Tom Hanks

This article is about the actor Thomas Jeffrey Hanks. For the scientist, see Tom Hanks (scientist).

Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks, February 2004 <tr><td style="text-align:left;">Birth name</td><td>Thomas Jeffrey Hanks</td></tr>
Born	July 9 1956 (age 50) Concord, California, USA
Height	6'1" (185 cm) [1]
Notable roles	Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump Captain John H. Miller in Saving Private Ryan Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia Paul Edgecombe in The Green Mile Jim Lovell in Apollo 13
Academy  Awards	Nominated: Academy Award for Best Actor (1989) for Big, Academy Award for Best Actor (1999) for Saving Private Ryan, Academy Award for Best Actor (2001) for Cast Away Won: Academy Award for Best Actor (1993) for Philadelphia, Academy Award for Best Actor (1994) for Forrest Gump
Spouse(s)	Rita Wilson - (1988-present)</br>Samantha Lewes - (1978-1987)

Hanks's early life

Hanks was born on the northwest side of Concord, California, to Amos Mefford Hanks (14 February 1918-15 March 1998), a Southern cook of English and Welsh heritage, and Janet Merilyn Frager, a hospital worker who was of portuguese and english descent. Tom Hanks grandfather, Joaquim Rosa was born in Portugal. As a child, Hanks experienced a wandering, middleclass life with neither ambition nor talent much in evidence. By the time he was five, his parents had separated. They remarried several times before divorcing for good. His father later married an Asian woman with a large family. "Everybody in my family likes each other", Hanks told Rolling Stone^{[citation needed]}. "But there were always about fifty people at the house. I didn't exactly feel like an outsider, but I was sort of outside of it." When his parents divorced, Hanks, his older brother Larry, and his sister went off with their father, a roving cook who rambled through various cities until settling in Oakland, California when Tom was eight. His younger brother stayed with his mother. In school, Hanks also was unremarkable. "I was a geek, a spaz", he told Rolling Stone^{[citation needed]}. "I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible." Although he acted in a few school plays (the names of which he says that he can't remember), acting never seemed a real possibility until Hanks transferred from San Francisco Bay Area junior college Chabot College to Sacramento State University. "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant", Hanks told New York. "I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat, and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Henrik Ibsen, and all that."

It was during these acting classes that Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the Festival, which stretched into a three-year experience that covered everything from lighting to set design to stage management. Such a commitment required that Hanks drop out of college. But by the end of the three years, he had decided that he wanted to become an actor. Part of the bug was due to the Cleveland Critics Circle Award, which he won as best actor for his performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain.

Career

Early roles

In 1978 he moved to New York City, where he married actress-producer Samantha Lewes. Nine years and a son and daughter later they were divorced, but Hanks still sees his children regularly. While in New York City, Hanks acted for the Riverside Shakespeare Company. In addition, he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film ,"He Knows You're Alone", and got a part in a television movie entitled Mazes and Monsters. He continued to audition and finally landed a role on an ABC television pilot called Bosom Buddies. "It was flukesville", Hanks told Newsweek about the show. Hanks flew to Los Angeles, California where he was teamed with Peter Scolari as a pair of young ad men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. The series ran for two seasons, and, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. "The first day I saw him on the set", the show's co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, "I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years." But if Praiser knew it, he was not able to convince Hanks. "The television show had come out of nowhere", Hanks's best friend Tom Lizzio told Rolling Stone. "Then out of nowhere it got cancelled. He figured he'd be back to pulling ropes and hanging lights in a theater."

But it was Bosom Buddies and a cameo appearance on an episode of "Happy Days" that drew director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on Splash (1984), a romantic comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. At first, Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, a role which eventually went to John Candy. Hanks instead got the lead and a career boost from Splash, which went on to become a box-office hit, grossing more than $69 million.

Period of hits and misses

More comedies followed, but none clicked with audiences. With Nothing in Common (1986)—about a young man alienated from his parents who must re-establish a relationship with his father, played by Jackie Gleason—Hanks began to establish the credentials of not only a comic actor but of someone who could carry a serious role. "It changed my desires about working in movies", Hanks told Rolling Stone. "Part of it was the nature of the material, what we were trying to say. But besides that, it focused on people's relationships. The story was about a guy and his father, unlike, say, The Money Pit (1986), where the story is really about a guy and his house."

