I was heading out to a party tonight, and had TMZ on. They've been covering a lot more autograph stuff lately. It was an autograph evening on TV, because right before on an episode of Family Guy, little Stewie asks someone he's star struck over to "autograph my ass, please."

So, I switch to TMZ during a commercial, and they are talking about Tom Cruise. The narration voice says "He must be practicing for a spelling bee." That didn't make sense to me, until they showed him signing autographs for a huge crowd. One of the reasons he often pops up on our 10 Best signers list each year (be ready for the newest list coming soon!) Anyway, he's asking people how to spell their names. One young kid says "Dylan." I'm not sure why Cruise didn't know how to spell that. Especially since they played so much Bob Dylan in Jerry Maguire and recreated an album cover of his and played a tune, in Vanilla Sky. But, each attempt at spelling, Cruise got wrong. The kid said, "D-Y-L-A-N." And Cruise said "D-y-y?" The kid said, "It's okay, don't worry about it." Tom said, "Yeah, but I do. I want to make sure I get this right."

I thought that was so classy of Cruise. Say what you want about his religious beliefs, or his couch jumping on Oprah, or his third wife, who is half his age. But the cat signs autographs. And, personalizing is the way to go, if you are afraid people just want to sell it. There isn't much demand for an 8 x 10 that says To Dylan, Tom Cruise.

So, the show may have taken a knock on him (knock, knock, knocking on Tom Cruise). But to me, this showed how classy and nice he is. And how every star should treat the fans.