Before he was even old enough to reach the top shelf, Cameron Crowe was writing for Penthouse and Playboy. At 15 he'd conquered the adult publishing world and by 17 he was a full-time member of staff at Rolling Stone magazine. But the future director wasn't their film reviewer, he was their music critic...

The shift to film began in the early 1980s, when Crowe took time out from Rolling Stone. Heading back to school, he went undercover to research "Fast Times at Ridgemount High", a blistering account of 80s high school life that hit the bestseller lists as a book and then got turned into a movie starring the likes of Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, and, er, Judge Reinhold.

With a scriptwriting credit under his belt, Crowe was Hollywood's hot young thing. In fact, he was almost famous.

Then it all went wrong. Over the next 14 years, Crowe wrote another film script, "The Wild Life" (1984), which flopped; directed the John Cusack teen romantic comedy "Say Anything" (1989), nearly had a hit with "Singles" (1992) - the grunge soundtrack was actually better than the film itself; and faded away until 1996's box office smash "Jerry Maguire".

Since then he's kept himself busy with "Almost Famous" (2001), a movie love-letter to the rock world that he adores, and now another Cruise film, the acclaimed "Vanilla Sky".

What links all his films, other than their rock and roll soundtracks, is a peculiar blend of the blockbuster and the offbeat. "The kind of stuff I do is hard," he admits, "'cause it's in the middle. It's not obviously bound for the Sundance Festival, nor is it bound for $100 million glory."

But as long as he never keeps his infamous promise to give Eric Stoltz a role in each of his movies, he can rest easy knowing that Hollywood will keep showing him the money for some time yet.

"Vanilla Sky" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 25th January 2002.