If you had told fourteen-year-old F

If you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not-too-distant future he would be considered one of the top hundred movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to become a priest. None the less, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in July 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become Tom Cruise, one of the highest paid and most sought-after actors in screen history. Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer, both originally from Louisville, Kentucky. He is of Irish, German, and English descent.