With a career spanning four decades, Tom Cruise is one of the biggest movie stars today, but we are taking a trip back in time to Tom Cruise’s first movie, 1981’s Endless Love. Movies such as 2022’s Top Gun Maverick show that Tom Cruise is still a big box office draw and his dedication to doing as many of his own stunts as he can is something that makes him very unique. Tom Cruise is an actor who since the 80s has managed to stay relevant throughout his whole career, but like everyone else, it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is here!
In this video, part of the series “Celebrities’ First Movie Appearance”, you can see Tom Cruise in his very first movie role in Endless Love:
Tom Cruise In The 1980s!
While Tom Cruise had a string of hits in the 1980s, there are three very important movies in this decade that would set him on the path to Hollywood stardom… actually, that should be superstardom. It was 1983’s Risky Business that made the world fall in love with Tom Cruise and started him on the way to becoming a leading man. Despite being in several solid movies before 1986, it was 1986’s Top Gun that really put Tom Cruise on the map and made him a bankable movie star that millions of people would pay to see. However, before that, we had Endless Love, the first Tom Cruise movie role!
From The Page To The Screen
Endless Love was a pretty quick movie project. We say this because this is actually based on a book from 1979, the book is also called Endless Love and was written by Scott Spencer. Pretty much as soon as the movie rights were snapped up, it was put into production with 1980s starlet, Brooke Shields in the lead role. A fun bit of movie and pop culture trivia that does not relate to Tom Cruise is that Scott Spencer’s fourth book, Waking The Dead would be adapted into a movie in 2000, starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Colony, Jennifer Colony was also a popular young 80s starlet. So the only two Scott Spencer books to be turned into movies, featured iconic 80s actresses.
A Tale Of Love And Obsession
The plot of the movie adaptation came under a lot of criticism for how loosely they played with the themes of the book. The story is about a young and obsessive love where a young 17-year-old called David falls head over heels in love with Brooke Shields Jade who was only 15! There is no way a movie that showcases the graphic love life of a 15 and 17-year-old gets made today. David’s obsession with Jade leads to him getting into all kinds of trouble and you could argue that at the root of this trouble is Tom Cruise’s first movie role as Billy!
Not The Role He Was Looking For
Before we get to the role of Billy and how he affects the main plot, we have to talk about how Tom Cruise got his big break in Endless Love in the first place. An open casting call was made for the role of David and the role would eventually go to Martin Hewitt while we are looking at the first Tom Cruise movie today, it is important to note that this was the very first role for Martin Hewitt as well! The interesting thing is that Martin Hewitt actually beat out Tom Cruise for the role of David, that is right, it was David who Tom Cruise auditioned for. An interesting bit of trivia is that future James Bond, Timothy Dalton also auditioned for this role. With the way this movie turned out, you have to wonder if Tom Cruise would have had the career he had, if he had been the lead in this less than well-received movie as his first role!
Billy The Fire Starter
While some other actors get their first movie role as an extra or with a very small role. Tom Cruise as Billy in Endless Love is actually a very important role. You see, David is trying to get into the good graces of Jade’s family and Billy tells him a story about how when he was a child, he tried to burn some old newspapers and nearly burned the house down, but as he put the fire out, his parents thought that he was a hero and showered him with praise. This leads to David trying a similar thing….. with disastrous results! For a first movie credit for Tom Cruise, this is actually a very important part of the movie!
Tom Cruise Is In Good Company
While we are focusing on Endless Love being Tom Cruise’s first movie, we have already talked about how this was the first movie role for Martin Hewitt as well. The funny thing is, Endless Love would also be the first movie for a few other actors who would go on to make a name for themselves. Ian Ziering who is best known for his run as Steve in Beverly Hills 90210 would make his theatrical debut here. Jami Gertz who you may know as Star from The Lost Boys would also make her first silver screen appearance in Endless Love. Then we have Jeff Marcus who may not exactly be a Hollywood A-lister, but he had a solid career, most notably his role in the Alien Nation series and movies that would follow it.
A Song For The Ages
While the movie, Endless Love may not have exactly lit up the box office or won over the critics of the day. As well as being Tom Cruise’s first movie, the movie is best known for its iconic theme song, carrying the same name, which was written by Lionel Ritchie and performed by him and Diana Ross. This song has been covered so many times, that it would be near impossible to list them all but to give you an idea of the iconic stature of this song. Country/pop superstar Shania Twain has covered it as has 80s hair metal rocker Brett Michaels from the band Poison!
The fact that Tom Cruise is still going just as strong today as he was back in the ‘80s and ‘90s speaks to the amazing talent that he has. He truly is one of the greatest actors of all time and it is very interesting that the first Tom Cruise movie was 1981’s Endless Love, a movie that not too many people have a positive opinion of, but it clearly never hurt the career of Tom Cruise!