Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, on July 9, 1956, to hospital worker Janet Marylyn (née Frager, 1932–2016) and itinerant cook Amos Mefford Hanks (1924–1992). His mother was of Portuguese descent (her family's surname was originally "Fraga"), while his father had English ancestry. His parents divorced in 1960. Their three oldest children, Sandra (later Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Larry (an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim (who also became an actor and filmmaker), remained with their mother in Red Bluff, California. In his childhood, Hanks's family moved often; by the age of 10, he had lived in 10 different houses.

While Hanks's family religious history was Catholic and Mormon, he has characterized his teenage self as being a "Bible-toting evangelical" for several years. In school, he was unpopular with students and teachers alike, later telling Rolling Stone magazine, "I was a geek, a spaz. 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." In 1965, his father married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Hanks during his high school years. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California.

Hanks was married to American actress Samantha Lewes in 1978. They had one son, actor Colin Hanks (born 1977), and one daughter, Elizabeth Hanks (born 1982). Hanks and Samantha Lewes divorced in 1987.

In 1979, Hanks moved to New York City, where he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You're Alone (1980) and landed a starring role in the television movie Mazes and Monsters. Early that year, he was cast in the lead, Callimaco, in the Riverside Shakespeare Company's production of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Mandrake, directed by Daniel Southern. The following year, Hanks landed one of the lead roles, that of character Kip Wilson, on the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies. He and Peter Scolari played a pair of young advertising men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. Hanks had previously partnered with Scolari on the 1970s game show Make Me Laugh. After landing the role, Hanks moved to Los Angeles. Bosom Buddies 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," 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." However, although 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.

In 1981, Hanks met actress Rita Wilson on the set of TV comedy Bosom Buddies (1980–1982). They were reunited in 1985 on the set of Volunteers. Wilson is of Greek and Bulgarian descent, and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. Before marrying her, Hanks converted to her faith. Hanks and Wilson married in 1988 and have two sons. The oldest, Chester Marlon "Chet" Hanks, had a minor role as a student in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and released a rap song in 2011. Their youngest, Truman Theodore, was born in 1995. Hanks lives with his family in Los Angeles, California, and Ketchum, Idaho.

Bosom Buddies and a guest appearance on a 1982 episode of Happy Days ("A Case of Revenge," in which he played a disgruntled former classmate of Fonzie) prompted director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on the film Splash (1984), a romantic comedy fantasy 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 that eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role in Splash, which went on to become a surprise box office hit, grossing more than US$69 million. He also had a sizable hit with the sex comedy Bachelor Party, also in 1984. In 1983–84, Hanks made three guest appearances on Family Ties as Elyse Keaton's alcoholic brother, Ned Donnelly.

Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and transferred to California State University, Sacramento after two years. During a 2001 interview with sportscaster Bob Costas, Hanks was asked whether he would rather have an Oscar or a Heisman Trophy. He replied he would rather win a Heisman by playing halfback for the California Golden Bears. He told New York magazine in 1986, "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. 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 Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and all that."

Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has said his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of moviemaking ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began in 1993 for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle and then with Philadelphia. The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of TIME called his performance "charming," and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.

Over Hanks's illustrious career as an actor and producer, he has received many award nominations. Hanks has received six Academy Award nominations including two consecutive wins for Best Actor for Philadelphia, and Forrest Gump in 1993, and 1994 respectively. Hanks also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Nora Ephron's play Lucky Guy in 2013. Hanks has also received 12 Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his work on television which includes 7 wins for his work as a producer on various limited series and television films including From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Band of Brothers (2002), John Adams (2008), The Pacific (2010), Game Change (2012), and Olive Kitteridge (2015).

Hanks's next role as astronaut and commander Jim Lovell in the 1995 film Apollo 13 reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's CGI-animated hit film Toy Story, as the voice of Sheriff Woody.

