Tom Cruise says Scientology helped him overcome dyslexia

MADRID (AFP) – US actor Tom Cruise, one of Scientology's best-known adherents, overcame the effects of his dyslexia thanks to the church's teachings, he said in an interview published on Sunday.

He told "XL Semanal," the weekly magazine supplement of daily Spanish newspaper ABC, that at the age of seven he was diagnosed as having the language-based learning disability that can include problems in reading, spelling, writing and pronouncing words.

"I asked myself if I was normal or an idiot. I would try to concentrate but I felt anxiety, frustration, boredom. When I graduated from high school in 1980 I was functionally illiterate," he said.

"Nobody gave me a solution and I wanted to know why the system had failed. Finally, as an adult I learned to read perfectly through the method of (Scientology's late founder) L. Ron Hubbard," the 46-year-old added.

The Church of Scientology, founded in 1954 in the United States by Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, teaches that technology can expand the mind and help solve problems.

Cruise's advocacy of Scientology, which has some 10 million members around the world, has sometimes landed him in hot water in the past.

German authorities were initially reluctant to allow the makers of Cruise's latest movie "Valkyrie" -- about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler -- at German military sites because the actor is a Scientologist.

The German government does not recognize Scientology as a church. It argues the organization masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

	Name	Tom Cruise
	Height	5' 7"
	Nationality	American
	Famous For
	Date of Birth	3 July 1962,
	Place of Birth	Syracuse, New York, USA

Biography of Tom Cruise
In 1976, if you had told 14 year old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be considered one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to become a priest. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become Tom Cruise, one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history. The only son (among four children) of nomadic parents young Tom spent his boyhood eternally on the move and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the US and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.

Though below average height and not particularly handsome in the traditional sense, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996) - for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth.