Katie Holmes

Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes, born December 18, 1978 is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have ranged from art house films such as The Ice Storm to thrillers such as Abandon to blockbusters such as Batman Begins.

In early 2005, Holmes began a highly publicized relationship with actor Tom Cruise. In June, two months after they first met, Holmes and Cruise were engaged. Their relationship made Holmes the subject of international media attention, much of it negative, including speculation the relationship was a publicity stunt to promote the couple's films. Holmes, who was brought up as a Roman Catholic, joined the Church of Scientology shortly after the couple began dating. In April 2006, Holmes gave birth to their daughter, Suri. On November 18, 2006, she and Cruise married in Italy.

Early life

Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio. She is the youngest in a family of five children (four daughters, one son) born to Kathleen A. (née Stothers), a homemaker and a philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr. (born 1945), an attorney specializing in divorces. She lived in the Corey Woods section of Sylvania Township, Lucas County, in a brick 1862 Italianate-style home. Holmes siblings are Tamera, Holly Ann, Martin Joseph, Jr., and Nancy Kay.

Holmes, baptized a Roman Catholic, attended Christ the King Church and parochial schools in Toledo. Her high school was the all-female Notre Dame Academy, her mother's alma mater, where Katie was a 4.0 student. At St. John's Jesuit, a nearby all-male high school, she appeared in school musicals, playing a waiter in Hello, Dolly! and Lola in Damn Yankees. She scored 1310 out of 1600 on her SAT and was accepted to Columbia University (and attended for a summer session); her father wanted her to be a doctor. Holmes loved reading: "I never feel lonely in a bookstore," she said. A British writer profiling her in 2003 said, "The way Holmes approached her unusual education was as American as apple pie: she went to cheerleading practice, got straight A grades, and made a pledge that she would remain a virgin until marriage. Holmes told her hometown paper The Blade that the three words best describing herself were "honest, determined, and imaginative.

Personal life

Holmes bought a townhouse in Wilmington in 2002. When Dawson's Creek ended its run in 2003, she moved to Los Angeles, then New York City in 2005, before going back to Los Angeles when she married Tom Cruise.

Holmes dated her Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson early in the show's run. After the relationship ended peacefully, she told Rolling Stone, "I fell in love, I had my first love, and it was something so incredible and indescribable that I will treasure it always. And that I feel so fortunate because he's now one of my best friends. Holmes met actor Chris Klein in 2000. A Midwesterner like Holmes—he grew up in Illinois and Nebraska—Klein and Holmes were engaged in late 2003, but in early 2005 she and Klein ended their relationship. Press accounts cited the distance imposed by their careers as a factor. In the fall of 2005, Klein said of the split, "We grew up. The fantasy was over and reality set in.Holmes told a reporter in 2005, "Chris and I care about each other and we're still friends.

In July 2009, Holmes, Nigel Lythgoe, Adam Shankman, and Carrie Ann Inaba announced the launch of a dance scholarship fund called the Dizzy Feet Foundation.

In 2009, she started a high fashion clothing line called Holmes&Yang with long time stylist Jeanne Yang. The line is carried exclusively at Maxfield's in L.A. and Barneys New York.

In early March 2011, Katie Holmes filed a $50 million libel lawsuit against the Star Magazine following a cover story which insinuated that she took drugs. Star Magazine said that the tabloid is standing by the story and will "vigorously defend" the allegations. The suit was settled on April 27, 2011 when Star wrote a public apology in the May 6 2011 issue along with an undisclosed "substantial" donation to Katie's charity Dizzy Feet.

Relationship with Tom Cruise

Weeks after her relationship with Chris Klein ended, Holmes began dating actor Tom Cruise. Their first public appearance together was on April 29, 2005, in Rome, at the David di Donatello Awards, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars. Her family expressed support, with her father stating, "We're very excited for Katie", and saying his daughter was "a very mature young lady with a good head on her shoulders. From all we have read and heard about [Cruise], he's a humanitarian and a real class act. From the perspective of a parent, we're very excited for both of them". Holmes's sister Tamera said, "They're both wonderful people.

On May 23, 2005, Cruise appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, jumping on Winfrey's couch and vociferously declaring his love for Holmes. He went backstage and pulled the embarrassed actress onto the program.Cruise proposed to Holmes in the early morning of June 17, 2005, on top of Paris's Eiffel Tower; she accepted. At the press conference, attended by Holmes's mother, Cruise announced the news, declaring, "Today is a magnificent day for me. I'm engaged to a magnificent woman.

On November 18, 2006, Holmes and Cruise were married at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy, in a Scientology ceremony attended by many Hollywood stars.The actors' publicist said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony.

Scientology

Holmes, who was raised a Roman Catholic, joined the Church of Scientology shortly after the couple began dating. Soon after beginning her relationship with Cruise, Holmes fired her long-time manager and agent and acquired a new "best friend", Jessica Rodriguez, who is from a prominent family of Scientologists. Robert Haskell, who wrote W magazine's cover story on the actress, said Rodriguez "was described to me as Holmes's 'Scientology chaperone' and it was clear that she would be on hand during our interview despite my protests. This was in contrast to Holmes's earlier press, which noted approvingly she "arrives without the ubiquitous PR person in tow.

Suri Cruise

On April 18, 2006, Holmes gave birth to a baby girl named Suri. The Los Angeles Times summarized the written statement Cruise released on the birth, saying the name "is a word with origins in both Hebrew and Persian. In Hebrew, it means 'princess' and in Persian, 'red rose,' it was claimed in the release. Although some Hebrew linguists had never seen the word for "princess" spelled this way and its meaning,others said it was a Yiddish pronunciation of the Hebrew name "Sarah".

Until September 2006, Suri had not been seen in public, which led to tabloid stories questioning the existence of the child, contrasting Holmes and Cruise to other celebrity couples with newborns such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Typical was the US Weekly cover story "BABY MYSTERY: Best friends' visits denied, baby photos cancelled, a wedding delayed, and Katie in seclusion.

The first photographs of the child appeared in the October 2006 issue of Vanity Fair, shot by Annie Leibovitz. In the accompanying story, Holmes said "we weren't trying to hide anything" and said she was bothered by the press coverage. "I do know what is being said in the press. This is my future. This is my family and I care so much about them. The stories are not okay. It eats away at me because it's just not okay. This issue of Vanity Fair became the publication's second best selling issue of all time, selling more than 700,000 copies.

In an April 2006 interview with ABC News's Diane Sawyer, Cruise said he and Holmes were "just Scientologists" and that Suri would not be baptized Catholic.