In 1998, Hanks's next project was no less expensive. For Saving Private Ryan, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make a film about a search through war-torn France after D-Day to bring back a soldier. It 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 and earned Spielberg his second Academy Award for direction, and Hanks another Best Actor nomination. Later that year, Hanks re-teamed with his Sleepless in Seattle co-star Meg Ryan for You've Got Mail, a remake of 1940's The Shop Around the Corner. In 1999, Hanks starred in an adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Green Mile. He also returned as the voice of Woody in Toy Story 2, the sequel to Toy Story. The following year, he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a marooned FedEx systems analyst in Robert Zemeckis's Cast Away.

In 2001, Hanks helped direct and produce the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. He also appeared in the September 11 television special America: A Tribute to Heroes and the documentary Rescued From the Closet. He then teamed up with American Beauty director Sam Mendes for the adaptation of Max Allan Collins's and Richard Piers Rayner's DC Comics 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 once again with director Spielberg, starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can, based on the true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. The same year, Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson produced the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In August 2007, he along with co-producers Rita Wilson and Gary Goetzman, and writer and star Nia Vardalos, initiated a legal action against the production company Gold Circle Films for their share of profits from the movie. At the age of 45, Hanks became the youngest-ever recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award on June 12, 2002.

In 2003, Hanks was voted Number 3 in Channel 4's countdown of the 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time, and he is number 22 on VH1's list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time". He was included on Forbes' list of the top ten most powerful celebrities in the world, in 2000, 2002 and 2003. As of January 2019, Hanks is currently voted #1 on Ranker's "The Best Actors in Film History".

In 2004, he appeared in three films: The Coen brothers' The Ladykillers, another Spielberg film, The Terminal, and The Polar Express, a family film from Zemeckis for which Hanks played multiple motion capture roles. In a USA Weekend interview, Hanks discussed 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". In August 2005, Hanks was voted in as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 2004, while touring the White House, Hanks learned that the press corps did not have a coffee pot, and shortly thereafter he donated an espresso machine. He again donated new machines in 2010 and 2017. His 2017 donation was accompanied by a note that read "To the White House Press Corps, Keep up the good fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Especially for the truth part."

Hanks next 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 U.S., and grossed over US$750 million worldwide. He followed the film with Ken Burns's 2007 documentary The War. For the documentary, Hanks did voice work, reading excerpts from World War II-era columns by Al McIntosh. In 2006, Hanks topped a 1,500-strong list of "most trusted celebrities" compiled by Forbes magazine. Hanks also produced the animated children's movie The Ant Bully in 2006.

Hanks next appeared in a cameo role as himself in The Simpsons Movie, in which he appeared in an advertisement claiming that the U.S. government has lost its credibility and is hence buying some of his. He also made an appearance in the credits, expressing a desire to be left alone when he is out in public. Later in 2006, Hanks produced the British film Starter for Ten, a comedy based on working-class students attempting to win on University Challenge.

In 2006, the Space Foundation awarded Hanks the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award, given annually to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to public awareness of space programs.

In June 2006, Hanks was inducted as an honorary member of the United States Army Rangers 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. 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. On March 10, 2008, Hanks was on hand at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct The Dave Clark Five.

In 2007, Hanks starred in Mike Nichols's film Charlie Wilson's War (written by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin) in which he played Democratic Texas Congressman Charles Wilson. The film opened on December 21, 2007, and Hanks received a Golden Globe nomination. In the comedy-drama film The Great Buck Howard (2008), Hanks played the on-screen father of a young man (played by Hanks' real-life son Colin) who chooses to work as road manager for a fading mentalist (John Malkovich). His character was less than thrilled about his son's career decision. In the same year, he executive produced the musical comedy Mamma Mia and the miniseries John Adams.

Hanks's next endeavor, released on May 15, 2009, was a film adaptation of Angels & Demons, based on the novel of the same name by Dan Brown. Its April 11, 2007 announcement revealed that Hanks would reprise his role as Robert Langdon, and that he would reportedly receive the highest salary ever for an actor. The following day he made his 10th appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live, impersonating himself for the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. Hanks produced the Spike Jonze film Where The Wild Things Are, based on the children's book by Maurice Sendak in 2009.

