Tom Cruise: All the World's a Stage

by Iain Johnstone

  In this respect the navy held all the cards – or, rather, planes. Not just the F-14 Tomcats but also the MiGs. It was not possible in 1985 to borrow the latter from the Russians. Although not quite at war with them, Reagan had just daubed them the ‘Evil Empire’ and it was the super-patriotic spirit of his presidency that the film reflected.

  The MiGs themselves were played by converted Northrop F-5 Tigers, the very planes that were actually used to simulate MiGs in training exercises in Air Force Aggressor Squadrons. No doubt about who the military thought their next war might be against.

  A team of actor-pilots was assembled. Now that the show was on the road with Tom Cruise, all the young actors in Hollywood were keen to be recruited. Charlie Sheen insisted “I just got to be in this movie” but, at eighteen, he was considered too young. Cruise at the tender age of twenty-three had casting approval.

  Tony Scott studied the way Bruce Webber cast male models in his commercials, perhaps unwittingly attracting the homo-erotic charges that some would later level at the film. Anthony Edwards had the serious mien of the ill-fated Goose; others were more gung-ho such as Tim Robbins, Rick Rossovich and Tom Skerritt from brother Ridley’s ‘Alien’, and even the recalcitrant Val Kilmer. After he had again declined a part, according to Kilmer: “Tony Scott ran after me down the corridor and blocked the elevator shouting ‘You gotta do it!’” In a previous interview Kilmer revealed he only agreed to be in the film because Paramount exercised an option they had on him but, in either event, he ended up as Maverick’s main adversary in the film, Iceman. Meg Ryan was rescued from the daytime soaps where she played Betsy in ‘As The World Turns’ and became Mrs. Goose, later Widow Goose.

  They were put through a four day survival course. “We went through ejection seat training,” Tom remembers with a wince. “You had to take your mask off and they simulated the effect of high altitude without oxygen. And we had to tread water for fifteen minutes in a full flight suit.”

  It had been Scott’s intention to shoot his actors in the rear cockpits of the F-14s but this proved almost impossible – the camera’s anamorphic lens simply shattered because of the powerful G force. So he had to admit defeat and shoot in mock-ups on the ground. There was an exception in the case of Cruise. One of the F-14s was expensively customized to minimize the G force and six Super-35mm cameras were strategically placed in he cockpit.

  Tom had reason to be a little nervous. “I had two pilots, Bozo and Feebs. We had a two hour briefing before we went up and sometimes did three flights a day which was pretty exhausting. I would get in the back seat and Bozo would control the camera on my face. It’s amazing the power you feel sitting in a supersonic machine. I was sitting there, switching the radio on and pulling the switches so the engine starts up when, all of a sudden, this hazard light comes on. I yelled to Bozo ‘This hazard light keeps flashing’ and he said ‘Oh, that thing. Just switch it off. It never works.’ And I thought ‘Oh, my God – what does work?’”

  The Navy had given Tony Scott two aircraft carriers to play with: the USS Enterprise and the USS Ranger. The deal was that if they were going about routine exercises there would be no charge but for non-essential manouevers the film would pay.

  No luxuries were added for the stars when they did their tour of duty on board. “An aircraft carrier is a prison with the threat of drowning,” states Cruise. “In fact, the rooms are not even up to prison standards. I don’t know how those guys do it. Nine months! I had a nice room but no-one slept, not with 50,000 lb planes landing on my head all night. And when the planes stopped they would be working on the vessel, drilling away. It sounded like I was at the dentist. Rick Carter took a picture of me when I fell asleep with my head on his make up case. He blew it up saying that this was proof that someone got some sleep on the carrier. But I’m glad I went through it. We had some good laughs.”

  Tony Scott lived up to his Saab pedigree and shot the Tomcats slickly and sensuously, rolling their paths through an ochre sky. Such was his quest for perfection that one evening when he was looking for a vital shot on board the aircraft carrier, he begged the captain to alter course so that the sun would be in the right position to backlight the characters. His request fell on uncooperative ears; it would be too costly to do such a manoeuvre. Scott looked to his producers who said they were unable to instantly authorize this $10,000 spend. Luckily Tony had his cheque book in his pocket and there and then made out a cheque to the US Navy for that amount.

  Despite the innumerable rewrites on the script, the story didn’t break any new boundaries of invention. Maverick set out to become Top Gun and did so, on the way competing with Iceman, falling for Charlie, finding the truth about his dead father, downed in ‘Nam, and, himself, downing a couple of MiGs. But, like Titanic fifteen years later, this film was less a story than an experience. The charisma of Cruise, the macho exploits of clean cut young American patriots and a thundering score from Georgio Moroder, ‘Take My Breath Away’, won the Oscar for Best Song, made this one of the hippest, high-concept movies of all time. Sales of Ray-Ban ‘Aviator’ sunglasses shot up by 40% after its release in May 1986.

  Certainly nobody went to see it for the dialogue.

