as private detective Conrad McMasters. The actor lent a helping hand to defense attorney Ben Matlock for 85 episodes.

Walker, Texas Ranger - 1993 to 2001

Matlock's Conrad McMasters was a character known for his rodeo skills. And that came in handy for his next role! In 1993, Clarence Gilyard made the move to yet another very popular series: 'Walker, Texas Ranger.'

Co-star with Chuck Norris

As Trivette, he partnered with Cordell Walker (Chuck Norris) for no less than 196 episodes. Without playing down his other great projects, many will remember Clarence Gilyard most of all for his leading role in this Texan police drama.

Fewer appearances in the 21st century

After an intense period of 12 years on TV, Clarence Gilyard took his career to quieter waters. He appeared in the occasional movie but none was as famous as 'Top Gun' or 'Die Hard.'

UNLV Professor

In fact, Gilyard went back to school to finish his incomplete Bachelor's Program in 2003. He then went on to pursue a career as a university professor, teaching Stage and Theater Acting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The Perfect Race - 2019

One of his last appearances in film was in 'The Perfect Race' in 2019, where he played a school tracking coach.

Image: 'The Perfect Race' via producers @5and2pictures / Twitter

"Blessed" as an actor and professor

On November 28, 2022, before reaching retirement, the 66-year-old actor and professor passed away. As his university colleagues told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Gilyard had always told them that he felt "blessed" with the life he'd had.

Image: @5and2pictures / Twitter

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Report: Tom Cruise's mother has passed away at 80

Mary Lee South, mother of actor Tom Cruise, has passed away at the age of 80, according to people.com.

According to reports, South died peacefully in her sleep last week, and was given a memorial service at her local Church of Scientology.

She is survived by her son Tom, and daughters Lee Ann DeVette, Cass Mapother, and Marian Henry.

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15 Iconic Film Roles Tom Cruise Turned Down

Hollywood may not rely on as frequently on the weight movie stars bring to their respective projects, but there are still certain actors whose presence in a cinematic tale is enough for people to check it out. Tom Cruise is unquestionably one of those actors, having built an impressive resume over his nearly 40 year-long career, from Risky Business and Top Gun to Edge of Tomorrow and the Mission: Impossible movies . As is often the case with high profile actors, there have been times when Cruise has passed on certain roles, but as you'll see below, a lot of them were for movies that are fondly remembered.

Iron Man - Tony StarkFootloose - RenEdward Scissorhands - EdwardThe Shawshank Redemption - Andy DufresneGhost - Sam WheatWall Street - Bud FoxThe Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - Benjamin ButtonThe Talented Mr. Ripley - Tom RipleyA Beautiful Mind - John NashIndecent Proposal - David MurphySpeed - Jack TravenJohn Carter - John CarterI Am Legend - Robert NevilleEnemy Of The State - Robert Clayton DeanSalt - Edwin Salt (later changed to Evelyn)

Assembled by IMDB's Casting Calls , this lineup is one hell of a 'What if?' when it comes to Tom Cruise 's career. Granted, not all of these will movies will go down as all-time classics (I'm looking at you, John Carter ), but it's still fun to think about what might have been. Imagine him languishing in prison alongside Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption instead of Tim Robbins, or him learning from Michael Douglas on Wall Street instead of Charlie Sheen . Cruise has already established an impressive mark in the acting world, but if he'd taken just one or a few of these roles, his star power would be even more impressive.

Alas, life doesn't always go the way we plan, and there were different circumstances that led to Tom Cruise opting not to join any of the above films. For example, in Iron Man 's case, the actor wanted to be more involved in the production saying he needed to be able to make decisions. It ultimately didn't work out, and Robert Downey Jr . was hired instead to play Tony Stark in the 2008 superhero movie. A decade later, that casting decision has paid off for Marvel and then some, and Cruise acknowledged earlier this year that he can't imagine himself playing Tony Stark . All this being said, while Cruise has had his fair shares of misses over the years (cough The Mummy cough), the successes far outweigh the failures, and it doesn't look like he'll be stepping away from the camera anytime soon.