During his years studying theater, Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the festival. His internship stretched into a three-year experience that covered most aspects of theater production, including lighting, set design, and stage management, prompting Hanks to drop out of college. During the same time, Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain. In 2010, Time magazine named Hanks one of the "Top 10 College Dropouts."

In 2010, Hanks reprised his voice role of Woody in Toy Story 3, after he, Tim Allen, and John Ratzenberger were invited to a movie theater to see a complete story reel of the movie. The film went on to become the first animated film to gross a worldwide total of over $1 billion as well as the highest-grossing animated film at the time. He was also executive producer of the miniseries The Pacific.

In 2011, he directed and starred opposite Julia Roberts in the title role in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne. The movie received poor reviews, with only 35% of the 175 Rotten Tomatoes reviews giving it high ratings. Also in 2011, he starred in the drama film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In 2012, he voiced the character Cleveland Carr for a web series he created titled Electric City. He also starred in the Wachowskis-directed film adaptation of the novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas, and was executive producer of the miniseries Game Change.

In 2013, Hanks starred in two critically acclaimed films—Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks—which each earned him praise, including nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for the former role. In Captain Phillips, he starred as Captain Richard Phillips with Barkhad Abdi, which was based on the Maersk Alabama hijacking. In Saving Mr. Banks, co-starring Emma Thompson and directed by John Lee Hancock, he played Walt Disney, being the first actor to portray Disney in a mainstream film. That same year, Hanks made his Broadway debut, starring in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

HBO confirmed in January 2013 that it was developing a third World War II miniseries based on the book Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller with Hanks and Spielberg to follow Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Few details have emerged about the project since, but NME reported in March 2017 that production was progressing under the working title The Mighty Eighth. On October 11, 2019, it was announced that the series would keep the title from the book and that the miniseries will stream on Apple TV+ due to budget constraints at HBO. Masters of the Air is expected to cost $200 million with a duration of at least eight hours.

On October 7, 2013, on the Late Show with David Letterman, Hanks announced that he has Type 2 diabetes.

Hanks was outspoken about his opposition to the 2008 Proposition 8, an amendment to the California constitution that defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Hanks and others raised over US$44 million to campaign against the proposition, in contrast to the supporters' $39 million, but Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote. It was overruled in June 2013, when the Ninth Circuit lifted its stay of the district court's ruling, enabling Governor Jerry Brown to order same-sex marriage officiations to resume. While premiering a TV series in January 2009, Hanks called supporters of Proposition 8 "un-American" and criticized LDS Church members, who were major proponents of the bill, for their views on marriage and role in supporting the bill. About a week later, he apologized for the remark, saying that nothing is more American than voting one's conscience.

Hanks is often compared to James Stewart, and has also frequently been referred to as "America's Dad". In 2013, when he was starring in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy on Broadway, he had crowds of 300 fans waiting for a glimpse of him after every performance. This is the highest number of expectant fans post-show of any Broadway performance.

In 2014, Hanks's short story "Alan Bean Plus Four" was published in the October 27 issue of The New Yorker. Revolving around four friends who make a voyage to the moon, the short story is titled after the Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean. Slate magazine's Katy Waldman found his first published short story "mediocre", writing that "Hanks' shopworn ideas about technology might have yet sung if they hadn't been wrapped in too-clever lit mag-ese". In an interview with The New Yorker, Hanks said he has always been fascinated by space. He told the magazine that he built plastic models of rockets when he was a child and watched live broadcasts of space missions back in the 1960s.

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.

In March 2015, Hanks appeared in the Carly Rae Jepsen music video for "I Really Like You", lip-syncing most of the song's lyrics as he goes through his daily routine. His next film was the Steven Spielberg-directed historical drama Bridge of Spies, in which he played lawyer James B. Donovan who negotiated for the release of pilot Francis Gary Powers by the Soviet Union in exchange for KGB spy Rudolf Abel. It was released in October 2015 to a positive reception. In April 2016, Hanks starred as Alan Clay in the comedy-drama A Hologram for the King, an adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name. It is the second time he was directed by Tom Tykwer after Cloud Atlas in 2012.

