Biography of Tom Hanks: His Career, Movies, Conversion, & Net Worth

Who is Tom Hanks?

Actor and director Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in the United States on July 9, 1956. Tom Hanks is considered an American cultural icon and is one of the most well-known and well-liked movie stars in the world, known for both his serious and humorous roles. Hanks is currently the fourth highest-earning actor in American cinema. He has won four Golden Globes, seven Emmys, two Academy Awards, and been nominated for five BAFTA Awards and a Tony Award, among other honors. He was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2020, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2002.

Leading parts in the comedies Splash (1984), The Money Pit (1986), Big (1988), and A League of Their Own (1992) helped Tom Hanks become well-known. His roles as the central character in Forrest Gump (1994) and a gay lawyer with AIDS in Philadelphia (1993) earned him two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor. In addition to three World War II-themed miniseries, Band of Brothers (2001), The Pacific (2010), and Masters of the Air (2024), Hanks has worked with Steven Spielberg on five films: Bridge of Spies (2015), The Terminal (2004), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and The Post (2017). Additionally, he has regularly worked with filmmakers Robert Zemeckis, Nora Ephron, and Ron Howard.

In addition to the biographical dramas Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), Captain Phillips (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Sully (2016), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), and Elvis (2022), Tom Hanks solidified his film career with leading parts in the romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998), as well as the dramas Apollo 13 (1995), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), Cloud Atlas (2012), and News of the World (2020). In addition to voicing Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story trilogy (1995–present) and playing other roles in The Polar Express (2004), he portrayed the main character in the Robert Langdon series (2006–2016). Tom Hanks directed and starred in Larry Crowne (2011) and That Thing You Do! (1996).

Tom Hanks co-starred in the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980–1982), which was his first television performance. His production business, Playtone, has produced a number of limited series and television films, such as From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Band of Brothers, John Adams (2008), The Pacific, Game Change (2012), and Olive Kitteridge (2015). He has also hosted Saturday Night Live ten times. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in Nora Ephron’s (2013) Lucky Guy.

Tom Hanks Early Life

Tom Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California, to traveling cook Amos “Bud” Hanks and hospital employee Janet Marylyn (née Frager). “Fraga” was the original surname of his mother’s Portuguese family. Due to his father’s English heritage, Hanks is a distant cousin of Nancy Hanks, her son President Abraham Lincoln, and children’s presenter Fred Rogers, whom Hanks has played in a movie.

In 1960, Hanks’ parents got divorced. Their youngest child, Jim, who went on to become an actor and filmmaker, stayed with their mother in Red Bluff, California, while their three eldest children, Sandra (later Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Larry (later an entomology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Tom, accompanied their father. Hanks’ family moved frequently when he was growing up; by the time he was eleven, he had lived in ten different homes.

The religious background of Hanks’ family was Mormon and Catholic. Hanks’ teenage self was described by one journalist as a “Bible-toting evangelical” for a number of years. He was disliked by both teachers and kids at school. He later admitted to Rolling Stone magazine that he was a spaz and a geek. I was extremely, excruciatingly shy. During movie outings, I was the one who would shout out amusing subtitles. However, I avoided difficulty. I was always a really decent child who was also fairly responsible. While attending Oakland, California’s Skyline High School, Hanks performed in school productions, such as South Pacific.

Tom Hanks, who grew up in the Bay Area, claims that watching films at the Alameda Theatre was one of his earliest cinematic experiences. After two years at Chabot College in Hayward, California, where he studied theater, Hanks transferred to California State University, Sacramento. Hanks was asked in a 2001 interview with sportscaster Bob Costas if he would prefer a Heisman Trophy or an Oscar. In response, he stated that playing halfback for the California Golden Bears would have been his preferred way to win a Heisman. “Acting classes seemed like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant,” he said in an interview with New York magazine in 1986. I went to plays a lot of the time. I wouldn’t invite you out on dates. I would just take a car to a theater, get a ticket, take a seat, read the program, and then immerse myself in the play. Seeing Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and others took up a lot of my time.

He met Vincent Dowling, the director of Cleveland, Ohio’s Great Lakes Theater Festival, while he was a theater student. Hanks joined the festival as an intern at Dowling’s recommendation. Hanks left college after his internship, which lasted three years and encompassed most facets of theater production, such as lighting, set design, and stage management. In the meanwhile, Hanks’ 1978 portrayal of Proteus in Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona—one of the few occasions he played a villain—won him the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.

Career

After relocating to New York City in 1979, Tom Hanks starred in the television film Mazes and Monsters (1982) and made his film debut in the low-budget slasher He Knows You’re Alone (1980). He was chosen early that year to play Callimaco, the lead in Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Mandrake, which was directed by Daniel Southern and performed by the Riverside Shakespeare Company. Hanks was cast in one of the main parts of the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies the following year, as Kip Wilson. He and Peter Scolari portrayed two young males in advertising who were compelled to disguise themselves as women in order to reside in a low-cost motel that was exclusively for women. Hanks and Scolari had previously collaborated on the game program Make Me Laugh in the 1970s.

He relocated to Los Angeles after being cast in the part. Bosom Buddies aired for two seasons and received positive reviews from television critics while never having significant viewership. Co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, “I thought, ‘Too bad he won’t be on television for long,’ the first day I saw him on the set. In two years, I knew he would be a movie star.

Happy Days’ 1982 episode “A Case of Revenge” featured Hanks as a disgruntled former classmate of Fonzie. It was during this appearance that Hanks met writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who were working on the romantic comedy fantasy Splash (1984), which was to be directed by former Happy Days star Ron Howard and was about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. Ganz and Mandel recommended that Howard think about casting Hanks in the movie. Howard initially had Hanks play the part of the main character’s witty brother, but John Candy ultimately won the part. Rather, Tom Hanks was cast in the lead role of Splash, which ended up being a huge box office success, earning over US$69 million. In 1984, he also had a big hit with the sex comedy Bachelor Party. Hanks appeared on Family Ties three times in 1983–84 as Ned Donnelly, the drunken brother of Elyse Keaton.

With the 1986 film Nothing in Common, which told the tale of a young man estranged from his father (played by Jackie Gleason), Hanks started to transition from humorous to dramatic parts. “It changed my desires about working in movies,” Hanks said of his experience in an interview with Rolling Stone. The nature of the content and our intended message played a role. Its main concentration, however, was on interpersonal interactions. In contrast to, instance, The Money Pit, which is mostly about a man and his home, this narrative was about a man and his father. He got an acting/producing contract with The Walt Disney Studios in 1987, whereby he starred in a talent pool. Hanks’ reputation in the movie business increased following a string of failures and a mediocre hit with the comedy Dragnet (1987).

The widespread popularity of the fantasy comedy Big (1988) made Hanks a well-known Hollywood star, both as an actor and as a box office attraction. Hanks received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in the movie. Punchline, in which he and Sally Field costarred as struggling comedians, came out later that year after Big. The ‘Burbs (1989), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) were Hanks’ next string of poor box office hits. In the final one, he played a rapacious Wall Street mogul who becomes involved in a hit-and-run incident. The only movie Hanks made money on during that time was Turner & Hooch (1989).