Martin and Kathleen Holmes presumably have never assumed that their youngest daughter, Kate Noelle Holmes, would become a well-known American actress when this couple welcomed her birth on December 18, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio. It is because they, along with their four other children, have been infatuated with sports which apparently did not affect little Katie to grow the same interest. On the contrary, she developed a fondness in acting by getting involved in the high school theater during her study at Notre Dame Academy of Toledo. Nevertheless, she did not put her hopes highly to become a professional actress due to her origin of being a Midwesterner, as she once had written: "Hollywood and its numerous success stories seemed extremely far away and definitely from a world that I would never come into contact with."

In 1995, Katie's course of life experienced a great turn when she joined a modeling competition held by International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA), attending its annual "Hooray for Hollywood" Convention in New York City. Al Onorato, a talent manager, quickly spotted her potentiality, thus invited her to come to Los Angeles where she auditioned successfully to earn a small role in Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm." Instead of continuing to be more involved in film industry, she returned to Toledo where she finally finished her study in June 1997. Meanwhile, an offer came from a screenwriter named Kevin Williamson to make a reading for his new television series entitled "Dawson's Creek." The appointment date turned out to be the same day in which Katie had to perform as "Lola" in her school theater's production, "Damn Yankees." Since she preferred to take part in the school drama, Williamson asked her to send videotape instead as he has been deeply impressed with her talent. Rescheduling the appointment day, she came to Hollywood and won the role of Josephine (Joey) Potter.

"Dawson's Creek" received a huge success and popularity when it came up in 1998, became a major TV series of Columbia Tri-Star. Katie, who had moved to Wilmington, North Carolina during the filming process of this teen drama, strived as a new rising star in Hollywood. While still joining the casts of "Dawson's Creek," she looked for another acting chances in big screen, playing various characters which were very different with the sweet, innocent Joey Potter. Beginning from "Disturbing Behavior" (1998) which led her to achieve an MTV Movie Award of Best Breakthrough Female Performance in 1999, she kept appeared in some movies, such as "Go" (1999), 'Teaching Mrs. Tingle" (1999), and "Wonder Boys" (2000). She then took an acting challenge in Sam Raimi's psychological thriller "The Gift" (2000), conducting a naked scene for the first time. Her next film, "Phone Booth", which was produced in 2002, had been put off for a year because it was considered to be an awful reminder for the victims of the Beltway sniper.

Katie kept going on afterwards, getting her first mature leading role in "Abandon" (2002). In 2003, she was involved in two films, being a nurse to Robert Downey Jr. in "The Singing Detective", and starring as April Burns in an indie movie entitled "Pieces of April." In the same year "Dawson's Creek" entered its last episode after having aired for six seasons. Katie was the only actress who made appearance through the whole 128 episodes, so she felt blue about the end of the series. "It was very difficult for me to leave Wilmington, to have my little glass bubble burst and move on," she admitted. "I hate change. On the other hand it was refreshing to play someone else." "Dawson's Creek" might end, but Katie's career as a professional actress proceeded. In the following year, she starred in "First Daughter", being in the same scene with Michael Keaton then appeared in hit superhero flick "Batman Begins" and burlesque feature "Thank You for Smoking", both came up in 2005.

Besides "Dawson's Creek", Katie Holmes has shown herself on other television programs, mostly the TV shows, like "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (May 2005), "Late Show with David Letterman" (June 2005), while once hosted "Saturday Night Live" on January 24, 2001. Her charismatic beauty and remarkable talent bring admiration to everyone so that she has been chosen as one of Teen People Magazine's "21 Hottest Stars Under 21" in 1999, then "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" in 2003. She also earned the 35th rank in Stuff magazine's list of "102 Sexiest Women in the World" in 2002. People Magazine named her as one of 50 Most Beautiful People in 2003, while FHM Magazine included her to be one of the Sexiest Women in the World in 1999. Not neglecting her study, she took photography class at Columbia University in 2000 after delaying her enrollment there for two times.

Being a beautiful brunette, this actress had no difficulty in establishing love relationships. Joshua Jackson and Chris Klein were the young actors whom she had dated with. In 2003, she and Chris then proclaimed their engagement which unfortunately only lasted for 2 years for they decided to separate in March 2005. To everyone's surprise, she shortly thereafter was seen together with Hollywood phenomenal actor, the gorgeous Tom Cruise. This couple got engaged on June 17, 2005 after Tom proposed to her at Eiffel Tower in Paris. It seems like a dream comes true to Katie as she once said, "I think every little girl dreams about her wedding. I used to think I was going to marry Tom Cruise."

Notwithstanding with the many negative viewpoints and criticism directed to their love relationship, the in-love couple kept going on, lived their day hand in hand hoping for a better future. Things went so so for both until it was reported that Katie was pregnant. This, though raised more call down on them, somehow has thrilled the soon parenting male and female, and either one family as well. The happy couple finally welcomed their child, Suri, on April 18, 2006 amid their unrealized plans of marriage, but the delight later was sadly marred by the speculations circulating heavily out there which suspected that she actually did not exist. Answered all of the public's doubts, pictures of Suri shot by renowned photographer Annie Leibowitz were ultimately released on September 5 that year through CBS "Evening News With Katie Couric", automatically shutting down the ill rumors surrounded the baby since.

Only seven months after the birth of Suri, the time had come for TomKat to tie the knot. Spent an amount of $2.5 million for the big day, it was worth for people to dub the couple's wedding as "wedding of the year." The black-tie lavish wedding held on November 18th at the Odescalchi Castle in Lake Bracciano, Italy was a fairytale one, a dream came true for the bride who has been dreaming of it for so long. Performed by a Scientology minister, the nuptial brought quite a heavy frenzy among public worldwide, taking into account its historical location and A-list celebrity guests, naming that of the Beckhams, J.Lo, and Brooke Shields among others. Following the lavish occasion, it was then reported that Katie would mark her return to the film industry through an adventure comedy titled "Mad Money", set for a 2008 release, alongside Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah.