A friend of mine is from Hollywood. Her father works in the industry. My friend's father met Tom Cruise several times in the 80s. He said Tom Cruise was very gay and very closeted. Tom Cruise allegedly would go to gay bars and try to hide there (i.e., attempt to pick up men while hiding his identity as "Tom Cruise"). My friend said that Tom Cruise marries women he can control but rarely has sex with them (which may explain the adoptions). She said this is why he got involved in Scientology, in hopes that it will help him overcome his homosexuality.
I rarely venture into this section of LPSG but the Cruise name caught my eye so I looked......
I had an interesting experience back in circa 85-86ish in Seattle (definitely after Risky Business). I was out making the rounds at the bars and stopped in at the Eagle (leather, not my cup of tea but a fun place to saunter through) down on lower Pine Street just before it crossed over the freeway into down town. I do not recall exactly how we met but I was suddenly in the presence of three guys, one guy that looked incredibly like Tom Cruise, the other two in their 30's if not older.
Somehow I ended up hanging out with them for probably about 4 hours. They were from L.A. I could not swear today that it was him but at the same time I would swear it was. Anyway, we talked but I didn't pry. His friends seem to do a lot of talking and general ambiguous status dropping. The topic of movie making or anything related to it never came up but I couldn't help but think I was in the company of Tom Cruise. He was not the confident actor we would later come to know, rather he seemed your typical shy-ish 20's kid that wasn't fully used to being on his own.
We moved to the Brass Door/Connection further up Pine St whereupon it became clear that I was not the only one that thought he was Tom Cruise. The bar crowd momentarily went silent upon our arrival and then the slow twitter of hushed conversation started going on around us. I found the guy to be pretty interesting (well, I'll admit to contemplating the possibilities....) but his friends (handlers?) started to expose themselves as complete bores. It was becoming obvious that they were not what I would term as genuine friends of the guy but rather some "hangers-ons". Whether it was because he was Tom Cruise or just a close look-alike, I'll never know but their clingy and shallow behavior got old pretty fast and I lost interest in hanging out with the three of them so I offered my good nights and left.
To this day I second guess myself as to whether it was Tom Cruise or not. If it was, then naturally the rumors are true. If it wasn't, then the guy was a dead-ringer for him which, given he was from the L.A. area, would make it completely understandable the confusion out there.
Like I said, I can't promise it was him....but man, it had to be him! I'll never know for sure!
