Tom Cruise is the biggest Hollywood star of all time.

"He's not a great actor" and he isn't a bad actor either! Does that mean he's a good actor????
Most of his characters are simple: good-looking men, very gallant/faithful, reliable, truthful; may be good or bad, but he'll eventually do his best to protect those close to him. Their personalities, innermost feelings are just all there for us to see, there's nothing to discover, to search or analyze. And that's exactly what's most audiences need: they don't really want to do some brain-works, they just wanna see something simple for entertaining, passing the time. Not 'cause most of those movies are bad, but 'cause Tom Cruise doesn't have the ability to truly become his characters. Except for "Eyes wide shut", which might have been under Kubrick's influence & direction.....
The reason why he's so popular may be 'cause he appears in tons of blockbusters, aside from some of his own "qualities", his working method, the PR industry, plus a bit of luck..... But overall, he is a big star, he's just not a good actor. Doesn't work for me

I thought his performance in Magnolia was great.I liked him in Rain Man,too.Top Gun,Mission: Impossible and Valkyrie were mediocre.So he is not the biggest star but he is above average.

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He is a great actor. Watch Magnolia.

Most leading actors do variations of themselves rather then get lost in a character. Streep is the exception, not
the rule.

Cruise has shown more range than Arnold.

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It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

What does this even mean?

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

Yeah, it's amazing how many of the most successful male actors (both critically and commercially) have been "short" down through the years.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Dudley Moore was really 6'3"

Exactly. Which is why the term Great Actor (with a capital G) is hard-earned and should not be easily bestowed.

Arnold is the single most successful actor of all time in terms of:

$$/acting talent

He is horrendous a natural consequence of the fact that he was never an actual actor. So his box office success and fame are truly something quite impressive.

In terms of fame, I guess it's either Tom Cruise, Di Caprio or Will Smith. It's got to be a modern actor since the actors from classical Hollywood, in the 1940's and 1950's, didn't have the same international penetration as the modern actors do (nobody in India knows who Ingrid Bergman was, for instance).

Roger Ebert explained that one important condition for someone to be a successful actor is to have a head larger in proportion to the body, because such a person will tend to drawn more attention from the public.

So short persons have an advantage there.

I think Bogart, Cagney, D. Hoffman, Pacino, etal. each had more talent than a "big head".

Why speak of Pacino in the past tense?

I saw Phil Spector the other night. While it's a mediocre movie, Pacino gave a great performance. He really became the eccentric music mogul.

No, Harrison Ford breakthrough was much earlier, Journey to Shiloh in 1968. By the time of Star Wars he was a very famous actor and after it he became a true superstar.

Star Wars and it's two original sequels grossed more adjusted for inflation than all Tom Cruise movies combined.

Ford's career began 15 years earlier.

Not quite. He was very important in Star Wars.

Di Caprio is not that young. He is 38-39 right now.

Talent and a big head.

Like Dustin Hoffman, I'm referring to their past successes and trying not to write an awkward sentence.

That's a huge exaggeration. I was around in those days.

Harrison Ford had a memorable but still quite minor role in American Graffiti in 1973.

But the other guy was right. Ford didn't come to most people's attention until Star Wars in 1977.

Nobody in 1976 would have said that Harrison Ford was 'very famous.'

To say Journey to Shiloh was Ford's breakout is akin to saying The Outsiders was Cruises' breakout.

which simply isn't factually correct.

Also i submit that it was Raiders of the Lost Ark that propelled Ford into superstardom.

Shhh. Don't argue with him. He's drumk... I mean drunk.