Of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Stanley Kubrick and their really bad movie
Thursday, February 21st, 2008Tom Cruise Biographer Andrew Morton spoke to me from chilly London this morning on his cell phone. His hands were cold and he could see his breath as he walked in Central London and looked over his shoulder at Buckingham Palace.
“No I don’t think he is gay,” said Morton. “I do believe, however, that Scientology dominates all aspects of his life. Scientology itself doesn’t allow much room for homosexuality. Tom’s latest goal is to recruit Will Smith. They (Scientologists) are certainly concerned about sex though – in fact they are sex-obsessed”.
There was a pause at the other end of the phone when I later inquired about the depth and intensity of the animosity between Cruise and his former wife, Nicole Kidman.
“Nicole was not as malleable as Katie Holmes is, in my opinion”, Morton declared. “In fact, Nicole’s resistance to Scientology was, in the end, considered a threat”.
What about their last movie together, Eyes Wide Shut (also Director Stanley Kubrick’s last film) a film which, in many ways, foreshadowed the demise of their marriage?
“Kubrick controlled Cruise. He would send faxes at all hours of the night – scrip revisions – and would wake him up. Eyes Wide Shut was one of the longest shoots in film history, hundreds of days. Tom only was away from the set for the few days and that was when Nicole was shooting love scenes with someone else. It was a very strange psycho-sexual triangle between Cruise, Kidman, and Director Kubrick as voyeur.
If that doesn’t wreck a marriage, I don’t know what would. It doesn’t take a Scientologist to figure that one out.
Program Notes:
The entire broadcast re: Tom Cruise biographer Andrew Morton will be re-aired this Sunday, February 24th beginning at 9:30 am. The first hour will include my interview with Military and Economic Historian Niall Ferguson who believes in the innate value of Empire – especially the American one. His latest book is The War of the World – Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West.
Friday I will talk about Niaal Ferguson on the blog. Stay tuned. He is extremely fascinating, original, and, I hope, wrong.