Tom Hanks Biography

Thomas J. Hanks was born on July 9th, 1956, in Concord, California. Amos Hanks and Janet Hanks were Tom’s parents. Janet being a descendant of Abraham Lincoln’s grand uncle. Hanks’s parents divorced when he was very young. The divorce was so unique that it added another dimension to spouse separation in California. Post divorce Tom and his siblings Sandra and Larry went with Amos while the youngest child, Jim joined Janet.

Amos was chef, and work took him all over the country. He even remarried twice. The constant changing of school and even mothers ensured that Tom’s development was different from other children around him. By the time Tom Hanks was ten years old he had already seen more than what kids from normal households would never see.

Though Tom was considered to be a shy and introverted child, theatre seemed to fascinate him. He joined the Thespian club and acted in Twelfth Night and South Pacific. He had already begun impressing the old theatre hands with his histrionics. The turning point in Tom Hanks’s life came when he joined Chabot College after school was over. He took up a part time job at the Hilton as a bell boy. It was during this time that he watched a performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. The title role played by Joe Spano blew Hanks away. Tom Hanks decided that one day he would become as good as Spano.

Tom Hanks got himself transferred to California State University in Sacramento after completing two years with Chabot College. He wanted better acting opportunities. The move paid dividends in another sense, he met Susan Dillingham aka Samantha Lewes and married her.

In 1979, Tom Hanks began working for the Riverside Shakespeare Theatre. It was an important time for his career because he finally made his big screen appearance in an utterly forgettable bridal party cum slasher flick called He Knows "You're Alone." Though it wasn’t the most promising of starts he could atleast put down a feature film on his CV. In 1980, ABC Networks launched a highly publicized nationwide talent hunt for their latest sitcom called Bosom Buddies. Two roles were up for grabs. Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari won the parts of advertising executives who have to dress up in drag to stay in a "women only" hostel.

Bosom Buddies was a commercial disaster. It was only four years later that Tom Hanks got his first big Hollywood break with Splash! The Tom Hanks-Darryl Hannah comedy got the cash registers ringing. Hanks had developed his signature style of laid back comedy. The price that he had to pay for his Hollywood success was that his marriage was falling apart. On separation from Samantha, he got married to Rita Wilson. They have two children, Chester and Truman.

A series of forgettable flicks later he got another opportunity to in "Big" for which he received his first Oscar nomination. In 1992, he commenced on his incredible run of hits when he did not see box office failure for close to eleven years.

In 1993, Hanks uncharacteristically played the role of a homosexual with AIDS in "Philadelphia." The movie went on to win critical and popular acclaim. The world had finally awoken to the talent of Tom Hanks. He had even managed to out stage the supremely talented Denzel Washington. Tom Hanks won the Oscar for Best Actor. If anyone needed any more proof of Hanks’s acting caliber, they saw it in the next year with his virtuoso performance in Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump was like a three and a half hour exhibition of Tom Hanks’s acting talents. He again won the Oscar. It was more than fifty years ago that anyone had won back to back Oscars.

In an effort to test the boundaries of his creativity, Tom Hanks wrote and directed "That Thing You Do" in 1996. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. In 1999 Hanks received another Oscar nomination for his role as Captain Miller in "Saving Private Ryan." He would go on to receive his fifth nomination for the title role in "Castaway."

One of the reasons for Hanks’s success is the enduring relationships that he has managed to build with exceedingly creative people. He has worked with Steven Spielberg in "Saving Private Ryan", "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Terminal". Robert Zemeckis has directed him in "Forrest Gump" and "Castaway." Nora Ephron was the director and Meg Ryan was his co-star in "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You’ve Got Mail."

Tom Hanks’s midas touch has spilled over into his role as producer. He co-produced "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." It made more than ten times its production cost in the U.S. market alone. His last movie was the Coen brothers remake of 'The Ladykillers.'