PUBLISHERS REJECT TOM CRUISE BOOK

Bosses at a U.K. publishing company have dropped Andrew Morton's controversial biography of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise. Morton's expose of the Mission Impossible star was published in the United States in January but British-based publishers Macmillan have now decided to scrap plans to launch the book in the U.K. because Cruise forced them to remove so much of the best content. In "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography," Morton covered a series of controversial topics including the actor's high-profile relationship with the Church of Scientology. But Cruise made so many legal threats, Macmillan has now decided it is not worth releasing the biography. A spokesman for the company says, "We will not now be publishing the book. Although it was publishing in America, Cruise had so many complaints that by the time our lawyers had been through it, there was nothing left but red ink."We have explored every possible option but have concluded that once the potentially defamatory sections are taken out, there is not enough left to make a good enough read." The publishers main reason not to publish in the U.K. stem from libel laws there that are much tougher than in the U.S.