Tom’s faith not only helped ease his separation from Mimi Rogers, it also helped him keep a straight face as he related his story of domestic harmony. The art of lying forms an integral part of sacred Scientology scriptures, and one of the entry-level courses, on communications, teaches effective techniques for “outflowing false data.” Cruise proved himself a nimble and able student, receiving favorable coverage in December for his on- and off-screen personae and winning a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Born on the Fourth of July. “Tom Cruise’s portrayal of Ron Kovic is proof positive that he is one of the most versatile actors working in Hollywood today,” wrote movie critic Edward Gross.

As the flattering profiles of Tom hit the newsstands, his divorce lawyer flew out from Los Angeles to Daytona Beach, Florida, where filming was now taking place, on January 12 so that the actor could sign his divorce papers. A day earlier, Tom had quietly met with Mimi at the Charlotte Hilton University Place Hotel. Some observers believe it was a last-ditch attempt by the actress to save her marriage. More realistically, it was to finalize their official statement and outstanding financial matters. In fact, in keeping with the speed of the split, the divorce papers were filed four days later, the couple releasing a brief statement the next day. “While there have been positive aspects to our marriage, there were some issues which could not be resolved even after working on them for a period of time.”

In an interview in Playboy three years later, Ms. Rogers mischievously elaborated on those mysterious “issues.” Scorned for a younger woman, Mimi got her revenge by kicking her former husband, whom People magazine had named the “sexiest man on earth,” in the cojones. “Tom was seriously thinking of becoming a monk,” she told interviewer Michael Angeli. “At least for that period of time, it looked as though marriage wouldn’t fit into his overall spiritual need. And he thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument. Therefore it became obvious that we had to split.” As for her own instrument: “Oh, my instrument needed tuning,” she said. While her comments would help float a flotilla of sexual gossip about her former husband, she admitted afterward that she was just having fun with the clearly besotted interviewer.

Perhaps more accurately, their fiercely demanding work schedules, Tom’s stated desire to start a family, the influence of his new faith — and, of course, the sexual chemistry between Tom and a younger woman — all contributed to the breakdown of their brief union. Tom later told Talk magazine, “Before Nicole I was dissatisfied, wanting something more. It was just two people who weren’t meant to work and it wasn’t what I wanted for my life. I think you just go on different paths. But it wasn’t Mimi’s fault .. . it’s just the way it is.”

He spent little time reflecting on what went wrong with his first marriage, instead, as was his romantic pattern, racing headlong into a new relationship. Ironically, he was behaving in much the same way as his father, who, weeks after his divorce, had married Joan Lebendiger following a whirlwind courtship. Tom, at least, was more discreet. Just five days after formally announcing his divorce, he faced banks of photographers when he accepted a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance in Born on the Fourth of July. He did have a woman by his side as he walked down the red carpet — but it was his mother, Mary Lee. Otherwise, he was spending all his free time with the new woman in his life, his rented white BMW and Harley- Davidson motorcycle spotted outside the rented Daytona Beach bungalow of his Australian costar when the production moved to Florida. The love match between Nicole and Tom was not the only subject of crew chatter on the set of Days of Thunder. Actress Donna Wilson dated producer Don Simpson during the early weeks of filming, then ditched him for director Tony Scott, whom she subsequently married.

Slide show   Top gun A look at Tom Cruise's career and relationships.

Shortly after Tom’s divorce was finalized on February 4, 1990, Nicole told her mother, Janelle, who taken leave from her job as a nursing instructor to visit her daughter and give Tom the once-over, that when work on Days of Thunder was completed, she planned to move into Tom’s newly purchased $4 million home at Pacific Palisades in California. By all accounts her mother was not surprised, her daughter having pursued previous love affairs with hotheaded abandon. Like Tom, Nicole had Irish blood coursing through her veins, the Kidman family immigrating to Australia from Ireland as free settlers in 1839. Born in 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Australian parents, Nicole was raised a Catholic, attending Mass every week. Yet she was willful and strong-minded, dropping out of school at the age of sixteen to pursue an acting career. “I was a nightmare to my parents,” she later told Movieline magazine. Rebellious and impetuous, the unconventional seventeen-year-old flew to Amsterdam with her thirty-seven-year-old boyfriend for a vacation. When that relationship foundered, she lived on and off for three years with another older man, fellow actor Tom Burlinson, leaving him after turning down his offer of marriage.

The next man in her life, actor Marcus Graham, never really had a chance once the world’s sexiest man arrived on the scene. While he pined for her in Sydney, Tom was wooing Nicole, sending her love notes and flowers, usually red roses, almost daily. Marcus realized what was going on only when he watched Nicole walk along the red carpet with Tom — and Nic’s mother, Janelle, and Mary Lee — at the Academy Awards in Hollywood in March 1990. It was their first public appearance as a couple, Tom missing out for the Best Actor award to Daniel Day-Lewis for his performance in My Left Foot. Tom was gracious in defeat. “It was exciting, just getting nominated. That acknowledgment from my peers.”

The evening was glamorous relief from the expensive growing pains associated with his latest movie baby. Bad weather, an unfinished script, technical problems, and a ballooning budget — escalating from $40 to $70 million, including a handsome $7 million fee for Cruise — made Days of Thunder a seat-of-the-pants production. Working with an incomplete script meant that Cruise and other actors were being fed new pages of dialogue every day, the leading man reading lines off the dashboard of his 180-mile-per-hour stock car. Disaster was not long in coming: After Tom was involved in a high-speed crash as he squinted at his script, writer Robert Towne dictated dialogue to him through his headset.

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