After three more flops, Hanks succeeded again with Big (1988), both at the box office and within the industry, establishing Hanks as a major Hollywood talent. "It's not easy being successful in this town", his friend Scolari told Rolling Stone, "particularly for a man of conscience. You get fed a steady diet of adulation. You get fed things that aren't necessarily bad or poisonous or toxic in any way. But they're not really on your meal plan. You have to stop and say, 'Wait a minute—I didn't order this.' You have to take your life by the horns. You have responsibilities that have nothing to do with being an actor. Tom Hanks has dealt with his success. I have never known him to be happier."

Despite this success, Hanks's choice of roles again landed him in trouble with another string of box-office failures. First The 'Burbs (1989), then Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and finally the colossal bomb The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), which saw Hanks as a greedy Wall Street type who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident.

Progression into dramatic roles

Tom Hanks at photocall for Philadelphia at the 1994 Berlinale, photo by Michael Weiner

Hanks again climbed back to the top with his portrayal of an unsuccessful baseball manager in A League of Their Own (1992). In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks called the work that he's done since League his "modern era of moviemaking ... because enough self-discovery has gone on.... My work has become less pretentiously fake."

This "modern era" welcomed in a spectacular 1993 for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle and then with Philadelphia. The former was a summer smash about a widower who finds true love over the airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time called his performance "charming", and most agreed that his portrayal ensured him a place among the premiere romantic-comedy stars of his generation. But it was in the latter film that Hanks truly made his mark. Playing a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination, Hanks proved that he had the depth and talent to be one of the greats. (To make his performance in the film even more realistic, Hanks lost thirty-five pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly.) In a review for People, Leah Rozen praised Hanks's skill: "Above all, credit for "Philadelphia's" success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." And Hanks' peers agreed, honoring him with the 1994 Academy Award for best actor.

Forrest Gump

Hanks followed Philadelphia with the 1994 summer blockbuster hit Forrest Gump. The film is a bittersweet tale of a simple-minded young man who finds himself in the middle of most of the major events of recent American history. In the process, the character's very real wisdom shines through and positively affects the lives that he touches. In Vanity Fair, the film's director Robert Zemeckis praised Hanks's performance: "[Hanks] brings to this role what any great actor does—and I mean great actor—which is a real honesty."

In the same article, Hanks explained what appealed to him about the script: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." What Hanks also got from his performance in the movie was a 1995 Academy Award, his second for best actor. In winning back-to-back Oscars, Hanks became only the second actor to have accomplished the feat. (Spencer Tracy was the first, winning in 1937-38.)

Apollo 13

Hanks's next project reunited him with director Ron Howard in a movie about Apollo 13, in which he played astronaut and commander James Lovell. In 1970, Apollo 13 was on its way to the Moon when an oxygen tank exploded, and the spacecraft almost failed to return to Earth. Critics applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan.

1998 and on

Hanks turned to the role of executive producer (and co-writer and co-director) for the HBO docudrama From the Earth to the Moon. The twelve-part series chronicles the space program from its inception, through the familiar flights of Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell, to the personal feelings surrounding the reality of moon landings. The Emmy Award-winning $68 million project is one of the most expensive ventures taken for television. Hanks' next project was no less expensive. He teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make a film about D-Day, the landing at Omaha Beach, and a quest through war-torn France to bring back a soldier who has a ticket home. Saving Private Ryan earned the praise and respect of the film community, critics, and the general public; it was labeled one of the finest war films ever made, earning Spielberg his second Academy Award for direction and Hanks a Best Actor nomination. Later in 1998, Hanks co-starred with his Sleepless in Seattle counterpart Meg Ryan for another romantic comedy. The two made You've Got Mail, a remake of the 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner which starred Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.

In 1999, Hanks starred in an adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Green Mile. The following year he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Academy nomination for his portrayal of a shipwrecked FedEx systems analyst in Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away. In 2001, Hanks helped direct and produce the acclaimed HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. He also appeared in the September 11 television special America: A Tribute to Heroes and the documentary Rescued From the Closet.

Next he teamed up with American Beauty director Sam Mendes for the adaptation of Max Allan Collins' and Richard Piers Rayner's graphic novel Road to Perdition, in which he played an anti-hero role as a hitman on the run with his son. That same year, Hanks collaborated with director Spielberg again, starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit crime-comedy Catch Me if You Can, based on the true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr.

Hanks was subsequently absent from films until 2004, when he appeared in three films: The Coen Brothers' The Ladykillers, yet another Spielberg helmed film The Terminal, and The Polar Express, a family picture from Robert Zemeckis.

