Cruise makes public appearance ahead of wedding
Tom Cruise made his first public appearance since arriving in Rome to get married, speeding away in a van from a luxury hotel.
Cruise sat in the back of one of two dark vans with tinted windows that left the hotel surrounded by dozens of fans holding photos and cameras in hopes of getting a glimpse of the American actor only a few days before his weekend marriage to Katie Holmes.
Cruise, who landed in Rome on Monday on a private jet from Los Angeles with 10 people, including his mother and his three children, is said to be staying at the Hassler, the luxury hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps.
Airport officials said Holmes was also in Rome, but it was not immediately clear whether she was staying in the same hotel.
Cruise and Holmes are set to marry in an undisclosed Italian location on Saturday. Speculation on the location has focused on Odescalchi Castle on Lake Bracciano, near the capital.
Earlier, as bodyguards stood at the ready and barriers were being set up in front of the hotel, fans mingled with photographers and TV crews, waiting with their cameras.
Sophie Bassett-Symonds, a 34-year-old British tourist and Cruise fan said she decided to stop by the hotel after hearing of the wedding.
“He’s exceptionally talented and as a man he’ll always be a heart-throb,” she said, holding a camera ready to take a snap of the actor. “The waiting is very addictive and I enjoy the suspense and excitement. I don’t mind standing here for as long as it takes,” she said.
Holmes, 27, and Cruise, 44, became engaged in June 2005. Their daughter, Suri, was born April 18.
Cruise is the adoptive father of two children from his former marriage to Nicole Kidman.
Cruise and Holmes were first photographed together in Rome in April 2005. Two months later, the Mission: Impossible actor announced he had proposed to Holmes on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
