There are a million photos out there from the premiere of The Kennedys last night as it was the first time in a long time that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes stepped out together on the carpet. I’ve decided to choose only the ones where he’s, um, admiring her – from the side, right up in her face, sometimes with intensity, sometimes with a studied relaxed cheer. Never ever doubt – he knows, always, when he’s being watched. He behaves, almost always, as though he’s being watched. 

Let’s go back to what Rob Lowe says about him in his autobiography: 

“(Tom’s) open, friendly, funny, and has an almost robotic, bloodless focus and an intensity that I’ve never encountered before.” In New York for the second round of auditions, Lowe finds that Cruise is “already showing traits that will make him famous; he’s zeroed in like a laser.” “We check into the Plaza Hotel. I am taken aback at the luxury and spectacle of the lobby…. The front desk tells us we will be sharing rooms. In a flash, Cruise is on the phone to his agent, Paula Wagner. ‘Paula, they are making us share,’ he says…. The rest of us are staggering around like happy goofs….. ‘O.K., then. Thank you very much,’ he says like a 50-year-old businessman getting off the phone with his stockbroker. ‘Paula says it’s fine.’ ”

They couldn’t have been more than 20, at most 21 back then. And already Tom Cruise was driven in a way that encourages success, sure, but that makes him, like, almost devoid of personality. 

Lowe continues on about Cruise – and this part makes me laugh: 

Lowe remembers hanging out with Cruise and the other actors in a gymnasium on set, when Patrick Swayze—who, Lowe writes, “makes Tom Cruise look lobotomized”—“begins to teach us a standing backflip…. When it comes to flips, I’m a pussy. I don’t flip. I don’t even dive into a pool—straight cannonball for me…. No, thanks. Cruise, not surprisingly, is all over it. ‘How about this!’ he says, almost pulling it off without even being spotted. He wipes out, but tries it again immediately.”

Totally, right? 

I can totally picture it. Small little thing hopping around determined to get it. And the one who happens to be the least charismatic in the room among the coolest of the cool but it’s he who becomes the superstar. Was there ever a True Hollywood Story for The Outsiders? I need to watch this right now. 

Click here to read more from Rob Lowe in Vanity Fair. 

Anyway, Katie should wear nude delicate-y Jennifer Aniston strappy shoes more often. They really work for her legs. 

Re: The Kennedys – I’m powering through the screener this week. Will let you know how it is. The Kennedys airs on History Television in Canada on April 10 – click here for scheduling information and on Reelz in the US on April 3. 


Photos from Wenn.com