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Cruise controlled: Hollywood hits back |
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Top Gun Tom Cruise is down, and the greediest and most narcissistic star-system ever devised by Hollywood is crashing with him.
The 'star with the megawatt smile' got canned this week by Sumner Redstone, an 83-year-old with neither charisma nor looks who just happens to own Viacom, which owns Paramount Studios. He fired Cruise from an amazing deal - 25 per cent of the gross - with a bald statement to the Wall Street Journal that the star's "recent behaviour has not been acceptable".
Cruise, once unassailable as the star of Top Gun and the Mission Impossible series, has gone from box-office gold to pop-culture laughing stock in a single year. He preached Scientology, castigated Brooke Shields for taking medication to ease post-partum depression, and went weird with a mysterious
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charles laurence on why the ‘star with the megawatt smile’ no longer grins inanely |
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relationship which involved proving that he really did love Katie Holmes by jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's sofa.
He has been a figurehead for ruthless Hollywood trends since the 80s. Cruise helped Michael Ovitz and his CAA agency put the lock on the studios, demanding outrageous deals against the threat of boycott. And with Pat Kingsley, the PR harridan, he reversed the tradition in which stars owed fans and the press for their successes. Instead, Tom and Pat demanded the right to choose photos and censor stories in exchange for 'access'.
It was all about power and money. "These companies are sick of being pushed around," a studio executive told the Hollywood press corps. "This is indicative of a huge paradigm shift in the industry in terms of what constitutes a star and how much power a star has." 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 24, 2006
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News & Comment: News & Politics
