For younger reader(s), in 1986 Tom Cruise was already a well known actor, a young man's young man popular with young women who wanted to love him and older women who wanted to mother him.
[And de-flower! -Ed]
Dude....
Anyway, Cruise's biggest film thus far had been Risky Business, now something of a cult classic. a brilliant film radiating cool in a non-80's way - see Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight.
Before that Tom Cruise did some interesting work.
All the Right moves, about a high school football star in a factory town, is a typical Tom Cruise vehicle.
In Taps Cruise played a super-motivated and intense military school cadet. He radiates pent up potential energy.
He was in the Brat Pack ensamble The Outsiders, and as we write this we wonder how he didn't end up in another such film, Red Dawn.
Top Gun was the top grossing film of 1986 and made Tom Cruise a superstar. From there he did a series of well acted though sometimes superficial films, like Cocktail, some very good films like the Color of Money and Rain Man, and crap like Days of Thunder and Far and Away. We're betting Top Gun Maverick will be, er...Top Gun II.
