Katie Holmes

Biography of Katie Holmes

Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes was born on December 18, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio. She is an American actress, film director and producer.

She is the youngest daughter of Kathleen A. and Martin Joseph Holmes and has four siblings (three sisters and one brother). Her father is a lawyer specializing in divorce. She grew up in a borough of Lucas County, Ohio. Her siblings are Tamera (b. 1968), Holly Ann (b. 1970), Martin (b. 1970), and Nancy Kay (b. 1975). Like her mother, she attended Notre Dame Academy for girls in Toledo, Ohio. At St. John's Jesuit, a neighboring boys' school, she appeared in various musicals, including as a waitress in Hello, Dolly! and as Lola in Damn Yankees.

At 14, Holmes began taking classes at a modeling school in Toledo. In 1996, the head of the modeling school, Margaret O'Brien, took her to New York City. As part of the competition, Katie Holmes was spotted by a talent scout who invited her to audition in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, she received the small role of Libbets Casey in the 1997 Cannes-winning film The Ice Storm alongside Sigourney Weaver, Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci. She then turned down the title role of Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer to finish high school, but later submitted a home video application for the role of Joey Potter in Dawson's Creek. The series' producer, Paul Stupin, later said when he saw the video, he knew Katie Holmes was Joey Potter. In the series, which was produced between 1998 and 2003, Holmes received this role, which brought her breakthrough and international recognition.

In 2008, Holmes launched her first clothing line, Holmes & Yang, as a designer together with Jeanne Yang.

Holmes had her first leading role in the film Teaching Mrs. Tingle! (1998). Holmes received an MTV Movie Award for Best Newcomer for this role. However, her own take on the film was, "It's just awful."

In 1999, she played a disaffected supermarket clerk in Doug Liman's film Go.In Wonder Boys (2000), Holmes had only a small role. In the film The Gift (2000), she played the polar opposite of Dawson's Creek's Joey Potter, a rich girl who gets in bed with anyone. Directed by Sam Raimi, starring Cate Blanchett. In Abandon (2002), Holmes played a murderous college student named Katie.

In Phone Booth Holmes played the mistress of a shady businessman in 2002, and a nurse in 2003's The Singing Detective, opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson. Her next starring role was in Pieces of April (2003), in which she starred as a punk girl who gets a visit from her staid family for Thanksgiving. She was the President's daughter in First Daughter (2004).

In 2005, she played young prosecutor Rachel Dawes, who has been close friends with Bruce Wayne since childhood, in Batman Begins. For this role, she was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, but also for Worst Supporting Actress for a Golden Raspberry. In 2006, she played a reporter who seduces a tobacco lobbyist to further her own career in the film version of Christopher Buckley's satire Thank You for Smoking.

In 2011, she played first lady Jackie Kennedy in the television series The Kennedys. The show was controversial in the US, and several broadcasters refused to broadcast it. Still, the series won four Emmys, and Holmes received critical acclaim for her acting performance.

Her directorial debut All We Had (2016) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She also produced the drama film in which she played the lead role of Rita Carmichael.

Holmes became engaged to longtime boyfriend Chris Klein in early 2004, but they split the following year.

A few weeks later, in April 2005, she began dating actor Tom Cruise, 16 years her senior. In June 2005, two months after the two met, Cruise proposed to her. At the beginning of the relationship, there was much speculation as to whether the relationship was only staged for promotional purposes.

Holmes was later criticized for adopting the faith of her fiancé and later husband, who is a self-confessed Scientologist. Their daughter was born on April 18, 2006 in Los Angeles. Their wedding took place on November 18, 2006 in Bracciano, Italy, at Castello Orsini-Odescalchi. The marriage was held according to a Scientology rite.

In June 2012, Holmes filed for divorce and sole custody of their daughter. According to Holmes' lawyer Jonathan Wolfe, both agreed in July 2012 on a divorce and Cruise's contact with their daughter. The Hollywood couple's split has been met with a great deal of media interest and speculation.

Evidence suggests that Holmes has since returned to the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2017, it was revealed that Holmes was dating actor Jamie Foxx. The first rumors about this had been heard in 2013, but were denied, presumably because a clause in the divorce agreement had prohibited a public relationship for five years. Their separation became known in August 2019.