In a USA Weekend interview, Hanks talked about how he chooses projects: "[Since] A League of Their Own, it can't be just another movie for me. It has to get me going somehow.... There has to be some all-encompassing desire or feeling about wanting to do that particular movie. I'd like to assume that I'm willing to go down any avenue in order to do it right."

He became the youngest ever recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award on June 12, 2002.

In August 2005 Hanks was voted in as vice-president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [4]

Hanks also starred in the highly anticipated film The Da Vinci Code, based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. The film was released May 19 2006 in the US and had grossed over USD$685 million worldwide by the end of June 2006. A film adaptation of Angels and Demons, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, has been announced, but it has not been confirmed yet if Hanks will reprise the role of Robert Langdon.

On November 16 2006, an Internet rumor circulated that Hanks had fallen to his death off a cliff in New Zealand. New Zealand police have denied all knowledge of any accidental deaths surrounding the cliffs or involving famous people. The rumor is thought to have been started by www.fakeawish.com ^[1]

Personal life

Hanks has been married to actress Rita Wilson since 1988. They became involved while working on the movie Volunteers (1985), although they first worked together in an episode of Bosom Buddies, where Wilson guest starred as a romantic interest of Peter Scolari's Henry Desmond character. They have two children together. Hanks was married previously to Lewes from 1978 to 1987. That union also produced two children, one of whom is actor Colin Hanks. Through his contact with Wilson, Hanks joined the Greek Orthodox Church.[5]

Hanks claims to be a relative of James Hanks, one of several possible fathers of Nancy Hanks, mother of United States president Abraham Lincoln. A map of his family tree showing the purported connection can be found in the External links section.

Hanks is a fan of the Cleveland Indians baseball team and English Premier League football (soccer) team Aston Villa.

Other activities

Hanks is a member of the National Space Society, serving on the Board of Governors of the nonprofit educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun and was the producer of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program to send astronauts to the moon. Hanks also provides the voice over for the Hayden planetarium show at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

In June 2006 Hanks was inducted as an honorary member of the US Army's Ranger Hall of Fame for his accurate portrayal of a Captain in the movie Saving Private Ryan; Hanks, who was unable to attend the induction ceremony, was the first actor to receive such an honor ^[2]. In addition to his role in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks was cited for serving as the national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial Campaign, for being the honorary chairperson of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and for his role in writing and helping to produce the Emmy Award-winning miniseries, Band of Brothers.

Although he gives money to many Democratic politicians, Hanks usually keeps his opinions about politics to himself, though he has been open about his support for environmental causes and alternative fuels.^[3]

Filmography

Films

For a more extensive filmography of Tom Hanks, see here.

Television

• Bosom Buddies (1980-1982)
• Mazes and Monsters (1982)
• Vault of Horror I (1994) (also director)
• From the Earth to the Moon (1998) (miniseries) (also executive producer/director/writer)
• Band of Brothers (2001) (miniseries) (producer, director)
• (2002) (Cameo)

Top worldwide film grosses

These figures do not account for inflation.

See boxofficemojo.com. Figures are subject to minor adjustments (usually upwards) when studios release revised official figures, which sometimes occurs years after first release.

Academy Awards and nominations

• 1988 Nominated Best Actor for Big
• 1993 Won Best Actor for Philadelphia
• 1994 Won Best Actor for Forrest Gump
• 1998 Nominated Best Actor for Saving Private Ryan
• 2000 Nominated Best Actor for Cast Away

Trivia

• Hanks is around 6' (1.85 m). His height has been described from 5ft 11" to 6ft 1".
• His brother Lawrence M. Hanks is a renowned entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• A fan of NASA's manned space program. He said that he originally wanted to be an astronaut but "didn't have the math."
• Hanks was considered for roles in Batman Forever, Jerry Maguire, Hook, Field of Dreams, Nixon and Groundhog Day.
• He has said that one of his favorite films is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In interviews he has said that he has seen it around thirteen times in theaters and owns the VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD releases of the film.
• While interviewing for Inside the Actor's Studio, Hanks comments how he hates the sound of a ringing telephone. As Hanks nods his head, the audience begins to burst into laughter because of an earlier incident in which a student's cell phone rang, interrupting Hanks' interview with James Lipton. As a demonstration of how to react to a cell phone going off while acting on stage in live theatre to the students, Hanks got up from his seat and walked across the stage yelling "TURN OFF THAT CELL PHONE!"
• Hanks, whose daughter attended Vassar College, spoke at the 2005 graduation ceremony.
• When Hanks made his acceptance speech for winning the Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia, he revealed that his high school drama teacher was gay. The revelation inspired the 1997 film In & Out, starring Kevin Kline as a drama teacher who was outed by a former student in a similar way.
  

