Sofa, So Good: Tom Cruise's Mission: Oprah

But Cruise's troubles continued. The paparazzi who stalked the actor night and day were becoming more brazen, especially as rumors circulated that the Cruises were about to begin a family. Poor Tom, said Winfrey: "It was really like being hunted like a dog."

She said the rumors "spun into something unimaginable," and Cruise imaginatively added, "Unimaginable, really."

After someone at a doctor's office leaked the results of his wife's pregnancy test to "the media," Cruise decided to set up a better defense. He bought a sonogram machine and talked Holmes's doctor into coming to their house. An unauthorized biography of Cruise, Winfrey said, implied that little Suri wasn't even really Cruise's child, while mean old gossipmongers made such nasty cracks as comparing the newborn child to "Rosemary's Baby." Even nastier wisecrackers spread rumors that the baby was "deformed."

Through this recitation of misfortunes, Cruise maintained his composure; in fact, he usually managed to flash his somewhat nightmarish grin no matter how discomforting the memories.

Strangely, though, Winfrey didn't really grill Cruise on the biggest crisis of all: Fed up with Cruise's cuckoo behavior, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone, well-known crotchety billionaire, "fired" Cruise by ending the relationship between the actor's production company and Paramount Pictures, one of Viacom's media properties.

"His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount," Redstone said -- apparently with a straight face, though coming up with a definition of Conduct Unbecoming a Movie Star would be the neatest trick of the week. Winfrey didn't mention this, nor the fact that public displeasure with Cruise's obnoxiousness resulted in a lower box office take than expected for "Mission: Impossible III," Cruise's latest action thriller.

Said Redstone of his own wife's attitude toward Cruise: "Paula, like women everywhere, had come to hate him." Cruise, meanwhile, didn't mention Redstone or Paramount during the interview. He was seen earlier this year having lunch with Redstone in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, sparking rumors of a reconciliation -- and perhaps of a "Mission Impossible: IV."

Maybe Winfrey will get into this kind of thing during the second part of what is auspiciously billed as "The Tom Cruise Interview." Part 1 was really devoted more to personal, warm, cute-puppy stuff -- as when the subject turned to Suri, who was off somewhere sleeping.

"Let's talk about that baby girl of yours," said Winfrey.

"She really is just magic," said Cruise.

"Magical is a great way to explain it," Winfrey said a little later. But Cruise had another way: "There are moments of real joy. Yeah, joy. She's just [pause] joy," he said, searching for the right word. He told a long story about dressing up as Santa Claus one Christmas and appearing at the front door. When he got to the punch line, he sounded like any other proud papa anywhere in the world: "And Suri looks at me and she says, 'No, Dah-Dah'!" Cruise said, exploding in laughter.

He thought that was easily the cutest, funniest, sweetest little old thing in the world, or so it appeared.

Earlier, Winfrey had announced an urgent need to "pee" as a way of breaking for a commercial. Near the end of the hour, she stuck a bare foot into the camera lens to demonstrate how "comfortable" she felt even though, she told Cruise, "I swear, driving up here, my heart started palpitating -- and it wasn't the altitude." Oh, come on, Oprah; are you saying you were just all a-flutter about confronting Tom Cruise again? Give me a break. Better yet, give me $20 million; you'll never miss it.

When last seen, Winfrey was zooming off into snowy woods on the back of Cruise's snowmobile, the actor handling the driving. "You've gotten to live your dream," she'd told Cruise earlier. "You've gotten to live your dream." Looking again at the vastness of the vista, she misted up and turned to Cruise.

"I wish for you the peace that this mountain can bring," Winfrey said. "I wish this for you. I really do." She seemed to be waiting for a heavenly choir to sing the words she'd just spoken, but none showed up.