Star Magazine this week is screaming “Divorce!” for Tom and Katie on its cover. The back story is characteristically milder than that, with someone supposedly overhearing Katie talking on the phone with a friend who urges her to leave Tom. Katie demurs, saying she loves him and isn’t going to file for divorce.

The meat of the story is an incident with Tom re-arranging a dinner set up for the cast on the “Mad Money” set in Lousiana, where he and his mother are on hand to meddle in Katie’s first real job in years.

Producers planned a nice dinner for the cast to get together after the first day of filming, but Tom insisted on coming too and sent a staff member to make sure he and Katie were seated at a separate table. He then asked that some of the invited cast members not come to the dinner, and ended up deciding that Katie should stay home with him!

Katie’s co-star Ted Danson is also said to be miffed at the circus that surrounds TomKat. He was given a house next to the famous Scientologists and decided instead to stay at a bed and breakfast and then take off to Europe to have a break from all the chaos there.

The Screen Actor’s Guild has also stepped in to ensure that extras and other actors are given enough warning before scenes are filmed. It seems that Tom wants Katie on the set before any of the extras are there, and that they only get about an hour’s notice before they have to be at work.

The arrival of Tom, mom and baby is thought to be behind a recent spate of problems on the set, insiders reveal. They note that some of the extras are getting only about an hour’s notice before they have to be on the job, because Katie’s people want to make sure she’s there before they are.

“I learned Mad Money is in an uproar because of this,” says a source. “A SAG rep has had to be summoned to find out what is going on to make sure there is no violation of its notification rules.”

Actor Ted Danson also appears to have been disturbed by the Cruise family circus. Tom and Katie travel with such an entourage that, sources say, Ted has chosed to not stay in the house rented for him by the film, which is right near Tom and Katie’s. Instead he put himself up in a bed and breakfast outside Shreveport before leaving on a five-day trip to Europe!…

Sources say that a special dinner to celebrate the start of production was ruined by Tom’s meddling!…

“The made a reservation for ten people at the fanciest restaurant in town on April 16, but when Tom found out it was happening, he immediately invited himself,” a set source tells Star.

“He insisted that he and Katie site at a separate table and that there be two other tables for the others. Then Tom had an assistant go by the restaurant and supervise the table setup. But he didn’t want certain people there, so it be a group of only six. Then he decided not to let Katie go to the dinner at all, and, after a full day of planning, they canceled the dinner!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, May 7, 2007]

There’s also another article in Star this week about how Nicole Kidman is asking Tom if she can spend more time with her children, Isabella and Conner, but he’s told her that she has to come to LA to see them and is being characteristically controlling. He is also said to be wary of his kids spending time around Nicole’s new husband, former addict Keith Urban.

Even if you don’t have any insider knowledge about what’s going on in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ marriage, just the story that Tom tried to control her work dinner and then made her stay home makes it seem like he’s smothering her. Also, who could deal with living with their mother-in-law? That’s got to be a royal pain in the ass.

Here’s an older picture of Tom and Katie. [via] Inset image is a screencap from Vanilla Sky. [via]