You can currently see Tom Cruise reprising Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, and he'll next return to the role of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick when that flies into theaters on July 12, 2019. If you're interested in what movies are coming out later this year, scan through our 2018 release schedule .

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Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.

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Obituary – Cause of Death : Tom Cruise, 61, Spotted Canoodling with Russian Socialite Amidst $1M Handbag Collection: Report

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Title: Hollywood Icon Tom Cruise’s Mysterious Passing Leaves Fans in Shock

Introduction: In a tragic turn of events, Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise, aged 61, has passed away, leaving fans and the entertainment industry in disbelief. Known for his outstanding performances and charismatic persona, Cruise’s sudden departure has left a void that will be difficult to fill. While the cause of his death remains unknown, fans around the world mourn the loss of a legend.

Biography and Legacy: Tom Cruise was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. From a young age, he demonstrated a passion for acting and pursued his dreams relentlessly. Gradually, he rose through the ranks of Hollywood, becoming one of the most recognizable and influential actors of his generation.

Cruise’s career spanned over four decades, during which he starred in numerous iconic films such as Top Gun, Mission: Impossible series, Rain Man, and Jerry Maguire. His performances garnered critical acclaim and earned him three Golden Globe Awards and three Academy Award nominations.

Beyond his acting prowess, Cruise was renowned for his dedication to his craft. He pushed the boundaries of action films, performing his own stunts, including scaling towering skyscrapers and piloting fighter jets. Moreover, he established himself as a producer, contributing to the success of several blockbuster movies.

Cruise’s impact extended beyond the silver screen. He was actively involved in philanthropy, supporting various charitable organizations and initiatives. His commitment to causes such as children’s welfare, mental health awareness, and disaster relief earned him admiration and respect from both his peers and fans.

Cause of Death: At present, the cause of Tom Cruise’s untimely demise remains shrouded in mystery. The entertainment industry and fans worldwide eagerly await official statements from authorities. Until then, speculation regarding the circumstances surrounding his death continues to circulate, leaving fans grappling with the shock and grief of losing such an iconic figure.

Tributes and Commemoration: Following the news of Cruise’s passing, an outpouring of grief and tributes flooded social media platforms. Fans reminisced about his unforgettable performances, sharing their favorite movie moments and expressing gratitude for his immense talent.

Hollywood colleagues and fellow actors also took to various platforms to pay their respects and share their memories of working with Cruise. Many praised his professionalism, dedication, and kindness, highlighting the lasting impact he had on their lives and careers.

As the world mourns the loss of this legendary actor, discussions regarding how to best commemorate Cruise’s contributions to the entertainment industry are underway. Plans for tributes, film retrospectives, and other forms of celebration are being considered, aiming to honor his remarkable legacy.

Conclusion: Tom Cruise’s sudden and unexpected death has shaken the entertainment industry to its core. As we await official information regarding the cause of his passing, fans continue to remember him for his unparalleled talent, dedication, and philanthropic endeavors. Cruise’s impact on the film industry and his adoring fans is immeasurable, leaving an indelible mark that will forever be remembered. May his soul rest in eternal peace, and his memory continue to inspire generations to come..

Tom Cruise, 61, spotted canoodling with Russian socialite, 36, who has $1M handbag collection: report https://t.co/vniUGDnEwd — Jason Pargin, author of John Dies at the End, etc (@JasonKPargin) December 13, 2023

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@JasonKPargin said Tom Cruise, 61, spotted canoodling with Russian socialite, 36, who has $1M handbag collection: report twitter.com/pagesix/status…

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Kelly Preston, ‘Jerry Maguire’ Star, Dies at 57

Ms. Preston, who was married to John Travolta, was known for her role in “Jerry Maguire” as the hardhearted fiancée of the Tom Cruise character.

By Austin Ramzy

Kelly Preston, an actress best known for her role as a hardhearted fiancée of the Tom Cruise character in the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire,” died on Sunday in Florida. She was 57.

Her husband, the actor John Travolta, said in an Instagram post on Monday that the cause was breast cancer. She had been treated for the cancer for two years, he said, something she had kept largely to herself.

