Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography (29 page)

Nicole’s disgruntlement with her husband was increasingly played out through their friends. For example, Tom’s buddy Emilio Estevez, best man for his first marriage, was no longer as welcome as he once was, and on the odd occasions
Tom saw his old school friend Michael LaForte and his wife, Fran, Nicole seemed ill at ease and distracted, as though the rough-talking New Jerseyan was not quite socially acceptable. However, in the company of her girlfriends, like actors Naomi Watts and Rebecca Riggs, as well as gay men from the world of fashion, she was a different person, smiling, relaxed, and full of fun, happy to sing and dance the night away at places like the Buffalo Club in Santa Monica. Curiously, if she went out on her own, she would often take the couple’s driver Dave Garris, who had worked for them since
Days of Thunder,
along for company. If they went to the movies, she would even allow Garris, who has been described as a Tom Cruise wannabe, to choose the film they were going to see.

As she pulled away from Tom, by necessity Nicole became much less involved with the children’s upbringing than her husband. When she was away filming or, increasingly, flying to Sydney to spend time with her parents and sister, it could be days before she would phone to see how Isabella and Connor were coping. Those who saw the family close up concluded that Tom was much more comfortable and enthusiastic as a parent. The actor was in constant—and controlling—touch with the youngsters and their nannies no matter how busy he was.

In keeping with Hubbard’s theory that children were small adults, Tom never babied his children, striking a balance between mentoring and nurturing. Unsurprisingly, Tom was an energetic, noisy dad, always chasing, joshing, playing with the children, his hearty laugh echoing through the normally quiet house. Thankfully, after a stage in which Connor gave Bella terrible bites, the youngsters bonded, Tom appreciating the differences in their characters: Connor bright but mischievous, Bella assertive but playing by the rules. As soon as Connor was walking and talking, Tom took him off on boys’ adventures, whisking him away in his private plane for the weekend with only his communicator, Michael Doven, for company. Like most fathers, he wanted to re-create the happy aspects of his own youth for his son, building a ramp at the
family home in Telluride so that Connor could be taught daredevil jumps on a tiny motorbike.

When Nicole won a leading role in the comedy
Practical Magic,
it came as no surprise that she left the children with Tom in London while she flew to Los Angeles in January 1998 to rehearse her part. A couple of weeks after beginning work, she was rushed to the hospital for surgery to remove what was officially described as a benign ovarian cyst. Given that her mother had a history of breast cancer and that Nicole had her own gynecological difficulties, it was a worrying time, Tom flying out to the West Coast to be at his wife’s side. She recovered sufficiently to continue work on the movie, which was shot in Washington state, allowing Tom to return to London to conclude filming of the interminable
Eyes Wide Shut.
An illicitly recorded telephone conversation between the increasingly distant couple, published in March 1998, gave the world an insight into their fractious marriage.

Celebrity photographer Eric Ford, who recorded the conversation, was subsequently fined and jailed, but in the meantime everyone could listen in to the Cruises uncut and in private. Away from the glamour and smiles of the red carpet, they were revealed as a tired and spoiled married couple getting tetchy with each other. During the chat, made on a car phone, Tom is clearly more conciliatory, Nicole unwilling to be soothed. Noticeably, the love notes and flowers are now weapons in a war of emotional attrition rather than tokens of affection.

After Tom tells Nicole that she makes him “feel like shit,” Nicole responds by saying, “We’ve been hanging on by a fucking thread, okay? A thread. You know it and I know it.” Even though Tom says that he wants their relationship to work, Nicole continues to carp, asking why he hasn’t sent her a rose or a love note. The conversation continues in this vein, sometimes lightening up, sometimes getting more serious. The couple changes gears, like most married couples, between discussing practicalities—notably plans for Connor’s third birthday—and issuing serious complaints.

Nicole tells her husband baldly, “Tom, there’s no love here, right? You’re under emotional abuse, I’m abusing you, you’re abusing me. Tom, this isn’t worth it! You have two unhappy people, okay, who spend too much time apart and in the past have hurt each other too much. . . . And I tell you something, we haven’t spent any time together, Tom! You just don’t make an effort. I come home and all you ever say is, ‘I’m exhausted.’ ”

After a brief interjection from her husband, Nicole continues her litany of complaints: “I’m sick of it, I’m sick of it! And if it’s not, ‘I’ve got to get the kids from school,’ it’s ‘I’m working, I don’t have time for you.’ And Tom, I’ve heard this for so long now and you’re not working now and you’re still saying it.”

