Twenty years ago, Tom Cruise was a pretty boy actor, coming off a series of highly successful films, who frequently fought off Mel Gibson (oh, the irony!) for the top spot on teenage girls' wet dream lists.

Today, Tom Cruise is a meshuggenah fool, coming off a series of flops, who frequently fights off Mel Gibson for the top spot on the Hollywood nut job list (sorry, Tom, we have to go with Mel).

Who is to blame (other than Cruise himself, of course)? Would you believe, a couple of Jews?

Before Katie Holmes, before Nicole Kidman, there was Mimi Rogers, an up-and-coming actress six years older than Cruise. Rogers was born Miriam Spickler, a daughter of a Jewish father and a goyishe mother. She and Cruise got married in 1987. (We looked long and hard for a picture of Mimi from the 80s. What a looker!)

But the time Rogers and Cruise were married, her link to Jewishness was all but severed. Her father, Philip Spickler, was one of the original disciples of L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology. Mimi followed in his footsteps, and then introduced her gullible husband to the cult.

Flash forward to the present day. Mimi is teetering on the edge of obscurity; her acting career virtually non-existent, she re-invented herself as a professional poker player. But both she and her father have left Scientology; Cruise, whom she divorced in 1990, is the face of the cult, spiraling from Hollywood's top star into a laughable joke. Showing us the nut job hiding behind that pretty boy face.

Much obliged, Mimi.