Divorce, Magazine Style

It’s hardly new for stars to hide their marital woes when they’re being interviewed. But in the case of Tom Cruise’s cover-boy blitz--tied to his starring role in “Born on the Fourth of July”--the timing was unfortunate: Just days after the current issue of US magazine hit the stands, with Cruise waxing enthusiastic about marriage to Mimi Rogers, he and the wife announced they’re Splitsville.

Cruise told US he “works at” keeping his marriage going: “If you’re willing to do that . . . for me at least it pays off a hundredfold.”

Through a spokeswoman, US editor Carol Wallace said, “When we put the questions about his marriage to him point blank, he answered them--and we had no reason not to take him at his word.”

Referring to early tabloid rumblings about the Cruise-Rogers marital woes, Wallace added, “I’m not about to use the tabloids as source material.”

Rolling Stone, however--which had Cruise on its Jan. 11 cover--dropped in some references to the tabs’ claims. “When our writer (Trip Gabriel) asked Tom about his marriage, and some of the problems we’d heard about, Tom never came right out and denied them,” said senior editor Peter Travers. “He sort of talked around the issues--which indicated, to us, that there was some smoke there.”

Travers added, “We feel misled by what happened, but we don’t feel betrayed. At the time (of the interview in November), we had a sense that he and Mimi might have been trying to work something out. So, you know, it could have gone the other way.”

The Dec. 25 issue of Time--with Cruise gracing the cover--also dropped in a tabloid reference as a safety valve. Otherwise, said film critic Richard Corliss, who penned the portrait, Cruise denied any marital rumblings. “His was an Academy Award-worthy performance. Apparently he gave it to all the reporters,” said Corliss, who doesn’t hold a grudge. “Every celebrity plays a game. Tom Cruise was giving one of his best performances by playing Tom Cruise.”

Cruise, whose mug decorates the February cover of Premiere, was Playboy’s January main interview. He told interviewer Robert Scheer that aside from his agent, only his wife “understands what I really want.”

In the same piece, Cruise declared, “People so easily--blindly--believe what they read.”