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This page is part of the Museum of Hoaxes' Hoax Photo Archive, a catalog of photo fakery throughout history. Images are categorized by theme, technique of fakery, and time period.
Hoax Museum Archives
Cruise vs. von Stauffenberg
Status: Real
Date and Time Period: Controversy from June 2008; (2005-Present)
Themes: Celebrities, Military, Real But Suspected Of Being Fake
Date and Time Period: Controversy from June 2008; (2005-Present)
Themes: Celebrities, Military, Real But Suspected Of Being Fake

In July 2007 United Artists released a set of pictures showing the resemblance between Tom Cruise (right) and Claus von Stauffenberg (middle), a German officer who had led an attempt to assassinate Hitler. Cruise was portraying von Stauffenberg in the forthcoming movie Valkyrie. But in June 2008 Slate magazine accused United Artists of having "tweaked" the image of von Stauffenberg in order to heighten his resemblance to Cruise.
Slate noted that a copy of the von Stauffenberg image it had acquired from the AP photo archive (left) looked noticeably different from the version supplied by United Artists. The "experts at Slate" (its own term) therefore concluded that United Artists had altered the photo.
In its defense, United Artists revealed that the source of its version of the photo was Getty Images. It was simply a case of different archives having versions of the same image of differing quality. Slate admitted it had failed to check the Getty archive and issued a retraction.
References:
• Tom Cruise Mystery: The case of the doctored publicity photo. (June 17, 2008). Slate.
• Claus von Stauffenberg. Getty Images.
• Tom Cruise Mystery: The case of the doctored publicity photo. (June 17, 2008). Slate.
• Claus von Stauffenberg. Getty Images.
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