  VIPER (their instructor)

  I flew with your old man. VF-51, the Oriskany. You’re a lot like he was. Only better … and worse. He was a natural heroic son of a bitch that one … What I am about to tell you is classified. It could end my career. We were in the worst dogfight I ever dreamed of. There were bogeys like fireflies all over the sky. His F-4 was hit, and he was wounded, but he could’ve made it back. He stayed in it, saved three planes before he bought it.

  MAVERICK

  How come I never heard that before?

  VIPER

  Well, that’s not something the State Department tells dependents when the battle occurred over the wrong line on some map.

  Although, it had its moments, like in the classroom

  CHARLIE (their other instructor – Kelly McGillis)

  Excuse me, Lieutenant. Is there something wrong?

  MAVERICK

  Yes ma’am, the data on the MiG is inaccurate.

  CHARLIE

  How’s that Lieutenant?

  MAVERICK

  I just happened to see a MiG 28 do a 4G negative dive.

  CHARLIE

  Where did you see this?

  MAVERICK

  Uh, that’s classified.

  CHARLIE

  It’s what?

  MAVERICK

  It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

  When the film was test screened it was discovered that the affair between Tom and Kelly was weak so Tony Scott had to take his camera into the bedroom and film a short but passionate love scene between them.

  Top Gun soared effortlessly over the small arms fire of the critics and into the record books. Peter Biskind in his 1998 book ‘Easy Rider, Raging Bulls’ gave his own analysis of what gave the film its dazzling appeal.

  ‘Don Simpson was to gay culture what Elvis Presley was rhythm and blues, ripping it off and repackaging it for a straight audience. The blockbusters Simpson made with Bruckheimer were star vehicles comprised of little more than a series of movie moments set to a pounding score. Simpson took gay culture, with its conflation of fashion, movies, disco, and advertising and made highly designed, highly self-conscious, high concept pictures like ‘Flashdance’, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Top Gun’.’

  Well, if it was that easy why didn’t every producer slap together the ingredients and make themselves hundreds of millions? Slightly overlooked is the timing and polish of the film, the near-perfect casting and, yet again, the searchlight intensity of Tom Cruise’s performance.

  The greatest praise comes from the man himself, Dave Baranek. “I cannot think of another actor who would have done a better job. He had vulnerability but showed enthusiasm and a sense of confidence. Maybe too much confidence sometimes – but that’s what they wanted.”

/>   As far as the homo-erotic bit was concerned, that was more subtly addressed in Quintin Tarantino’s satirical performance as a movie bore, ‘Sid, in Sleep With Me’ (1994).

  “You know what one of the greatest fucking scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood is? ‘Top Gun’. You think it's a story about a bunch of fighter pilots. It is a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality. You've got Maverick, all right? He's on the edge, man. He's right on the fucking line, all right? And you've got Iceman, and all his crew. They're gay, they represent the gay man, all right? He could go both ways. Kelly McGillis, she's heterosexuality. She's saying: go the normal way, play by the rules. They're saying no, go the gay way. That is what's going on throughout that whole movie. He goes to her house, all right? It looks like they're going to have sex, you know, they're just kind of sitting back, he's takin' a shower and everything. They don't have sex. He gets on the motorcycle, drives away. She's like, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Next scene, she's in the elevator, she is dressed like a guy. She's got the cap on, she's got the aviator glasses, she's wearing the same jacket that the Iceman wears. She is: okay, this is how I gotta get this guy, this guy's going towards the gay way, I gotta bring him back, I gotta bring him back from the gay way, so I'll do that through subterfuge, I'm gonna dress like a man … The REAL ending of the movie is when they fight the MIGs. They are this gay fighting fucking force, all right? And they're beating the Russians, the gays are beating the Russians. And it's over, and they fucking land, and Iceman's been trying to get Maverick the entire time, and finally, he's got him, all right? And what is the last fucking line that they have together? They're all hugging and kissing and happy with each other, and Ice comes up to Maverick, and he says, "Man, you can ride my tail, anytime!" And what does Maverick say? "You can ride mine!" Swordfight! Swordfight! Fuckin' A, man!”

  Sid’s memory went into homoerotic overdrive with regard to the final exchange. What Iceman in fact said was: “You can be my wingman any time” and Maverick replied: “Bullshit, you can be mine.” Moreover, such an interpretation would doubtless have come as something of a shock to Meg Ryan aka Mrs Goose who, certainly on screen, betrays no awareness of her husband’s lack of heterosexuality. It is possible that Quintin’s character was expressing such an interpretation based more on hope than forensic fact – and also for some laughs.

  What is not in doubt is that Cruise, with his producers and director, had put together a Jet Set which was a counterpoint to the ‘Brat Pack’ – an appellation that had been applied to his generation in a cover story in New York magazine in June 1985 by David Blum. It was a club to which Cruise was very keen not to belong but he was, to a certain extent, roped in by association. The article cited ‘Ordinary People’ and ‘TAPs’ as Brat Pack movies, even declaring the latter had changed Hollywood for ever, which it hadn’t - but they were too serious in content to be bunched with later films that did have the common theme of the problems of being young in America: ‘The Outsiders’ (1983), ‘Breakfast Club’ (1985), ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ (1985), ‘About Last Night’ (1986) and ‘’Pretty in Pink (1986).

