The retired showbusiness executive who worked with Tom Cruise at the start of his career has reflected on the Mission: Impossible star's unpredictable behaviour.
Eileen Berlin started working with Cruise as his personal manager when he was just 18 years old and unknown in Hollywood. The pair worked together for four and a half years, carving out the beginning of a career that would lead Cruise to become one of the most recognisable and successful stars in the industry.
Though he is known for his numerous roles in hit films, Cruise has also made headlines for bursting into an expletive-filled rant on the set of Mission: Impossible 7 in December 2020.
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Speaking to the MailOnline, Berlin claimed the rant fell in line with a short temper she first witnessed when Cruise was a teenager, when fits of rage were fuelled by his father's bullying as a child.
The former manager said she had never seen Cruise with a 'real display of happiness', saying he was 'always very, very ambitious, very, very determined to be a star', which is what made him a 'perfectionist'.
She said: 'That's what drove him when I managed him and I'm sure that's what drives him now.'
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Cruise moved in with Berlin and her husband as he sought to become a success story, so she witnessed his behaviour behind the scenes, which reportedly included walking around in 'little jockey shorts and nothing else', flexing his biceps and admiring himself in the mirror to prepare for photo shoots.
His first blockbuster came in the form of the 1983 comedy Risky Business, for which Cruise had Berlin type up a list of 11 demands he dubbed a 'Pre-Screen Deal'.
They included a $75,000 salary, 10 weeks of filming, 'first star billing' and the promise that if any of his co-stars had their images used for the film, then producers must 'do the same for Tommy and larger.'
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When it comes to his short fuse, Berlin claims Cruise had a 'terrible temper' and that he 'harboured a lot of anger at his natural father'.
She described him as getting 'angry in a snap of your fingers', adding: 'It was like something was smoldering and it would boil up and explode. I put it down to his insecurity. I presented him with an album with all his publicity articles from teen magazines for his 19th birthday. He screamed, 'I don't want to be in the teen mags'. He had told me he considered himself an adult, not a teen idol. He threw the album hard at me and it hit me on the cheek.'
Berlin and Cruise's professional relationship ended after he appeared in Top Gun, when he moved to Los Angeles. The manager expressed concerns that Cruise didn't have many 'other things' in his life, but said she doesn't think 'he loves people', and instead simply 'loves what he does'.
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Topics: Tom Cruise, Celebrity, US News, Film and TV
Emily Brown