Gushing new dad Tom Cruise says show must go on

ROME - Movie star Tom Cruise, gushing over his "spectacular" newborn baby, said yesterday his bride-to-be Katie Holmes had convinced him to keep touring Europe to promote his new film, "Mission: Impossible III".

After announcing to a packed Rome press conference that he was rushing home later on to be with his family, Cruise said on the red carpet at the film's world premiere that Holmes and his baby girl, Suri, were doing so well that he would continue to Paris and London.

"I spoke with Katie and here we discussed it ... She said, 'You know, things change'," Cruise said.

"I realize the fans are going to be there in London and Paris and you know, everything is cool. So we're going to hit it. We're going to bang it."

Once he's back in the United States following the Wednesday event in Paris, Cruise said he planned to talk to Holmes about marriage plans and decide a date and location for the wedding.

"That stuff is actually going to happen in the next couple of weeks. We are going to decide where and when and how," Cruise said. "Really whatever Kate wants, you know."

Cruise has two older children that he adopted during his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman - 13-year-old Isabella and 11-year-old Connor. Suri is his first biological child.

He said Suri's birth last week was "everything we wanted it to be and more".

"It was really very spiritual."

Cruise said that he didn't yet know whether Suri looked more like him or his mother, but joked that "she came out" with his haircut. The Hollywood A-lister also suggested that he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

"I changed her first," he said. "I change diapers all the time. I have to tell you I love it. We have a whole system worked out. It's the 'B and B' - she does the breast feeding and I do the burping and changing the diapers. It's teamwork."

Mission: Impossible III is an adrenaline-packed two hours of death-dodging that sees the action star leaping from Shanghai skyscrapers and breaking into Vatican City.

Part of the film was shot in Rome, the city where Cruise and Holmes, known in tabloid shorthand as "TomKat", first made their romance public in late April 2005, smiling for photographers during the David di Donatello awards.

The following month, the twice-divorced Cruise made a manic, couch-hopping profession of love for Holmes on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The couple got engaged in Paris in June.

He was gushing again about Holmes in Rome, saying childbirth had deepened his love for her.

"I look at Kate and my admiration and love and respect for her, although I didn't think it could get any more, it became more," Cruise said. "It was very beautiful."

His whirlwind romance and recent public discussions of his belief in Scientology, the church founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, have also made Cruise the butt of jokes.

His publicist told Reuters not to ask about details of the delivery, including whether the couple adhered to the Church of Scientology's practice of "silent birth", emphasizing a calm, quiet atmosphere in the delivery room.

A journalist at the press conference earlier on Monday had asked whether Cruise had sent one of the publicists for his film to a Scientology center for two days.

"People are really interested in Scientology and every day ask me about it. So I say, yeah, if you want to know about Scientology, go find out about Scientology," Cruise responded.

"That's the best way to find out about something, for yourself."

- REUTERS