Eileen Berlin, Tom Cruise’s first managertold Daily Mail magazine that, early in her career, the future Hollywood star had a bad temper and it was obsessed with his physical appearance. She also said she never saw him genuinely happy, always focused as he was on making it into show business.
Tom Cruise, ex manager Eileen Berlin speaks
It is quite rare to hear honestly about a movie superstar, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses: as their image is the basis of the success of their films, often comes to us a portrait that has been carefully prepared by managers and communication experts. And of course these are uplifting accounts.
Hence the interest in the 82-year-old’s words Eileen Berlinwho was Tom Cruise’s manager when he had not yet established himself: he signed him that he was 18, he was penniless and, despite working as a waiter, he could not afford to rent an apartment. So Berlin and her husband hosted Cruise at their home, taking advantage of the fact that their son was out of town to attend college and therefore had a free room.
Tom Cruise had a bad temper
The close attendance that followed allowed Eileen Berlin to get to know every aspect of Tom Cruise. She was a “respectful and courteous” boy, but he was also capable of sudden outbursts of angeras happened on the occasion of his nineteenth birthday: Berlin gave him an album with all the articles about him published in teen magazines, and Cruise threw it in the face, hitting her on the cheek and shouting “I’m not interested in appearing in teen magazines! “.
Berlin remembers that “Tommy he had a bad temper. He had built up a lot of anger because of his father “(whom Cruise in the past called a” bully “and a” coward “who beat his children). and suddenly explode. I attribute it to his insecurity. “
“I’ve never seen him really happy”
Today it has become common to talk about the pressures that actors and actresses are subjected to, who must always be at their best in physical shape and unreal beauty. According to Eileen Berlin, Tom Cruise was no exception. He was obsessed with his own physical appearancehe felt he was too short and, on the occasion of his first professional photo shoot, “he spent a whole day rehearsing the poses. Our other clients would have been happy with a couple of shots, but Tom was aiming for perfection.”
With a somewhat sad consequence: “I’ve never seen him genuinely happy, he was always very ambitious, very determined to become a star. This made him a perfectionist: it was the main attitude he had when I represented him and I’m sure it has remained the same today. “Hence also Tom Cruise’s tendency to be a control freak, filling his own contracts of precise and sometimes absurd requests. What happened from the beginning of his career, which saw him establish himself rather quickly and explode thanks above all to the films ‘Risky Business‘ (1983) and above all ‘Tom Gun’ (1986, last feature film in which was represented by Eileen Berlin).