Hanks, Tom 1956–

PERSONAL: Born Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, July 9, 1956, in Concord, CA; son of Amos Hanks (an itinerant cook) and Janet Turner (a hospital worker); married Samantha Lewes (an actress and producer; also known as Susan Dillingham), 1978 (divorced, 1985); married Rita Wilson (an actress and producer), April, 1988; children: (first marriage) Colin, Elizabeth; (second marriage) Chester, Truman Theodore. Education: Attended Chabot College and California State University, Sacramento.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90212; PMK, 955 S. Carillo Dr., Ste. 200, Los Angeles, CA 90048.

CAREER: Actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. Actor in films, including Elliot, He Knows You're Alone (also known as Blood Wedding), United Artists, 1980; (as Allen Bauer) Splash, Touchstone, 1984; (as Rick Gassko) Bachelor Party, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1984; (as Lawrence Bourne III) Volunteers, Columbia, 1985; (as Richard) The Man with One Red Shoe, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1985; (as Walter Fielding) The Money Pit, Universal, 1986; (as David Basner) Nothing in Common, TriStar, 1986; (as David) Every Time We Say Goodbye, TriStar, 1986; (as Pep Streebek) Dragnet, Universal, 1987; (as Josh Baskin) Big, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1988; (as Steven Gold) Punchline, Columbia, 1988; (as Ray Peterson) The 'Burbs, Universal, 1989; (as Scott Turner) Turner and Hooch, Buena Vista, 1989; (as Joe Banks) Joe versus the Volcano, Warner Bros., 1990; (as Sherman McCoy) The Bonfire of the Vanities, Warner Bros., 1990; (as Jimmy Dugan) A League of Their Own, Columbia, 1992; (as narrator and the adult Mike) Radio Flyer, Columbia, 1992; (as Sam Baldwin) Sleepless in Seattle, TriStar, 1993; (as Andrew Beckett) Philadelphia, TriStar, 1993; (as Forrest Gump) Forrest Gump, Paramount, 1994; (as Jim Lovell) Apollo 13, Universal, 1995; (as himself) The Celluloid Closet, Sony Pictures Classics, 1995; (as the voice of Sheriff Woody) Toy Story (animated), Buena Vista, 1995; (as Mr. White) That Thing You Do!, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1996; (as Captain John Miller) Saving Private Ryan, Paramount/DreamWorks, 1998; (as Joe Fox) You've Got Mail, Warner Bros., 1998; (as the voice of Sheriff Woody) Toy Story 2 (animated), Buena Vista/Walt Disney, 1999; (as Paul Edgecomb) The Green Mile (also known as Stephen King's the Green Mile), Warner Bros., 1999; (as Chuck Noland) Cast Away, DreamWorks/Twentieth Century-Fox, 2000; (as Michael Sullivan) Road to Perdition, DreamWorks, 2002; (as Carl Hanratty) Catch Me If You Can, DreamWorks, 2002; (as the conductor/hero boy) The Polar Express, 2004; (as Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr) The Ladykillers, 2004; (as Victor) The Terminal, 2004; (as Andy Rosenzweig) A Cold Case, 2006; and (as Robert Langdon) The Da Vinci Code, 2006. Also actor in television movies, including (as Robbie Wheeling) Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 1982. Director of film That Thing You Do!, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1996. Producer of films, including Cast Away, DreamWorks/Twentieth Century-Fox, 2000; My Big Fat Greek Wedding IFC Films, 2001; The Polar Express, 2004; Connie and Carla, 2004; NASCAR: The IMAX Experience 3D, 2004; The Spider and the Fly, 2004; and A Cold Case, 2004. Appeared in television specials, including 59th-Annual Academy Awards Presentation, American Broadcasting Companies (ABC), 1987; Just the Facts, syndicated, 1987; 3rd-Annual Hollywood Insider Academy Awards Special, USA Network, 1989; The Barbara Walters Special, ABC, 1989; Saturday Night Live 15th-Anniversary, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1989; 62nd-Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 1990; 64th-Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 1992; 6th-Annual American Comedy Awards, ABC, 1992; Hollywood Hotshots, Fox, 1992; 65th-Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 