Can you believe it’s been 40 years since a very young Tom Cruise slid across the floor in nothing more than a pink shirt, socks and his undies singing Bob Seger’s version of “Old Time Rock & Roll”?
The movie “Risky Business” launched Cruise to stardom. In the film, (just in case you missed it) he plays Joel Goodsen, a teen who suffers a series of misadventures when his parents go out of town and leave him home alone.
That one scene has been replicated too many times to count in parodies and TV commercials.
Cruise actually made his film debut two years earlier in “Endless Love,” where he played Billy in one critical scene for which he was paid a whopping $30,000.
But it wasn’t until after his breakout film “Risky Business” that he went on to gain international fame for his role as fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in 1986’s “Top Gun,” for which he was paid considerably more — $2 million. He then went on to make 12 times that for the sequel in 2022. “Top Gun 3” is due out in 2024.
Today, the 61-year-old is worth an estimated $620 million, making him one of the richest celebrities in the world. In addition to his “Top Gun” trilogy, Cruise is known for his role in a series of “Mission Impossible” movies, the most recent of which is “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” released last month.