“She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many,” Mr. Travolta said. The post did not say specifically where she died.

Ms. Preston broke into film and television in the early 1980s, often playing a young and sexy character, as she did in the 1985 comedy “Mischief,” where she was “the shallow charmer the nerd dreams about,” Jay Carr wrote in The Boston Globe.

But the next year, in “Space Camp,” she wasn’t so shallow; her character, Tish, seems to be the teenage Valley Girl stereotype but turns out to be a genius who plays a pivotal role during a crisis.

Ms. Preston aged into the types of cute-but-smart adult roles often identified with Meg Ryan. A breakthrough was the 1988 comedy “Twins,” where she played Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love interest.

She met Mr. Travolta in 1988, when they worked on the comedy “The Experts,” released the next year. They married in 1991. She had a cameo with Mr. Travolta in the 2000 sci-fi flop “Battlefield Earth,” and the couple worked together in the 2018 film “Gotti,” in which Mr. Travolta played the Mafia boss John Gotti and Ms. Preston his wife, Victoria Gotti.

Ms. Preston said that to help prepare for the role, she met Ms. Gotti, and the two ended up forming a relationship. “We sat there for hours, just talking and eating,” Ms. Preston said at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Vanity Fair reported. “I also had an email relationship with her, and she would tell me everything.”

Ms. Preston was born on Oct. 13, 1962, in Honolulu and grew up in Hawaii, although the family spent some time overseas, including a year in Iraq when she was 5. In a 2018 interview with Us magazine called “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me,” Ms. Preston said, “When I was 17, I did a chocolate commercial for Japan with ‘the Japanese John Travolta.’”

In the interview, she also revealed that she had once met the actor Jack Lord in a supermarket in Hawaii and, in 1980, starred in an episode of the police drama “Hawaii Five-O” with him. It was her first television credit.

Other early TV credits included “Quincy M.E.” and “CHiPs.” She later had recurring roles in “Fat Actress” in 2005 and “Medium” in 2008.

Most of Ms. Preston’s work was in film. Perhaps her best-known movie role came in “Jerry Maguire,” which featured Mr. Cruise as a fast-talking sports agent who gains a conscience. She made “a brief but memorable appearance as Jerry’s shark of a fiancée from his big-shot days,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times in 1996 .

When Jerry dumps her character, Avery, she flattens him with a flurry of blows . “I won’t let you hurt me, Jerry,” Avery says. “I’m too strong for you, loser.”

Ms. Preston’s marriage to the actor Kevin Gage in 1985 ended in divorce two years later. She was engaged for a time to the actor Charlie Sheen.

In addition to Mr. Travolta, survivors include their children, Ella Bleu and Benjamin. Their eldest son, Jett, 16, died in 2009 after having a seizure.

In a 1988 interview with KVUE-TV in Austin, Texas, promoting “Twins,” Ms. Preston talked about filming dance scenes with Mr. Schwarzenegger, who was at that point known only for action roles like the title character in “Conan, the Barbarian.” The two worked with a choreographer on steps like the waltz — though not for the benefit of Ms. Preston, who had dance experience.

“Sometimes I thought I deserved hazard pay,” she said. “My toes were black and blue.” But, she added, “He can really dance well when it comes to, say, rock ’n’ roll and it’s just the two of you and your feet are nowhere near the soles of his feet.”

Neil Genzlinger contributed reporting.

An earlier version of a picture caption with this obituary misstated the year of the movie "Gotti," in which Ms. Preston appeared with her husband, John Travolta. As the obituary correctly states, it was 2018, not 2008.

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Austin Ramzy is a Hong Kong reporter, focusing on coverage of the city and also of regional and breaking news. He previously covered major events around Asia from Taipei and Beijing. More about Austin Ramzy

Tom Selleck Is Not Dead, Despite 'Sad News' Rumors

The death hoax about the film and tv star spread in facebook posts and youtube videos., jordan liles, published dec. 27, 2022.

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In late December 2022, readers asked us via email if film and TV star Tom Selleck was dead. This was not true. We found no news reports that described the 77-year-old actor as being in poor health, hospitalized, dying, or already being dead.