  The core of the pack were those actors we saw were born in the same year as Cruise : Emilio Estevez (dubbed leader by Blum) Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore and Andrew McCarthy plus a younger member, Rob Lowe and older one, Judd Nelson. Matthew Broderick kept his distance, although he did play the lead in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986), a teen angst comedy from the pen of John Hughes, the leading writer for the Pack.

  Blum saw the ringleaders – Estevez, Lowe and Nelson – as hanging out at the Hard Rock Café in Los Angeles, enjoying some of the excesses of alcohol and sex that they portrayed in their movies and partying all night. Thus they were the modern equivalent of the Rat Pack of yore featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior.

  Tom hated the appellation and thought it was nonsense. Yes, he had had a small role in ‘The Outsiders’ and yes, he admitted Emilio Estevez was his best friend, but Cruise wanted to be taken much more seriously – the fact that he had casting approval on ‘Top Gun’ was indicative of that – and was hell-bent on a career that would take him far ahead of the pack.

  In his personal life he did not want to be associated with roistering – that was a thing of the past on ‘The Outsiders’. He had broken up with Rebecca De Mornay on his return from England and, for a while, was content with his own company. “I spend a lot of time alone. I mean a lot of time alone. But I’ve spent time alone my whole life and it doesn’t bother me. I feel lonely at times but I just don’t want to get into a relationship if it’s not right. I’m not the kind of person just does things to do them. It takes time to get to know people.”

  During a break from ‘Top Gun’ he went to a dinner and sat beside an actress, Mimi Rogers. She wasn’t well known; her TV series ‘The Rousters’ and ‘Paper Dolls’ had been flops. But she was beautiful and, after an unsuccessful marriage to a Scientology counsellor, Jim Rogers – she must have been relieved, at least, to have got rid of her maiden name, Sprickler – she was now dating again having had relationships with Tom Selleck, Bobby Shriver of the Kennedy dynasty and, currently, a friend of Tom’s. Tom fell for her, despite the fact she was eight and a half years older than him, and bided his time.

  “I like bright, very sexy women,’ he said. “And strong, someone who I’m not to run over, someone who’s going to stand up to me. She’s also got to have her own thing going. I don’t want someone living for me.”

  Having spent an evening with Mimi at the Toronto Film Festival, I can vouchsafe that she has all those qualities and more, coated in the most gentle demeanour and the sort of twinkling laugh that makes men melt. She is like a character out of a Jane Austen novel. She also had another link to Tom, playing the romantic lead in the next film that Ridley Scott made, ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ opposite Tom Berenger which was filmed in New York and Los Angeles. Mimi was the beautiful heiress who, under a witness protection programme, was guarded by a married cop (Berenger) who, inevitably fell for her. The lush film was book-ended by Gershwin’s magical lyrics, sung at the beginning for the film by Sting and, at the end, by Roberta Flack.

  The other Tom was similarly captivated by Mimi. When the coast was clear they began to date, something that became public in late 1986. He fell in love with her. “I’d never been in love before” and, on 9th May 1987, they got married at a house Tom was renting in upstate New York. It was an low key event. His sister baked the wedding cake, his mother, Mary Lee, thought Mimi top notch. “I couldn’t be more blessed. She is exactly the kind of woman I always hoped Tom would marry.”

  And the president of the Brat Pack, Emilio Estevez, was Best Man.

  CHAPTER NINE

  After his film, ‘Raging Bull’, was released at Christmas in 1980, the director, Martin Scorsese, was flattered to receive a fan letter from Paul Newman saying how much he liked it. The fact that the star began the letter ‘Dear Michael’ in no way detracted from the praise. “I’ve had ‘The Deer Hunter attributed to me a lot,” Scorsese recalls, a film which was actually directed by Michael Cimino.

  Scorsese next heard from Newman four years later. The actor wanted to do a sequel to ‘The Hustler’, his acclaimed 1961 role as ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson a small-time pool hustler who challenges the legendary ‘Minnesota Fats’ for his world title. Was Scorsese interested in directing it? He was – subject to script. It turned out that Newman had been working with Walter Trevis, author of the original book and a follow up, ‘The Color of Money.’

  Scorsese didn’t much care for the script. “If I wasn’t involved in the original idea of the script, then it wouldn’t be something I could turn up early in the morning for. I didn’t feel the character of ‘Fast’ Eddie was strong enough or dramatic enough. I felt it had to go in another direction.”

  So he brought in the novelist, Richard Price who had done a screenplay, ‘Night and the City’ based on the 1950 Jules Dassin film about a con man turned corru
pt wrestling promoter. “I don’t want to do remakes,” Scorsese explains - eventually the script was turned into a drab film by Irwin Winkler – “however I liked Richard, and his script had a very good street sense, and wonderful dialogue.”

  Price recalls his first encounter with Newman. “We were in Malibu – me and Marty Scorsese – the two New York guys on the beach. Marty’s sitting there with his jacket and his nasal spray and I was smoking a cigarette, hunched over coughing. And then Newman comes out, all tanned up, Mr. Sea and Ski. It was the two New York clowns with the Hollywood platinum.”