In an attempt to placate his wife, Tom is cajoling and consoling. “I miss you. I love you. I think about you all day long. You’re a knucklehead, a knucklehead for thinking that I don’t care, I’m not loving. I’m embarrassed that I was tired last night. I apologize, okay?” Like many married couples who have a fight, by the end of the conversation the couple is managing to laugh, and signing off by saying “I love you” to each other. Unlike most married couples, however, Tom and Nicole had to justify their spat to the gossip-hungry world, their spokeswoman Pat Kingsley issuing a statement saying that the conversation was taken out of context and the couple’s words edited to make their discussion sound like a row. When she was asked, Nicole sensibly made light of the squabble. “We were fighting about how many people to invite to our son’s birthday party,” she said. “And about which one of us was more tired and who was working harder. Quite boring, actually.”

Others who witnessed Tom and Nicole’s daily life were more frank. “To me,” says an associate, “their marriage wasn’t a ‘happy marriage,’ but it was one that had found a certain groove, and they went with it. Tom chased after Nicole, who was always unobtainable, and that cycle continued. I think he was in love with her up until the end, but that she had grown out of love with him and was unhappy in the marriage. She
seemed so much more mature than he was. He’s a jock; a guy’s guy. He isn’t sophisticated. She is. I believe she loved him when she met him, but she outgrew him. He seemed happier in the marriage than she was and she was always finding fault with everything.”

It was not just her husband she found fault with. Nicole often seemed bored or disenchanted with her life as a Hollywood star, expecting a luxurious lifestyle as her birthright. During publicity for
Practical Magic
in the fall of 1998, Warner Bros. arranged for a private G5 jet to ferry her around. It was, as far as she was concerned, a given, not a privilege. “She had no sense of wonderment about the world,” recalls an associate. “So many wonderful things happened to her, but she had an enduring sense of boredom like some 1920s flapper. She never delighted in anything.”

Whatever the state of their marriage, that summer was artistic business as usual—Tom working on the money-spinning blockbusters, Nicole choosing low-paying art projects. When Tom finally finished work on
Eyes Wide Shut
in June 1998, the couple decided to stay on in London, renting another luxurious house in central London. Tom worked on preproduction for a sequel to
Mission: Impossible,
which was scheduled to be filmed in Australia, while Nicole tried her hand at the theater, earning a modest five hundred dollars a week to star in
The Blue Room
at the fashionable Donmar Warehouse Theatre. She would play five characters, ranging from a Cockney harlot and a politician’s mistress to an unfaithful wife. The role involved simulating sex five times and appearing naked, albeit briefly, in front of the audience. Nor was Nicole the only one to take her clothes off; her costar, Iain Glen, had to perform a naked cartwheel across the stage each night.

In September 1998, just weeks before the court case against Express Newspapers,
The Blue Room
opened to rapturous reviews, Nicole’s performance memorably described as “theatrical Viagra” by theater critic Charles Spencer. “She’s drop dead gorgeous and bewitchingly adorable. The vision of her wafting round the stage with a fag in one hand and her
knickers in the other as a delicious French au pair will haunt my fantasies for months.”

Nicole had managed something that had eluded her in the movies: Now she was not only considered a beauty, but taken seriously as an actress and a sex symbol. It was intoxicating. Director Sam Mendes, who went on to direct
American Beauty,
noted the change in her. “I feel for Nicole it was a very special time. It was the moment she became a special entity from Tom Cruise. And I’m sure she was aware that was happening.”

In public, both Nicole and her stage partner Iain Glen were keen to emphasize that their respective partners—Glen was married at that time to actress Susannah Harker—were “secure” about watching them have sex onstage. Tom was so “secure,” in fact, that he came to see the play more than twenty times. Perhaps he was wholly admiring of his wife’s work and absolutely comfortable watching her act out having sex with Iain Glen over and over again. Certainly Glen, who first met Tom when he watched them perform the play at a preview, implied that they were all mates together. “He was such an extraordinary bundle of brilliant, positive energy. You couldn’t have a more enthusiastic and generous person as a friend.”