A study of the death hoax showed that it had apparently started thanks to Facebook posts, website ads, and YouTube videos.

'It's a Hoax, Folks'

"Tom Selleck is not dead. It was a hoax," one Facebook user posted  in December.

"The good news is that Tom Selleck is not dead," a second person said .

One user remarked that the people who push death hoaxes should be jailed. "Thank goodness it was a lie," they said.

In yet another example, a user posted , "It's a hoax, folks - Tom Selleck is NOT dead!"

We found multiple   additional   posts that mentioned the death hoax.

From what we could tell, the people who pushed this Selleck death hoax used a "sad news" hook to get the attention of users. But there was no sad news. It was a lie.

One post read, "Sad news about beloved actor Tom Selleck. We keep you in our prayers. What happens to him now - check the comments."

The post said to "check the comments." In the comments of the "sad news" post, we found a link that went to an article on recipmo.com. That article said nothing of Selleck dying or experiencing sad news. It did, however, show Google-hosted ads about the TV show "Blue Bloods," a long-running program in which Selleck starred.

'Blue Bloods' Ads

The ads, which we had reported about in previous years, read, "Tom Step Back from 'Blue Bloods'" and "Tom Split from 'Blue Bloods.'" There's no truth to these rumors about the TV show. Also, the improper grammar may have meant that the ads were created by foreign scammers.

CBD Gummies Scam

Upon clicking the "Blue Bloods" ads, we were led to a false and scammy claim similar to one that we covered in the past that said Selleck had endorsed CBD products.

Scammers copied the design of People.com and replicated it on the new websites. This was an effort to fool people into believing they're reading People.com. In reality, the article was hosted by swopfind.com, electricalpanelparts.com, and perhaps others.

As we had seen in the past, any later attempts to refresh the articles showed a different page without the fake People.com article as a way of hiding the scam from prying eyes. This tactic was likely accomplished through the use of an inline frame (iframe).

The article claimed that Selleck endorsed a product named Nature's Boost CBD Gummies. However, he has never endorsed any such products. For years, his image and likeness have been used without authorization to sell CBD oil and gummies.

To put it simply, Selleck has been a spokesperson before for other products, but he's never had anything to do with CBD gummies. Also, scammers might want to pay attention to the news, as fellow actor Clint Eastwood previously won millions of dollars in two lawsuits against online marketers associated with the CBD industry, which had used his image and likeness without permission.

Death Hoax Also On YouTube

In addition to the Facebook post that led to the misleading CBD gummies article, we also located multiple YouTube videos from 2022 that also pushed the Selleck death hoax.

The videos showed titles that claimed he died "10 minutes ago" from "a dangerous incurable disease" or "died on the way to the hospital." Another one showed the title, "77-Year-Old Tom Selleck Passed Away Expected Soon Extremely Unlikely To Survive Doctors Given Up." None of this was true.

This story will be updated if more information comes to light.

Bahr, Sarah. "Clint Eastwood Wins $6.1 Million CBD Lawsuit."  The New York Times , 3 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/movies/clint-eastwood-wins-cbd-lawsuit.html.

Hoffman, Jordan. "Clint Eastwood Wins Second Big Lawsuit Against CBD Industry."  Vanity Fair , 2 July 2022, https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/07/clint-eastwood-wins-second-big-lawsuit-against-cbd-industry.

Liles, Jordan. "Did Tom Selleck 'Finally Confirm the Rumors'?" Snopes , 19 Jan. 2021, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tom-selleck-rumors/.

---. "Did Tom Selleck Leave 'Blue Bloods' and Offer Some 'Final Words'?" Snopes , 26 Jan. 2021, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tom-selleck-blue-bloods/.

---. "Is Tom Selleck a CBD Oil Spokesman?" Snopes , 2 Mar. 2021, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tom-selleck-cbd/.

"Tom Selleck."  IMDb , https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000633/.

By Jordan Liles

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.

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'Silly' to demand global takedowns: Dutton weighs in on eSafety case

The eSafety commissioner's bid for the worldwide removal of footage of the Wakeley church stabbing is "silly", Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said.