1993; Through the Eyes of Forrest Gump, 1994; 67th-Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 1995; 23rd American Film Institute Life Achievement Award: A Salute to Steven Spielberg, NBC, 1995; (as himself) I Am Your Child, ABC, 1997; Saturday Night Live 25th Anniversary, NBC, 1999; (as the narrator) Shooting War, ABC, 2000; (as himself) America: A Tribute to Heroes, 2001; Orange British Academy Film Awards, 2001; 73rd-Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 2001; 74th-Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 2002; The Making of "Road to Perdition," 2002; AFI Lifetime Achievement Award: A Tribute to Tom Hanks, 2002; 54th-Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, 2002; Hollywood Celebrates Denzel Washington: An American Cinematheque Tribute, 2003; 75th-Annual Academy Awards, 2003; and Celebrity Profile. Actor in television miniseries, including (as Jean-Luc Despont) From the Earth to the Moon, HBO, 1998; and (as a British officer) Band of Brothers, HBO, 2001. Actor in television series, including (as Kip Wilson and Buffy Wilson) Bosom Buddies, ABC, 1980–82. Appeared in episodes of television series, including (as Rick Martin) "Friends and Lovers," The Love Boat, ABC, 1980; (as Gordon) "The Road Not Taken: Part 1," Taxi, ABC, 1982; (as Dwayne) "A Little Case of Revenge," Happy Days, ABC, 1982; (as Ned Donnelly) "The Fugitive: Parts 1 & 2," Family Ties, NBC, 1983; (as Ned Donnelly) "Say Uncle," Family Ties NBC, 1984; Saturday Night Live, NBC, 1985; The Dick Cavett Show, ABC, 1986; "Sally Field and Tom Hanks' Punchline Party," HBO Comedy Hour, Home Box Office (HBO), 1988; Saturday Night Live, NBC, 1988; "None but the Lonely Heart," Tales from the Crypt, HBO, 1992; "I'll Be Waiting," Sydney Pollak's Fallen Angels, Showtime, 1993; (as himself) "Bald Star in Hot Oil Fest!," The Naked Truth, NBC, 1995; Ruby Wax Meets, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 1997; (as himself) "Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson: That Thing They Do," Famous Families, Fox Family, 1998; and Inside the Actors Studio, Bravo, 1999; Breakfast, BBC, 2001; and others. Guest on television programs, including The Tonight Show, The Dennis Miller Show, and Late Night with David Let-terman. Executive producer of television miniseries, including (and director of part one) From the Earth to the Moon, HBO, 1998; (and director of "Crossroads," Band of Brothers, HBO, 2001; and We Stand Alone Together, 2001. Executive producer of television series My Big Fat Greek Life, CBS, 2003–. Director of episodes of television series, including "None But the Lonely Heart" (also known as "This'll Kill Ya'" and "On a Dead Man's Chest"), Tales from the Crypt, HBO, 1992; "The Monkey's Curse," A League of Their Own, 1993; and "I'll Be Waiting," Sydney Pollak's Fallen Angels, Showtime, 1993. Appeared in stage productions, including (as Proteus) Two Gentlemen of Verona, Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, Lakewood, OH, 1978; (as Grumio) The Taming of the Shrew, and (as Cassius) Othello, both Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival; and in Mandrake, Riverside Theatre, New York City. Appeared in videos, including (as Barry Algar) Saturday Night Live: The Best of Mike Myers, 1998; (as Mr. Short-Term-Memory Jeff Morrow) Saturday Night Live: Game Show Parodies, 1998; (as himself) Return to Normandy (also known as The Making of "Saving Private Ryan"), 1998; (as himself) "Captain Miller," Into the Breach: "Saving Private Ryan," 1998; (as himself) Behind the Scenes: Cast Away, 2000; (as himself) Rescued from the Closet, Columbia TriStar Home Video, 2001; and (as himself) People Like Us: Making "Philadelphia," 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS: Academy Award for best actor, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1993, for Philadelphia, 1994, for Forrest Gump; Distinguished Public Service Award, U.S. Navy, 1999, for Saving Private Ryan; Life Achievement Award, American Film Institute, 2002.