  

  Hanks on Late Night
• Hanks is one of several celebrities who frequently participate in planned comedy bits on Late Night with Conan O'Brien while they are guests. On one visit, Hanks asked Conan to join his run for president on the "Bad Haircut Party" ticket, with confetti and balloons and a handheld sign with the slogan "You'd be stupid to vote for us". On another, O'Brien, noting that Hanks was missing Christmas on his promotional tour, brought the season to him, including a gift (the skeleton of Hooch), and a mass of snow burying them both. On yet another episode, Conan gifted Hanks with a painting he had commissioned reflecting two of his interests: Astronauts landing on the beach at Normandy.
• Hanks was awarded as one of the few non-military members in the Army Ranger Hall of Fame for his role in Saving Private Ryan.
• Socks play a role in each of Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and A League of Their Own. During his service in the Vietnam War, the main advice that Forrest Gump receives from Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) is to keep his feet clean and dry and to change his socks often. In Apollo 13, Hanks' character Jim Lovell takes off his sock to use it in an ad hoc air filter. In Saving Private Ryan, Hanks' character and his men use socks to create "sticky bombs" to destroy the German tanks during the confrontation at the bridge. In A League of Their Own, before the Peaches' final game, Hanks' character asks, in the locker room, "What the hell's that smell?", to which he's told, "Alice thinks it's bad luck to change her socks." Another event involving socks can be found in the HBO/BBC miniseries Band of Brothers, produced by Tom Hanks. In this miniseries, the medic warns the soldier to wear dry socks to avoid gangrene.
• Hanks' characters also have a recurring theme of bladder issues. In Forrest Gump, Forrest meets JFK and blurts out, "I gotta pee!" In Road To Perdition Michael Sullivan replies "it also makes me piss" when asked if coffee makes him sweat. In The Green Mile, Paul Edgecombe is afflicted with an extremely painful urinary tract infection, which John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) cures. In A League of Their Own, Jimmy Dugan makes his entrance into the locker room highly hung over, seemingly unaware of all the female ballplayers present, and takes a very long stretch at the urinal, as the women look on in disbelief. When he finally finishes, Rosie O'Donnell's character says, "That was some peein'!" Hanks' characters are also seen urinating in the movies The Money Pit, Big, Cast Away, and Apollo 13. In The Terminal, Hanks' character runs to the bathroom after waiting all day at a pay phone for a call about a job.
• Hanks is a third cousin, four times removed of President Abraham Lincoln.
• Hanks appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien to publicise his new film, The Da Vinci Code. He told the audience he had met, had a conversation with, and given a present to the Japanese Prime Minister, "Fujimori". The Japanese Prime Minister Hanks met is Junichiro Koizumi; Alberto Fujimori was the former President of Peru.
• In 2006 Hanks came top in a 1,500-strong list of 'most trusted celebrities' compiled by magazine Forbes.[6].
• Hanks has been noted to be a follower of Aston Villa Football Club In England. Not much is known apart from Hanks saying that "the name sounds sweet, sounds like a health spa."

Further reading

Books

• Trakin, Roy, Tom Hanks: Journey to Stardom, 1987; rev. ed.1995
• Salamon, Julie, The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood, Boston, 1991
• Wallner, Rosemary, Tom Hanks: Academy Award-Winning Actor, Edina, Minnesota, 1994
• Pfeiffer, Lee, The Films of Tom Hanks, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1996
• Gardner, David, Tom Hanks: The Unauthorized Biography, London, England 1999

Periodicals

• Films, July 1984
• Photoplay (London), September 1984
• Time Out (London), October 26, 1988
• Film Comment (New York), March/April 1989
• Interview (New York), March 1992
• Interview (New York), December 1993
• Advocate, December 14, 1993
• Maclean's (Toronto), July 11, 1994

References

1. ^ "Bogus Report Circulating That Tom Hanks Has Died" article from TMZ.com
2. ^ "Army honours Tom Hanks" article from News24.com
3. ^ "Hollywood Loves Hybrid Cars" article from AllAboutHybridCars.com

External links

• Tom Hanks at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Hanks at Yahoo! Movies
• Tom Hanks's (partial) family tree (links him to former US president Abraham Lincoln)
• Tom Hanks DVDology
• Tom Hanks' thoughts on Earth Day 2006

Fansites

• Tom Hanks Land, the largest and longest running Tom Hanks fansite
• TomHanksFan.ORG - the largest Tom Hanks resource on the web

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