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Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes at the National Memorial Day in Washington, D.C., May 24, 2009
Born	Kate Noelle Holmes[n 1] (1978-12-18) December 18, 1978 (age 33) Toledo, Ohio, US
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1997–present
Spouse	Tom Cruise (2006–present)
Children	1

Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have included the blockbuster Batman Begins along with art house films such as The Ice Storm and thrillers including Abandon. She has also played on Broadway in a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. She achieved worldwide celebrity for her marriage to Tom Cruise, with whom she has a daughter, Suri.^[8][9]

Early life[link]

Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio.^[10] She is the fourth daughter and youngest child of five children born to Kathleen (née Stothers), a homemaker and philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr., an attorney specializing in divorces,^[11][12] She has three older sisters and one older brother: Tamera, Holly Ann, Martin Joseph, Jr., and Nancy Kay.^[4]

Holmes is of Russian, German, English and Irish ancestry and was baptized a Roman Catholic. She attended Christ the King Church and parochial schools in Toledo.^[13] She graduated from the all-female Notre Dame Academy (also her mother's alma mater), where Katie was a 4.0 student.^[14][15] At St. John's Jesuit, a nearby all-male high school, Holmes appeared in school musicals, playing a waitress in Hello, Dolly! and Lola in Damn Yankees.^[16] She scored 1310 out of 1600 on her SAT and was accepted to Columbia University (and attended for a summer session);^[10][14] her father wanted her to be a doctor.^[15]

At age 14, she began classes at a modeling school in Toledo run by Margaret O'Brien, who took her to the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Competition held in New York City in 1996. Eventually, Holmes was signed to an agent after performing a monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird.^[7] An audition tape was sent to the casting director for the 1997 film The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee. She was cast in the role of Libbets Casey, in the film which starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.^[16]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

In January 1997, Holmes went to Los Angeles for pilot season,when producers cast and shoot new programs in the hopes of securing a spot on a network schedule. The Toledo Blade reported she was offered the lead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer but she turned it down.^[16] Columbia Tri-Star Television, producer of a new show created by screenwriter Kevin Williamson, asked her to come to Los Angeles to audition, but there was a conflict with her schedule. "I was doing my school play, Damn Yankees. And I was playing Lola. I even got to wear the feather boa. I thought, 'There is no way I'm not playing Lola to go audition for some network. I couldn't let my school down. We had already sold a lot of tickets. So I told Kevin and The WB, 'I'm sorry. I just can't meet with you this week. I've got other commitments.'"^[16][6][17]

The producers permitted her to audition on videotape. Holmes read for the part of Joey Potter, the tomboy best friend of the title character Dawson, on a videotape shot in her basement, her mother reading Dawson's lines.^[6][18] The Hollywood Reporter claimed the story of Holmes's audition "has become the stuff of legend" and "no one even thought that it was weird that one of the female leads would audition via Federal Express."^[19]

Holmes won the part. Paul Stupin, executive producer of the show, said his first reaction on seeing her audition tape was "That's Joey Potter!"^[20] Creator and executive producer Kevin Williamson said Holmes has a "unique combination of talent, beauty and skill that makes Hollywood come calling. But that's just the beginning. To meet her is to instantly fall under her spell."^[21] Williamson thought she had exactly the right look for Joey Potter. "She had those eyes, those eyes just stained with loneliness."^[22]

[edit] Dawson's Creek

"Joey Potter is a headstrong, vibrant, wily, sultry, and determined go-getter. And yet, in a gloriously contradictory manner, in spite of her tough-as-nails exterior demeanor, Joey's also a frail, sometimes uncertain, emotionally sensitive, in-need-of-love person", said the show's official book.^[23] Joey, named for Jo in Little Women, for years had been climbing in Dawson's bedroom window and platonically sharing his bed. Joey's mother had died from cancer when Joey was thirteen and her father, Mike (Gareth Williams), was in prison for "conspiracy to traffic in marijuana in excess of 10,000 pounds." Her harried, unmarried, and very pregnant sister, Bessie (Nina Repeta), about ten years older than Joey,^{[n 2]} was raising her while running the Ice House restaurant, where Joey worked as a waitress. GQ described Joey as "kind of an uptight fussbudget—one who's always twisted up over doing the right thing and bungling-up ways to hook up with her crush and across the creek neighbor, Dawson."^[22]

"I'm a lot like Joey", said Holmes. "I think they saw that. I come from a small town. I was a tomboy. Joey tries to be articulate and deny that she doesn't have a lot of experience in life. Her life parallels mine, which is all about new everything—relationships, personal perceptions—and about being guarded." Holmes filmed the pilot of Dawson's Creek in Wilmington, North Carolina, during spring break of her senior year of high school in 1997.^[3]

The 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) tall^[22][24] brunette enchanted the press, writers of both sexes commenting how Holmes was the sort of girl one wants to bring home to meet the parents and to marry.^[15][22] "The Audrey Hepburn of her generation", was one typical comment.^[25] Time called her "impossibly lovely" and Entertainment Weekly said she was "next up for idolhood."^[26][27] Variety, reviewing the pilot, said Holmes "is a confident young performer who delivers her lines with slyness and conviction."^[28] Holmes made such an impression in Hollywood, The New York Times Magazine claimed everyone was seeking to cast a "Katie Holmes type", who, the reporter claimed, "is a throwback to the 1950s: she is a smart girl next door (as opposed to the babe-o-rama blondes)".^[29] But her "type" was no less attractive, Arena magazine declaring her "the most coquettishly sexy woman on television. Anywhere."^[30]