WRITINGS:

That Thing You Do! (screenplay) Twentieth Century-Fox, 1996.

From the Earth to the Moon (television miniseries, segments six, seven, eleven, and twelve) Home Box Office (HBO), 1998.

Band of Brothers (television minseries, part one) HBO, 2001.

Author of foreword, Virtual Apollo: A Pictorial Essay of the Engineering and Construction of the Apollo Command and Service Modules, the Historic Spacecraft that Took Man to the Moon, by Scott P. Sullivan, Collector's Guide Publishers, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Tom Hanks was considered one of the most popular and most successful actors in Hollywood during the late 1980s and 1990s. "In this age of the outlaw, [Hanks] defines the ideal norm: he is our best us on our worst day, soldiering on through heartbreak," Richard Corliss and Cathy Booth wrote in Time magazine. His back-to-back Oscar-winning roles of the 1990s, as an AIDS-afflicted lawyer in Philadelphia and as the simple-minded hero of Forrest Gump, began this theme in Hanks's work, which continued in his similarly highly-praised roles as the commander of a doomed space mission in Apollo 13 and the commander of a World War II unit in Saving Private Ryan.

When Hanks was at the top of his acting game, immediately after Forrest Gump, he abandoned acting for a time to write and direct a film, That Thing You Do!. "In the midst of the second go-around of the Academy Award attention, it just became a very unhealthy place for me to be," he explained to Newsweek interviewer David Ansen. "It should have been a celebratory thing, but because it has just been going on so long I was tired and falling into the traps of narcissism in a way that just isn't good for you. So I started writing this to see how far I could write it."

That Thing You Do! "is a modest ode to joy, a celebration of youthful high spirits in the year 1964," Ansen wrote. The film follows four boys who form a rock-and-roll band in the innocent early years of the genre and go on to be one-hit wonders. It's "an intentionally modest maiden effort," Leah Rozen noted in People, but it is "a pleasingly bouncy movie" that is "funda-mentally nice." In addition to writing and directing the film, Hanks cast it himself and played a small part as the band's manager. He also took charge of the film's soundtrack, declaring that no real rock songs would be used; instead, they had to write new songs that sounded like authentic relics of that era. Hanks even wrote four of those songs himself.

Once Hanks had convinced the studios of his skill behind the camera, he became involved in writing and directing two epic nonfiction miniseries for the cable channel Home Box Office (HBO). The miniseries were in part inspired by buzz from two of Hanks's more notable films: From the Earth to the Moon, about the U.S. space program, by Apollo 13, and Band of Brothers, based on Stephen Ambrose's book about a company of paratroopers fighting in Europe in the closing days of World War II, by Saving Private Ryan. "I just get to pursue things that I think are fascinating, and I get to do it on a pretty big level without a lot of constraints," Hanks explained to Esquire interviewer Bill Zehme. "I may be the only person alive who is fascinated by this stuff, but I have found myself another way to explore the material further. I view it almost as my ongoing education."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

International Directory of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Newsmakers 2000, Issue 2, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, five volumes, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2000.

PERIODICALS

Daily Variety, June 12, 2002, Christopher Grove, "From Twilight to Primetime: Hanks Tribute Reflects Org's Aim to Honor Careers in Full Bloom," pp. A1-A2, Deirdre Mendoza, "Hanks Gets behind the Camera in Some of His Biggest Roles," pp. A5-A6.

Entertainment Weekly, July 9, 1993, "The Nice Man Cometh: Tom Hanks," pp. 14-20; August 16, 1996, David Poland, interview with Hanks, p. 12; October 11, 1996, Jeff Gordinier, review of That Thing You Do!, pp. 24-29; March 7, 1997, Casey Kasem, review of That Thing You Do!, p. 73.

Esquire, September, 2001, Bill Zehme, "Tom Hanks Acts like a Man: The True Story of a True American Optimist Whose Life Began When He Decided to Stop Being Such a Weenie," pp. 140-146.

Film Comment, March-April, 1997, Armond White, review of That Thing You Do!, pp. 43-45.

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, October 9, 1996, Mal Vincent, interview with Hanks, p. 1009K-5194.

Maclean's, October 14, 1996, Brian D. Johnson, review of That Thing You Do!, pp. 89-90, interview with Hanks, p. 90.

Newsweek, October 7, 1996, David Ansen, review of That Thing You Do!, pp. 76-77.

People, October 7, 1996, Leah Rozen, review of That Thing You Do!, p. 19; December 9, 1996, Johnny Dodd, interview with Hanks, p. 34.

Sarasota Herald Tribune, October 4, 1996, George Meyer, review of That Thing You Do!, p. T9.

Time, May 27, 1996, Brenda Luscombe, review of That Thing You Do!, p. 87; October 7, 1996, Richard Corliss, review of That Thing You Do!, pp. 92-93; December 21, 1998, Richard Corliss and Cathy Booth, "The Film of the Year. A Perky New Comedy. These Are High Times for Our Most Versatile Star," p. 70; May 15, 2000, "Saving Tom Hanks: Shedding Pounds and Pounding the Surf to Film an Island Survival Tale," p. 78.

ONLINE

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (July 8, 2003), "Tom Hanks."