Behind the scenes, it wasn’t quite so convivial. The handsome Scotsman, who was considered for the role of James Bond, was a talented stage and film veteran who refused to be impressed by Tom’s achievements. Glen, who was the same age as the Hollywood star but six inches taller, looked down on Tom, belittling his ability while flirting with his wife. The general consensus of those in Tom’s circle was that the Hollywood actor was pleasant to the Scottish thespian—but only through gritted teeth. “Tom and he did not get on, whereas there was real chemistry between Iain and Nicole. She always laughed at his jokes.” Those who watched the trio in action could not help but admire Tom’s sangfroid in the face of considerable provocation. As one associate said bluntly, “Iain Glen was a dick who had no respect for Tom
and who would openly flirt with Nicole. Tom refused to show any agitation, as he was a real gentleman.”

For a man used to admiration and easy authority, the incestuous, clubby landscape of theatrical London left him feeling isolated. This cliquey world, with its in-jokes, witty banter, and storytelling, was alien to the film actor who was no longer the instant center of attention. Even his famous smile failed to impress. More than that, he was used to the rhythm of the film set, where early mornings rather than late nights were the norm. This lifestyle, however, was meat and drink to Nicole, who reveled in the adrenaline-fueled rush after nightly performances, hanging out until the early hours at the members-only Soho Club, chatting, laughing, and carousing.

For the first time in their marriage, rumors and whispers raced around London about Nicole, claiming that she and Iain were involved in a passionate offstage romance. The gossip was hardly helped by Glen’s breezy attitude in interviews. “We had to get very intimate with each other very quickly as actors,” he told
In Theater
magazine. “It’s easy to kid yourself that you’re getting on really well, but with Nicole—through Sam’s help—we immediately established a very easy relationship. I think that was very important. People who come to the play see us do five different characters each; in a way, it’s curiously about the relationship between Nic and I as much as anything.”

Once the play finished its London run at the end of October, Nicole and Iain flew to New York, where the show was scheduled to open on Broadway in mid-December. In order to give extra zest to her role as a prostitute, Nicole hired her acting coach, Susan Batson, to help her explore the part further. Batson took her to a seedy part of downtown Manhattan where Nicole spent time talking to real streetwalkers. The problem was that the sight of Nicole mingling with hookers began to draw attention—and customers. “Here was a hot white woman on the street,” Batson remembers. “Cars were coming left and right. We finally had to really get out of there because it got a little dangerous.”

While the extra homework may have helped her performance, the play was not quite as well received as in London. Even so, Nicole and Iain were the talk of Broadway, invited to the famed annual ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unlike his counterpart, Iain Glen was not used to walking the red carpet or, for that matter, wearing a suit. So Nicole arranged for the fashion house Prada to lend him a suit and pair of shoes for the big occasion. When he demurred about sending them back, Nicole generously bought them for him. Her largesse extended to inviting Iain, his wife, Susannah Harker, and their child to Telluride for Thanksgiving, as well as flying them to Sydney to join her family for the millennium celebrations. Although Tom played the gracious host, Glen’s constant put-downs and disrespect infuriated him. If it had been his choice, they would never have been invited in the first place.

As with Kubrick, Tom was all about putting on a show. Tom would regularly visit Nicole backstage, though it was noted that there was little conversation or other interaction between them when they were alone. As soon as photographers were around, it was camera, lights, action, the couple kissing, canoodling, and pawing each other to the point where observers were thinking, “Just get a room.” Once the photographers were gone, the emotional lights went off and the couple reverted to their normal world of silence and distance.

During the Broadway run of
The Blue Room
, another man came into her life who would have a dramatic impact. At the end of one performance, Nicole walked into her dressing room to find a dozen long-stemmed red roses. At first she thought Tom had sent them, but when she read the note she realized they were from Australian director Baz Luhrmann. “She sings, she dances, she dies. Please meet me,” read the note. Intrigued, Nicole found herself talking to Luhrmann about the role of Satine, the beautiful and tragic courtesan who would be the star of his proposed screen musical,
Moulin Rouge.
The part would be a stretch for Nicole, who was not a trained singer or dancer. Buoyed by her success
in
The Blue Room
and lured by the prospect of filming in her hometown of Sydney, Nicole decided to take on the challenge.