Mimi Rogers

Born: January 27 1956
Where: Coral Gables, Florida, USA

The former model's acting career has been overshadowed by the fact she was married to Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise for three years.

She first attracted attention as the socialite protected by Tom Berenger in Ridley Scott's Someone To Watch Over Me and went on to win plaudits for Lost In Space.

Born Miriam Spickler, he parents divorced when she was seven and she adopted a nomadic lifestyle with her father, moving to Tucson, Arizona; Washington, DC; Detroit, Michigan and Los Angeles.

In 1979, she landed a guest spot on the TV series Hart to Hart and went on to have a recurring role in the police series Hill Street Blues.

She made her big screen debut in 1983 in Blue Skies Again and went on to play Michael Keaton's wife in the popular comedy Gung Ho in 1986.

The following year she married Cruise - the couple would get divorced three years later.

After Someone To Watch Over Me, she played the late Christopher Reeve's girlfriend in Street Smart and the unknowing object of a voyeur's desire in Hider in the House.

In 1989, she essayed a morally bankrupt aristocrat in The Mighty Quinn and a hostage housewife in danger in the remake of Desperate Hours the following year.

Director Oliver Stone cast her as a magazine photographer in his biopic The Doors and she drew on her background as a Scientologist for The Rapture.

In 1993, she posed nude for Playboy and gave the now infamous interview about her marriage to Cruise.

She claimed he was contemplating becoming a monk because "marriage wouldn't fit into his overall spiritual need.

And he thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument. ... My instrument needed tuning.".

Back on screen in in 1994, she played the intended victim of a hit man (Anthony LaPaglia) in Bulletproof Heart.

She went on to portray Barbra Streisand's sister in The Mirror Has Two Faces and turned her hand to production with Tricks (in which she also starred).

In 1998, she played the matriarch Maureen Robinson in the feature version of the 1960s TV series Lost in Space.

She also had recurring role as FBI Agent Diana Fowley in The X-Files, re-teaming with Rapture co-star David Duchovny.

Dividing her time between acting and producing, she enjoyed success with the Emmy-nominated The Devil's Arithmetic and also co-produced Harlan County War, starring Holly Hunter.

In 1999, a £7m million lawsuit against QVC network and the National Enquirer was thrown out when she could not prove that a story reporting her hysterical trashing of a QVC 'green room' was false.

The following year she starred in the low-budget vampire movie Ginger Snaps and went on to appear in the comedy Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.

After the crime thriller The Gunman in 2003 she starred in the big screen adaptation of John Irving's novel The Door in the Floor.