Suri Cruise is being credited for saving her daddy’s, career. A year ago Tom Cruise was dumped by Paramount after his couch jumping, Scientology loving, odd behavior. Enter Suri Cruise. For a while people doubted her existence, but she’s for real and she’s beyond adorable. Photos of her playing with her family or sleeping on daddy’s lap are proving to be the career boost Tom Cruise needed.
From the New York Daily News:
But in no time, the kid went from mole baby to adorable toddler worthy of her own baby food campaign.
“It’s become a really good story since the pictures came out,” says Jill Stempel of World Entertainment News Network, the photo agency that last month got those exclusive pics of Suri taking a few teetering steps in Berlin, closely watched by her well-dressed mom.
The shots were instantly splashed all over the world, suggesting for the first time that this threesome might be, well, blissfully happy.
“In all the new pictures, they come across as this adorable and cute family,” says Stempel. “I think Suri brings out a much softer side of him. And this softens his image as well.”
And that image puts cash in his pocket. A celeb’s staying power, say industry experts, is directly related to how the public perceives their personal and, especially, their family life.
The $500M Baby
“The American audience dictates that to have a happy and healthy productive life you have to get married and have kids,” says Ian Drew, editor at large of US Weekly magazine. “That is definitely used by celebrities like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes as a marketing tool.”
But the careful crafting of that picture-perfect family was a lot of work for Cruise, says Drew. The strategy included that specially timed debut cover shot of Baby Suri in Vanity Fair magazine.
“They knew Vanity Fair would go along with their press-release version of events and they had more control over it than if it had been at one of those tabloids,” he explains. “And it was a very calculated way of doing it.”
For the Cruises, a stint out of the spotlight has helped. Since the schism with Paramount, Tom’s wife and daughter have all but taken his place in public.
“I do think that his public persona is in much better shape now than it was 12 months ago,” says Gitesh Pandya of Hollywood blog BoxOfficeGuru.com. “I credit that to him being out of the spotlight.
“I think he is going to continue his reliable box-office streak with his next two films.”
Really, I do think Suri Cruise is one of the most adorable babies I’ve ever seen. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes do seem to dote on her and appear to be very hands on. It’s a shame she’ll be a product of the cult Church of Scientology, but hopefully she’ll get out of that as soon as she’s old enough to think for herself.
