Single white superstar

WANTED for marriage by top Hollywood movie star: a woman who is honest and trustworthy with a good sense of humour and love of adventure.

That's the sort of female with whom Tom Cruise, the world's most popular actor, would love to settle down. He can rake in millions at the box-office around the world but finding true love is more difficult.

Twice married - to actresses Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman - and recently separated from girlfriend of three years, Penelope Cruz, he's single again.

When he tells Rolling Stone magazine that: "I've got my family, I've got my work and I have my humanitarian things that I'm doing. If I have any more time, then I get to go fly my airplanes", you wonder how exactly a wife would fit into his schedule.

But he's adamant that he wants to get married again. He says so every opportunity he gets. "I will never be done with love. Never, never. I love relationships and I love women. I'm going to get married again," asserts the man born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV 42 years ago.

Perhaps he'll find the girl of his dreams on one of his red carpet stopovers. He's gained a reputation for meeting the fans at the premiere of his films, spending an incredible two hours and 50 minutes with fans outside the cinema at the premiere of his thriller Collateral last week. He shook hands, he signed autographs, posed for pictures and chatted up people on the other end of mobile phones. And, of course, he grinned the trademark Cruise grin.

Asked later why he did it, his reply was simply: "I like people". That doesn't necessarily extend to journalists. Their best chance of grabbing a word with him is to mingle with the premiere crowds and thrust a microphone under his nose.

TALKING to the press is carefully planned. The first of Parkinson's ITV programmes was a good slot for his first British TV chat show appearance. He doesn't talk to all and sundry like most stars promoting a movie. This Cruise control limits his chat to a select few and keeps it in the family - he's recently left his long-time high profile publicist and appointed his sister Lee Anne DeVette as his publicist.

When he does talk, Cruise appears open and honest, even talking about his association with Scientology, to which he turned after its teachings helped him overcome his dyslexia. If it's an act, it shows he's a very good actor.

Is he too good to be true? An actor who, at 14, enrolled to become a priest only to drop out a year later and who now uses his money to help others, whether it's a hit-and-run accident victim or New York firemen suffering in the aftermath of 9/11. A man who has a pilot's licence, insisted on hanging from a rockface for Mission: Impossible II's opening scene and trains hard to do his own stunts. And one who wasn't embarrassed, at the age of 40, to wear a brace on his teeth to correct a mis-aligned bite.

The grin and all the baggage that accompanies the world's most bankable movie star is in danger of blinding us to his acting achievements. His box-office clout isn't in doubt. He's been on top for 20 years by constantly picking up the challenge of tackling different roles.

Unlike other movies stars, he's not content to play the same part - a variation on himself - over and over again. When author Anne Rice learnt he'd been cast as the unpleasant Vampire Lestat in the film of her book Interview With The Vampire, she complained publicly that Cruise was wrong for the role. After seeing his performance, she retracted her words. He has a way of winning over everyone.

He's appeared with many of the top actors - Hoffman, De Niro, Newman among them - and more than held his own. He's worked with most of the top directors including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Oliver Stone. Just as he loves people, Cruise loves making movies.

SOME will view him as a grey-haired, cold-blooded killer in Collateral and see it as a gimmick. He's not the first actor to try to prove his versatility by playing the bad guy, just as glamorous actresses turn ugly to gain Oscar attention.

He was attracted to working with director Michael Mann on Collateral. They met in 1986 on a river-rafting trip. "We just hit it off. I ended up hanging out with him a lot because we have a lot of the same interests in cars and motorcycles - not to mention he's a master film-maker," he says.

"I remember the first time I saw The Jericho Mile. I was in high school and I didn't know who Michael Mann was. I just love that movie. And now to have the opportunity to work with him is just amazing."

Hit man Vincent's look in Collateral is distinctive. Cruise has no problem altering his appearance for a role. "It depends on the character and what's needed," he says.

"For The Last Samurai, I had a beard. But sometimes a character calls for a sutble change in appearance. When I read a script, I try to figure out how I'm going to make it work, and that includes the physical appearance.

'IWANT to do what it takes to pull off a character. For Collateral, I sent Michael some pictures and we went over them together. Then he came up with the look, and passed that on to the hair and make-up artists, who did a great job of bringing his vision to life."

If it's not movies or finding a wife, he's talking about Isabella, 12, and Connor, nine, the two children that he and Kidman adopted. He shares every parent's worries about their future. "I focus on education and encourage my children to think for themselves and discern what knowledge is important in life," he says.

"Also, helping others is critical. Out of everything you do, it's the most satisfying. Even as an actor, you want to help the film. The director wants to help the actors, the editor wants to save the director, and so on.

"Putting your children in a position to contribute to society and giving them an understanding of different cultures so that they can appreciate them is one of the greatest accomplishments you can have as a parent."

Finding time for a personal life isn't easy when you're a busy actor and Cruise admits it's a challenge. "Life isn't perfect, it's never going to be perfect, but that's part of the adventure of it. I enjoy my work. I enjoy my kids, and I have many different areas that I'm involved in. I want to engage in life," he says.

"I'm fortunate in that I'm able to do what I love to do. So I won't complain about that at all. I work long hours, but I arrange my schedule around my kids so I can spend time with them, and there's something that's kind of exciting about it all - exciting and challenging."

Life is one long series of challenges for Cruise, with extreme sports and thrill-seeking activities top of the list of things to do. He recalls as a four-year-old having a GI Joe action figure that had a little parachute so you could throw it and it would float down to earth.

"I thought this was terrific and one day I saw these guys on television parachuting and decided I wanted to do the same. So I ripped the sheets off my bed, strapped them on my back with rope and jumped off the roof - and knocked myself out.

"As I got older, I realised there were safer and easier ways to do stuff like parachuting."

He still enjoys the process of making movies as much as he ever did, pointing to a line in Michael Mann's film Heat in which someone says that "the action is the juice", and adding: "Making them is the thing and taking in the experience as you go".

* Collateral (15) opens in cinemas on Thursday.