1978-12-18 (44 years old) Toledo, Ohio, United States
An attractive and capable actress whose talent has been overshadowed by her tabloid-friendly love life, Holmes landed a supporting part in 1997's The Ice Storm on her first-ever audition. On her second, she snagged a role on the prime-time teen soap Dawson's Creek. Afraid of being typecast, Holmes took on diverse film roles when the series was on hiatus, including a checkout girl involved in a drug deal in 1999's Go, a promiscuous murder victim in The Gift and a wannabe teen seductress in Wonder Boys, both in 2000. When Dawson's Creek ended in 2003, Holmes gave a stunning performance as a punky slacker attempting to prepare Thanksgiving dinner in the low-budget indie hit Pieces of April. But focus soon shifted from her career to her stormy personal life. After splitting from longtime love Chris Klein, she took up with Tom Cruise in the spring of 2005, prompting the megastar to proclaim his love standing atop a sofa on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Dubbed TomKat by the media, the couple enjoyed a whirlwind courtship and soon announced that they were engaged. After they married in 2006, Holmes, Cruise and their daughter, Suri, have been frequent fodder for tabloid coverage, including some speculation that Suri---not often photographed at first---was fictitious. Annie Leibovitz photos of the child that appeared in Vanity Fair in 2006 spiked sales for the magazine. Holmes also remained active later in the decade with fashion work and, in 2010, took on acting and producing duties on the romantic comedy, The Romantics.
Auditioned for Dawson's Creek via videotape because she was unable to attend the meeting in person: she was starring in her high school's production of Damn Yankees at the time.
One of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2003.
Got engaged to actor Tom Cruise on in 2005 at the Eiffel Tower.