by Celebrity Features Editor Zoe Drewitt

Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on 3 July 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA. Tom's family moved a lot and it's claimed that he went to more than 10 different schools. When he was 11 years old, his mother left his father and Tom and his three sisters settled with her in New Jersey. He has described his father, who died when Tom was in his early 20s, as a "merchant of chaos". Cruise claims that as a child he suffered from dyslexia and was a "functional illiterate."