ShareThisThe summer seemed to start with the best of Tom Cruise _ his new movie and stories about his and Katie's baby, Suri. It ended with the worst of Tom. "South Park's" controversial episode about him ("Trapped in the Closet") picked up an Emmy nomination and Paramount last week ended its relationship with him. It was the summer celebs heated up and melted down. Here's a look:
_ July 20: Haley Joel Osment: "I don't see mailboxes."
The teen actor suffers a broken rib when his 1995 Saturn strikes a mailbox and flips over. Blood alcohol content, 0.16, twice the legal limit. Dead people, he sees. Mailboxes, not so much.
_ May 5: Tom Cruise: "Mission: Impossible III"
Tom Cruise's movie opened and then may have closed in on $400 million, but it wasn't enough. With creepy subtext, his Ethan Hunt explains to his fiancee that he lives a secret life: Ethan Hunt: "I'm part of an agency ... called the IMF." Julia: "What's that stand for?" Ethan: "Impossible Mission Force." Julia: "Yeah, right."
_ July 26: Lindsay Lohan: "Hot time"
The actress collapses on the set of "Georgia Rule" _ heat exhaustion, supposedly _ but the boss says, no, it's because she's out partying all night.
_ July 28: Mel Gibson: "Lethal mouth"
The actor-director is arrested for drunk driving and goes on an anti- Semitic rant. Great fodder for the heavily e-mailed video snippet of Denis Leary's play-by-playologue about Boston Red Sox's Jewish first baseman Kevin Youkilis: "Mel? I hope in rehab they're showing replays of that."
_ May 17: Paul McCartney: "We Can't Work It Out"
He and Heather Mills call it quits. Married in 2002, they decide they can't work it out. Now Sir Paul pulls out of the land mine charity event _ canceling it _ he has co-hosted with his soon-to-be-ex-wife.
_ June 27: Star Jones: "In orbit"
She announces she's leaving "The View." The next day Barbara Walters fires her. Since then Payless shoes has dropped her, and she's denying divorce rumors. Her Web site proclaims: "I am the author of the only dictionary that defines me."
_ Aug. 22: Tom Cruise: "Mission meshuganah"
The summer draws to a close with another Tom Cruise moment: Paramount announces the end of the line with Cruise after 14 years of making movies and, more recently, watching him with Oprah (introducing "jump the couch" into slang as meaning going nuts).
