Tom Cruise's new appointment as the boss of United Artists, the dormant independent film makers' studio, provided the fading celebrity with some much-needed good headlines: "Down-and-out Tom Cruise bounces back as studio boss" (Daily Mail, 3/11), "Cruise new top gun at United" (www.itv.com, 3/11) "Cruise in United Artists comeback" (www.breakingnews.ie, 2/11). The deal was widely seen as giving Cruise a new lease of life after his acrimonious split from Paramount Pictures, his former employer, which left his career "in tatters" (The Guardian, 3/11).

But the news was also an opportunity to document Cruise's fall from grace from Hollywood's most bankable movie star to unemployed actor. Sofa-hopping on the Oprah Winfrey show, Cruise's controversial relationship with Katie Holmes, the birth of Suri, his comments on antidepressants, his spat with Brooke Shields, his Scientology convictions, the box office flops of War of the Worlds and Mission Impossible III, and yes, even the placenta-eating comments were resurrected and raked over again. Given such a string of juicy "publicity faux pas" (Daily Mail, 3/11), Cruise may find that it takes more than one good news announcement to shake off his whacky public image. He must be hoping for a good wedding on the 18th.