Tom Cruise Soars to Stardom
On This Day in History
On August 5, 1983, a comedy called Risky Business was released in theaters featuring a then largely unknown 21-year-old actor named Tom Cruise in only his fifth film and his first starring role. No one could have predicted the sensation that Cruise and the film would create in that summer more than 30 years ago.
Universally acclaimed by critics (a rarity for the teen comedy genre) and audiences alike, the coming-of-age tale of a high school student who hires a prostitute and eventually turns his family's home into a brothel for a night was a groundbreaker. Needless to say, things don't go very smoothly once Guido the pimp (Joe Pantoliano) arrives on the scene.
Cruise wasn't the only newcomer on the scene either. Risky Business marked the directorial debut of writer Paul Brickman and up-and-coming actress Rebecca De Mornay received her second screen credit as the street-smart prostitute, Lana. Still it was Cruise whose fame rose overnight in the public eye.
Who can forget his now famous underwear-clad cha-cha to Bob Seger's classic "Old Time Rock & Roll"? If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Cruise's solo dance and lip-sync sequence has been flattered by countless movies and television shows for the past three decades.
Or what about Cruise's trademark Ray-Bans? Its been said that sales of the sunglasses went up some 2,000% after the film's release.
And who can forget classic Brickman lines like: "I don't believe this! I've got a trig midterm tomorrow, and I'm being chased by Guido the killer pimp." And, of course, the ultimate teen comedy tagline: "Sometimes you just have to say, 'What the f@#k'." Who knows if today's internationally known social acronym "WTF" would even exist without Risky Business.