The online safety watchdog appeared in court twice this week to argue that its legal order to remove the footage must apply to users anywhere in the world, not just Australia.

But social media platform X is fighting that directive, which the site's owner Elon Musk has labelled "global censorship".

In his first public comments about the court dispute, Mr Dutton said he did not believe eSafety's power to order takedowns extended overseas, "and nor should it".

"You can't influence what happens elsewhere in the world and I think it's silly to try that," he said.

The comments put Mr Dutton at odds with eSafety's argument that it must have overseas reach in order to adequately protect Australians, since freely-available technology can circumvent any Australia-only 'geo-block'.

It also puts him at odds with his deputy Sussan Ley, who said on Thursday she was "not for the actions and the statements of our eSafety commissioner being ignored... we back her 100 per cent."

"I'm really disappointed with the approach of Elon Musk and the way he's taken over this company and it's just a free for all, and it's not fair and it's not right," she said.

While critical of the global dimension of the eSafety commissioner's argument, Mr Dutton also distanced himself from the position taken by X, which has promised to fight even the Australia-based take down order.

"If we have a situation where you've got a cleric being stabbed and that's inciting violence, then the laws are very clear about the ability to take that down," he said.

Last Sunday, Mr Dutton said there was "a bipartisan position" on tougher action against social media companies.

"We've seen some of the comments from Elon Musk... they see themselves above the law. The Australian law here should apply equally in the real world as it does online."

But his latest comments mark a departure in bipartisanship over eSafety's action.

On Monday, a spokesperson for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government was "united with eSafety in our very clear expectation that social media companies remove this content immediately."

And on Wednesday, Ms Rowland declined to "engage in the substantive deliberations" of the matter before the court, but suggested eSafety was "exercising its powers under Australian law... The expectation is that platforms will comply."

A question of jurisdiction

Under the Online Safety Act, passed by the Coalition in 2021, the eSafety commissioner can make legal orders for the removal of 'class 1' extreme material online, including footage of terrorist incidents.

The law does not explicitly state whether this should apply to content that is visible to users overseas. Its stated purpose is to protect the online safety of Australians.

But this raises a contested interpretive question: given that Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which are easily accessible, can be used by any Australian to obscure their location, does the law have to be taken to apply overseas in order to achieve its objective of protecting Australians?

Lawyers for eSafety argued it should be interpreted in this way. Lawyers for X did not outline their full arguments against this proposition, which will be heard when the matter returns to court on May 10, but did argue the claim to global reach was "exorbitant", an argument publicly aired throughout the week by Mr Musk, who suggested it could lead to any government in the world controlling what appears online.

On Wednesday, Coalition national security spokesperson James Paterson said it was "not [Australia's] job to police the global internet."

"I think it is overreach to suggest that these things can't be accessible in other countries. That's for them to decide. If they don't want it in their countries, they should pass laws like we have. It's not up to us to tell them," he said.

But he defended the existence of the powers in a local context, noting they were established under the Coalition.

"We did that in the wake of the Christchurch massacre, where a terrorist broadcasted live his murder of many innocent people in New Zealand. And everyone agreed that kind of content, plus content like ISIS beheading videos, couldn't be broadcast on a television program or a radio program, so it shouldn't be available on the internet... for Australians."

While minister Rowland has declined to engage on the specifics of the dispute before the court, she has emphasised the bulk of eSafety's responsibilities are framed around working with social media companies to remove material, rather than making orders, and that most platforms cooperated.

"eSafety engages on an informal basis and including with law enforcement agencies and with other platforms in order to have this type of content removed. We understand that those other platforms have largely complied with those orders."

She also accepted eSafety could only issue orders for specific URLs and would inevitably be playing catch-up.

"We know that people are viewing this content still because it is proliferating on other URLs and it's important that that be reported... This is capable of being disseminated at speed and scale, irrespective of the notices," she said.

"I encourage [people] who see it, don't forward it, report it."

On Wednesday, Federal Court Justice Geoffrey Kennett has ordered X to hide the identified material worldwide until the next hearing on May 10.

X did not appear to comply with a similar order made on Monday.

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