American actor and film producer, the winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in 1994 for Philadelphia and a second Oscar in 1995 for Forest Gump. Hanks and Spencer Tracy are the only two actors to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in consecutive years. Hanks’ films have grossed more than US$9.96 billion worldwide, making him the fifth-highest-grossing actor in North America. His regular guy image with hazel eyes, naturally curly brown hair and quick wit keep Hanks on Hollywood’s most popular list. His penchant for playing likable character roles has drawn comparisons to the late actor Jimmy Stewart.
Hanks was the third of four kids of Amos Hanks, a chef-restaurateur and Janet (nee Frager) Hanks, a hospital worker. His sister Sandra (a writer) was born on 31 July 1951, his brother Larry (an entomology professor) on 26 January 1953 and his younger brother Jim (also an actor and filmmaker) on 15 June 1961. At five, his father returned home from work one night and scooped up Tom and his sister and brother and drove off to Reno, Nevada for a new life. His baby brother, Jim, was left with his mother. Within a year, his father married a woman with eight children of her own. In 1963, Amos Hanks divorced his second wife and moved his children with him to Oakland. He married a third wife, Frances Wong in 1966. By this time, Hanks had become accustom to a migratory childhood and settled into the part of the “new kid” in school. Though his family was close, Hanks longed for security to combat his loneliness.
At Skyline High School in Oakland, he played soccer and ran track. He became a born-again Christian, joining a fundamentalist movement affiliated with the First Covenant Church of Oakland, gaining a sense of security from his religion during high school. He liked acting and “hammed it up” in his high school’s performance of South Pacific. After a year at Chabot Community College in Hayward, California, Hanks entered California State University-Sacramento in 1976 as a theater major. He interned at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland the summer of 1976, when he was seriously bitten by the acting bug. He quit school in order to stay on two more years at the Festival garnering critical acclaim. In 1978, he sold his Volkswagen Beetle and went to New York in 1979 with $850 in his pocket, ready to tackle the Broadway stage. He made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You’re Alone (1980). Hanks landed the TV show, Bosom Buddies, in 1980, appearing on screen in women’s clothing.
In 1984, he played the romantic lead opposite Daryl Hannah in Ron Howard’s Splash. He scored a major hit in Penny Marshall’s Big in 1988. The film took in $100 million but the following pictures that Hanks did were forgettable. In great need of another career boast, he begged Penny Marshall to give him the role of the drunken, rough baseball coach in the 1991 hit, A League of Their Own.
Since that picture, Hanks’ career catapulted into the Hollywood stratosphere with critically acclaimed roles in Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), Cloud Atlas (2012), Captain Phillips (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Sully (2016), and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019). He has also starred in the Robert Langdon films, and he voices Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story film series.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds (16 kg) and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. Hanks was a huge box-office draw in the two romantic comedies in which he paired with actress Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998). At the age of 45, Hanks became the youngest-ever recipient of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award on 12 June 2002.
Hanks met his first wife, actress Samantha Lewes in his college years. Their son Colin (now an actor) was born in 1977, they were married in 1978 and their second child, Elizabeth, was born in 1982. Hanks believes that his real-life role as an absent husband and father ruined his first marriage which folded in 1987. He met actress Rita Wilson in 1985 while they were filming “Volunteers.” They married on 30 March 1988. The couple have two children, son Chester “Chet” born in 1990 and son Truman in 1996. The Hanks have homes in Pacific Palisades and Ketchum, Idaho. Hanks appreciates time spent with his children. His best friend and soul mate is his wife, Rita. Her Old World extended family embraced Hanks and he is at home being a part of a close-knit family, visiting his in-laws almost every day. He is friendly with his fellow actors but prefers the company of a close circle of friends.
Politically, Hanks supports same-sex marriage, environmental causes, and alternative fuels. He has donated to many Democratic politicians. Hanks and his wife became a couple of the many Hollywood supporters of President Bill Clinton. The Hanks were overnight guests at the Clinton White House. During the 2008 United States presidential election he uploaded a video to his MySpace account endorsing Barack Obama. He also narrated a 2012 documentary, The Road We’ve Traveled, created by Obama for America. In 2016, Hanks endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. He endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Presidential election.
Since childhood, Hanks has been fascinated with the U.S. space program and as an adult, he supports space travel and dabbles in astronomy. His lifelong dream is to participate in a flight to outer space.
Hanks has no interest in alcohol and marijuana was a one-time experiment in his college days. On not being close to his mother, he told her: “I love you, but I don’t know you because I didn’t live with you.” Quick witted, a regular guy, he sums up his life with sweetness and simplicity, “Work, Family, Life….That’s just it.”
Hanks is a collector of manual typewriters and uses them almost daily. In August 2014, Hanks released Hanx Writer, an iOS app meant to emulate the experience of using a typewriter; within days the free app reached number one on the App Store.
On 21 January 2001, Hanks was awarded the Golden Globe for his picture, Cast Away. In 2016, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, as well as the French Legion of Honor.
On 7 October 2013, on the Late Show with David Letterman, Hanks announced that he has Type 2 diabetes. On 12 March 2020, Hanks announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 while shooting Elvis in Queensland, Australia. They were admitted to the Gold Coast University Hospital for care. Hanks was playing the role of Colonel Tom Parker in the film directed by Baz Luhrmann.
Link to Wikipedia biography