USA/AUSTRALIA: ACTORS TOM CRUISE AND NICOLE KIDMAN SEPERATE AFTER NEARLY A DECADE OF MARRIAGE.

Record ID: 390792

  • Title: USA/AUSTRALIA: ACTORS TOM CRUISE AND NICOLE KIDMAN SEPERATE AFTER NEARLY A DECADE OF MARRIAGE.
  • Date: 7th February 2001
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (FILE) (REUTERS) TV: TOM CRUISE & NICOLE KIDMAN AT THE 2000 ACADEMY AWARDS
  • Embargoed: 22nd February 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES/ SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: General,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA4RNY0EWETL0IBHBDN8UJ53YEI
  • Story Text: Actor Tom Cruise and his actress wife Nicole Kidman, one of Hollywood's best-known star couples have separated after more than a decade of marriage, citing the strains of their movie careers.
    Since the couple announced that they are to separate, Kidman's parents have declined to comment from their home in Sydney, Australia A statement issued by Kidman and Cruise's publicist on Monday (February 5) said, "Citing the difficulties inherent in divergent careers which constantly keep them apart, they concluded that an amicable separation seemed best." The statement added that the couple retained their high respect for each other, "both personally and professionally."
    Cruise, 38, and Kidman, 33, were a show business dream team -- each able to command top projects and top dollars for their work. She wowed stage audiences in London and New York by appearing nude in the play "The Blue Room" and he has been nominated for Oscars three times.
    The couple met on the set of the 1990 racing car drama, "Days of Thunder," with Cruise saying his first reaction "to meeting Nic was sheer lust." Following a whirlwind courtship, they were married in a "top-secret" Christmas Eve ceremony in Telluride, Colo., in 1990.
    The announcement by the couple, who spent more than 15 months making Stanley Kubrick's final film, the erotic thriller, "Eyes Wide Shut," took many by surprise as they have frequently denied reports of trouble in the marriage and have sued when newspapers published such reports or invaded their privacy.
    In 1998, they won a libel case against the Daily Express newspapers in London for reporting that their "marriage was a sham." They donated the libel damages to charity.
    A year later, a freelance journalist in Los Angeles pleaded guilty to wiretapping for intercepting a telephone call, purportedly from Kidman to Cruise in which she told him their marriage was "hanging by a thread."
    They also sued The Star tabloid for printing a claim that they needed coaching from sex therapists for their love scenes in "Eyes Wide Shut."
    Both Kidman and Cruise have spoken of their pleasure in making "Eyes Wide Shut," about a couple whose marriage is tested by the possibilities of infidelity, and working with Kubrick, one of the masters of American cinema, who died shortly after completing the film.
    The red-haired Kidman was born in Hawaii and raised in Australia, where she became a television star and made her U.S. film debut in the 1989 thriller "Dead Calm."
    The New York-born Cruise had planned to become a priest but developed a passion for acting instead. His breakout performance was in the 1983 film "Risky Business," in which he plays a teenager who runs wild when his parents leave town.
    From there his career escalated with a series of starring roles in big-grossing films during the 1980s, including "Top Gun," "Rain Man" and "Born on the Fourth of July," for which he earned his first of three Oscars nominations.
    In 1990, he made headlines by joining the Church of Scientology whose teachings he credited with helping him to overcome dyslexia.
    He and Kidman have two adopted children.
    Since the announcement, the parents of Australia's best-loved Hollywood actress have declined to comment publicly on their daughter's separation from Cruise.
    Kidman's parents who live in Sydney's affluent suburb of Mosman declined to make any public comment on the separation on Tuesday (February 6).
    Rather, Kidman's mother spoke briefly with a local Australian television network through the intercom of her home. "I'm sorry but I have nothing really to add to the statement that came out of LA this morning," she said.
    The couple rent a waterfront holiday home in a fashionable part of Sydney.
    And on the first day back for students at the Kambala private school for girls, there was no sign of Kidman and Cruise's adopted daughter Isabella who has been enrolled there. Both of the couple's children are enrolled in private schools in Sydney.
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