Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York,[7] the son of Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer.[8] Although Cruise's paternal surname (Mapother) is Welsh, it appears that his paternal great-grandfather, Thomas O'Mara, was of Irish ancestry and adopted his stepfather's surname, becoming the first Thomas Cruise Mapother.[9] He also has German and English ancestry from his paternal great-grandparents, William Reibert and Charlotte Louise Voelker,[9] and German ancestry through his mother.[10] Tom Cruise's oldest sister, Lee Anne, was born in Louisville. His older sister Marian was born in Syracuse, as were Tom and his younger sister, Cass.[11]
Cruise attended Robert Hopkins Public school for grades three, four, and five. The Mapother family then moved to the suburb of Beacon Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, so Cruise's father could take a position as a defence consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. There, Cruise completed grade six at Henry Munro Middle School, part of the Carleton Board of Education,[12] where he was active in athletics, playing floor hockey almost every night, showing himself to be a ruthless player, eventually chipping his front tooth. In the game "British Bull Dog", he then lost his newly capped tooth and hurt his knee.[13] Henry Munro was also where Cruise became involved in drama, under the tutelage of George Steinburg.[14] The first play he participated in was called IT, in which Cruise won the co-lead with Michael de Waal, one playing "Evil", the other playing "Good." The play met much acclaim, and toured with five other classmates to various schools around the Ottawa area, even being filmed at the local Ottawa TV station.[15] The two were also singled out for a version of Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as a Marcel Marceau-type act. It was at this point that Mary Lee Mapother helped foster her son's acting aspirations: when the religious overtones of the former caused concern for school principal Jim Brown, Cruise's mother convinced him that the play should proceed, and she founded the Gloucester Players, a theatrical troupe where Cruise and some of the boys in Steinburg's class acted.
When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her.[16] After a long period of near-poverty, in which Tom's newspaper-delivery earnings helped put food on the table, his mother married a plastics salesman named Jack South.
Besides Ottawa, cities in which Cruise lived included Louisville, Kentucky; Winnetka, Illinois; and Wayne, New Jersey. In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati (on a church scholarship) and aspired to become a Catholic priest. In his senior year, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but he was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game.[17] Cruise graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey in 1980.
Cruise has said that he was abused as a child; this was partially due to his suffering from dyslexia. He stated that when something went wrong, his father came down hard on him. He told Parade Magazine that his father was "a bully" and "a merchant of chaos." Cruise said he learned early on that his father was – and, by extension, some people were – not to be trusted: "I knew from being around my father that not everyone means me well."[18] Having gone through 15 schools in 12 years, Cruise, who dropped his father's name surname at age 12, was also a victim of bullying at school.
Cruise started acting after being sidelined from his high school's wrestling team due to a knee injury. While injured, he successfully auditioned for a lead role in his high school's production of Guys and Dolls and decided to become an actor after his success in the role. His cousin William Mapother is also an actor most known for playing Ethan Rom on Lost.
