Rebecca De Mornay’s performance in Risky Business positioned her as a rising star in Hollywood. Her talent was undeniable and her future seemed bright.
Yet, while her co-star Tom Cruise skyrocketed to global superstardom, De Mornay’s path took a different turn — one that few could have predicted.
Not long ago, I came across a black-and-white photo of a beautiful young woman standing beside Tom Cruise. Her look was quintessentially 1980s, and her gaze instantly captivated me. At first, I thought it might be Heather Locklear, but I quickly realized it wasn’t her. Instead, I soon learned her name: Rebecca De Mornay.
Odd upbringing
Rebecca De Mornay was born in 1959 in Santa Rosa, California. Her upbringing has often been described as unconventional — some might even say chaotic.
Her parents were Wally George, a disc jockey who later became a right-wing TV personality, and Julie George, who dreamed of becoming an actress.
When Rebecca was just two years old, her parents divorced. Her mother remarried a scientist, but tragically, he passed away when Rebecca was only five.
After this loss, her mother decided to take Rebecca and her brother on a journey across Europe. They traveled around in a Volkswagen van, eventually settling in a small town in Austria, where Rebecca began school. Living like a nomad forced Rebecca to grow up quickly, and she was often seen as much older than her years.
She was courageous and mature, making her own decisions early on. By the age of 18, she returned to the U.S. to pursue a career. Initially, Rebecca had a passion for singing and aspired to make it as a folk singer or composer.
Acting came to her mind later on.
”I started thinking about acting one day when I was walking down Santa Monica Boulevard her in Las Vegas,” she said in 1994.
”The only thing I could relate to was that my mother had wanted to be an actress when she was very young. She hadn’t really done anything: she had just been a mother. She had told me as an early teenager: ’I think you could be very gifted as an actress’. Which sort of poisoned it for me, because anything your mother says, you don’t want to do”.
Breakthrough
In 1980, De Mornay moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at the famous Lee Strasberg Institute to study acting.
De Mornay made her film debut with a small role in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1981 film One from the Heart, but it was her breakthrough role in Risky Business just two years later that truly put her on the map.
In the 1983 blockbuster, Rebecca plays the role of a seductive call girl (Lana) who teaches a young Tom Cruise a few life lessons. With her blonde bangs, porcelain-doll features, and piercing blue eyes, she was the perfect fit for the role. She had a mystique in the movie and was something of a mystery woman.
While most remember the 1983 comedy as Cruise’s launchpad to superstardom, it also propelled the once-unknown 24-year-old De Mornay into a solid career.
”I had only been auditioning for six months – which is nothing – when I got the female lead in a feature film that went on to become a monster hit,” De Mornay told The Los Angeles Times in 1993.
”I got a nine-year ride on one film”.
Although there was pressure to cast a famous actress, director Paul Brickman was determined to have De Mornay. After auditioning 400 women in the United States and Europe, he stood by his choice and ensured she got the role.
One of the reasons De Mornay was able to portray the role so convincingly, despite her relatively limited experience, was that she identified with the character Lana. Their life stories were not entirely dissimilar.
”[I’ve] gone through a lot in my life in terms of upheaval and family stuff, and suddenly there was a part that just fit me like a glove, that I knew.”
According to De Mornay and many other’s, Lana was the ”soul of the movie.”
“I wanted to maintain her dignity, regardless if she’s having sex for money. She maintained some source of integrity and soul,” she said.
Intense affair with Tom Cruise
De Mornay knew right away that Risky Business was destined to be a hit, but she had no idea it would also spark a new romance. During the shoot, she and Tom Cruise not only connected professionally but also fell for each other. Their on-screen chemistry was undeniable, and the sparks continued to fly off-camera.
“It’s no secret that Tom engaged in an intense affair during the shooting with De Mornay,” Curtis Armstrong, who costarred in Risky Business alongside Tom and Rebecca, recalled in his 2017 memoir.
De Mornay was dating actor Harry Dean Stanton at the time, whom she had met in the early 1980s while working on One from the Heart. Their romance, though, quickly fizzled once she and Cruise began to fall for each other.
De Mornay initially joked that she found Cruise ”annoying” when they first met, but he quickly won her over. Before long, their connection blossomed into a romance that lasted two and a half years.
During this time, De Mornay was on cloud nine. She was one of the hottest names in Hollywood and deeply in love. Reflecting on their swift rise to fame, De Mornay described the experience as both thrilling and overwhelming.
However, while Cruise skyrocketed to become one of the most successful actors in film history, De Mornay’s momentum faded, and the industry’s interest in her waned.
“I was a more complicated, mysterious presence, innately than Tom,” she told The Wrap in 2023. “His presence is more like, I would say, a major chord, [thinking] in music terms, and I’m more of a minor chord…America really, really loves the major chords.”However, her career didn’t completely fizzle out. De Mornay continued to work throughout the 1980s, achieving varying levels of success. Her biggest hit after Risky Business came in 1992 with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
The psychological thriller was a major commercial success, and De Mornay’s portrayal of a vengeful widow who infiltrates the life of one of her late husband’s accusers left a lasting impression.
”I thought when I was making it that everyone would hate me. But when the film came out, everyone loved my character,” she told LA Times.
Throughout her career, De Mornay averaged about one film per year. Despite her talent, she didn’t always land the major roles that some might have expected, partly because she never pursued fame aggressively.
”It’s not like I got more talented. In retrospect, I had a good education in Hollywood ups and downs very quickly. I was in a big hit and then several lows. But it all helped me in my quest to detach,” she says.