Entertainment

Tom Cruise's Turn At Fiji Resort

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 17, 2001 / 4:59 PM EDT / CBS

Movie star Tom Cruise is vacationing at the same exclusive Fijian resort that his estranged wife Nicole Kidman left just days ago with long-time friend Russell Crowe, the Australian Associated Press reported Tuesday.

A Fiji airport worker confirmed that a jet owned by Cruise touched down in the capital Suva early Sunday morning, it said.

Another plane then took the U.S. actor, an unidentified female companion, and his entourage on the 30-minute flight to the exclusive Wakaya Club island resort, AAP said, citing tourism industry sources. It is the same resort where Kidman, 34, and Crowe, 36, had been staying last week.

Cruise is back in the dating game, stepping out last week with Spanish-born beauty Penelope Cruz, his spokeswoman, Pat Kingsley, said Tuesday.

Cruise, 39, and Cruz, 27, went on "a couple of dates" last week, including lunch Friday at the chic Beverly Hills eatery, Spago, where they were photographed together, she told Reuters.

Several months after working together on the upcoming Cameron Crowe-directed thriller "Vanilla Sky," the two hooked up socially at a birthday party for Cruise on July 6 (he actually turned 39 three days earlier), before going out as a couple the following week, the publicist said.

"He's been separated for months now, and I think both he and Nicole have had enough time to get adjusted to not being married," she said.

Kidman, who split with 39-year-old Cruise in February and is embroiled in divorce proceedings, left the island Saturday, arriving in Sydney with the couple's two adopted children, Isabella, eight, and Connor, six.

Kidman and Crowe have denied reports that they were more than good friends at the time of her marriage break-up earlier this year.

Kidman and Crowe, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Australia, have been friends for years, emerging from the small Australian acting community at the same time.

Crowe, winner of an Oscar this year for his role in "Gladiator," is regarded as a ladies man and has been photographed with several high profile women in recent months, including his former lover Meg Ryan and Heather Graham.

The $1,300 a night Wakaya Club, off the northeast coast of Fiji's main island Viti Levu, is a favorite for the rich and famous, with Bill Gates honeymooning there and "James Bond" Pierce Brosnan a regular, Fiji tourist officials say.

The five sq. mile island is a South Pacific paradise, with lush forests, white sandy beaches, soaring cliffs and turquoise seas. It also has imported wild deer and wild horses.