With all the fanfare one would expect of a major Hollywood show, screaming fans and a marching band welcomed MI:III movie mogul Tom Cruise and his girlfriend, actress Kate Holmes, on their own version of a red carpet event.
When Wal-Mart employee Kevin McCoy, 27, won an online trivia contest with the prize of attending a private screening of Cruise's newly released film, he probably wasn't expecting to be hovering around the center of a media storm. But according to E! Online, Cruise and Holmes arrived in the town of Aberdeen, Washington, on Tuesday to everything BUT a couch-jumping contest.
Apparently, two local radio stations had plans for a couch-jumping contest -- in honor of the Winfrey/Cruise interview -- were scuttled by Paramount after they caught wind of the event. One of the couch suppliers, Tom Schlaht of Selmer's Home Furnishings, told the AP:
"They felt it reflected poorly on Tom's image."
Cruise and Holmes strolled the town's borrowed red carpet, and signed autographs for many of the nearly 2,000 fans at a local mall set up to welcome the couple to the blue collar town of Aberdeen.
Cruise was his usual magnanimous self, saying, "I am amazed at how beautiful it is here, and you're really warm and wonderful people," as he and Holmes accepted honorary Aberdeen citizenships.
Aberdeen is the birthplace of Kurt Cobain, one its claims to fame, with the other being the opportunity to host a 1996 Metallica concert another resident won in an MTV contest.
As for the Cruise ship making port there, one of the gushing teens told Aberdeen Daily World, "It's surreal. It's the coolest thing to ever happen to this town." Another however, had a different view, saying, "I couldn't care less that he's coming. I like his movies, it's just everything else. He seems to be such a jerk."
A very rich, very lucky, very powerful jerk.
-- Compiled from wire reports
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