Hanks starred as airline captain Chesley Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood's Sully, which was released in September 2016. He next reprised his role as Robert Langdon in Inferno (2016), and co-starred alongside Emma Watson in the 2017 science fiction drama The Circle. He voiced David S. Pumpkins in The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special, which aired October 28, 2017 on NBC, a character he had portrayed in episodes of Saturday Night Live.

Hanks supports same-sex marriage, environmental causes, and alternative fuels. He has donated to many Democratic politicians, and during the 2008 United States presidential election 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 former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Hanks was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs (in the footsteps of John Huston, Arthur Rubinstein, Luciano Pavarotti, and more than 2,500 other celebrities who were "castaways" (guests on the show) since 1942) on May 8, 2016, giving a 45-minute interview with insights into his personal life and career.

Despite being a fan of the Oakland Athletics and the Raiders when they were based in Oakland, Hanks stated in April 2017 he would boycott the NFL for two years after the Raiders filed for relocation to Las Vegas.

Hanks wrote a collection of short stories inspired by his typewriter collection, Uncommon Type, which was published in 2017.

In November 2018, it was reported that Hanks was in talks to portray Geppetto in Walt Disney Studios' live-action Pinocchio remake. Hanks is also attached to star in an American remake of A Man Called Ove.

Hanks reprised his voice role as Sheriff Woody in Pixar's Toy Story 4, which was released on June 21, 2019. Later that year, Hanks portrayed Fred Rogers in Marielle Heller's biographical film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood for which he was nominated for his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film was released on November 22, 2019 by Sony Pictures.

In November 2019, shortly before the release of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a drama film in which Hanks portrays Fred Rogers, he learned through Ancestry.com that he and Rogers were sixth cousins, both descendants of Johannes Meffert (1732–1795), who was born in Schöneck, Hesse and emigrated to the United States in the 18th century, settling in Kentucky and changing his last name to Mefford.

On December 27, 2019, the President of Greece, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, signed an honorary naturalisation order for Hanks and his family, citing their "exceptional services to Greece", thus making him and his immediate family, Greek citizens. Tom Hanks, along with his wife Rita Wilson and their children, were conferred honorary citizenship for their role in bringing global attention and appealing for aid, to a devastating wildfire that ripped through the seaside village of Mati, near Athens, in July 2018, which killed more than 100 people. Greece's Interior Minister Takis Theodorikakos said Hanks "showed real interest in the people who suffered from the fire in Mati and promoted this issue in the global media".

On April 11, 2020, Hanks made his first television appearance since his COVID-19 diagnosis by hosting Saturday Night Live. Hanks delivered an opening monologue via his house but did not appear in any of the sketches. This is the first episode of SNL to debut after the show's hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it features different sketches filmed remotely from the cast members' homes. This is also a first in SNL history, for the show to be made up entirely of prerecorded content before airing, and the second to not be filmed at Studio 8H. In July 2020, Hanks starred in Greyhound, a war film which he also wrote the screenplay for, directed by Aaron Schneider. Initially set to be theatrically released in June 2020 by Sony Pictures, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distribution rights to the film were bought by Apple TV+, where it was released in July 2020.

In 2020, Hanks will star in News of the World, re-teaming with director Paul Greengrass, set to be released on December 23, 2020.

On July 26, 2020, the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accompanied with his wife, handed over Greek passports to both Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.

On March 12, 2020, Hanks announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic 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. Australian health authorities stated that Hanks and Wilson, along with all of the five other coronavirus cases confirmed that day, had "contracted the illness outside Australia and travelled to Queensland with the virus". On March 16, Hanks and his wife were released from the hospital. On March 27, Hanks and his wife returned to Los Angeles following their quarantine. The couple decided to donate their blood antibodies for virus research.

He endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Presidential election.