Tom Hanks facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tom Hanks
Hanks at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (1956-07-09) July 9, 1956 (age 68) Concord, California, U.S.
Citizenship	United States Greece
Alma mater	Chabot College
Occupation	Actor filmmaker
Years active	1977–present
Works	List of performances
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Samantha Lewes ​ ​ (m. 1978; div. 1987)​ Rita Wilson ​ (m. 1988)​
Children	4, including Colin and Chet
Relatives	Jim Hanks (brother) Larry Hanks (brother)
Awards	Full list

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is one of the most popular film stars worldwide. His films have grossed (money made after a company pays for its costs) more than $4.9 billion in North America and more than $9.96 billion worldwide.

Hanks has played characters in different kinds of movies including comedies, dramas, and children's movies. He has also starred in television shows and voiced documentaries. He has won awards for his work in both television and in film.

Early life and family

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, on July 9, 1956, to hospital worker Janet Marylyn (née Frager) and traveling cook Amos "Bud" Hanks. His mother was Portuguese, and his father had English ancestry. They divorced in 1960. During his childhood, Hanks' family moved often; by the age of 10, he had lived in 10 different houses.

Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California. He later studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and transferred to California State University, Sacramento after two years.

During his years studying theater, Hanks became an intern at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. His internship stretched into a three-year experience that covered most aspects of theater production, including lighting, set design, and stage management.

Career

1980s: Early work

Hanks at the Academy Awards after-party in March 1989

In 1979, Hanks moved to New York City where he played roles in some movies and TV shows. Two years later, he moved to Los Angeles and made more appearances on television and in movies. Some of his more popular roles during the '80s were in the movies Splash (1984), The Money Pit (1986), Big (1988), and Turner & Hooch (1989).

1990s: Established star

Hanks on the film set of Forrest Gump (1994)

By the 1990s, Hanks had become a popular actor. He starred in several movies including A League of Their Own (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Toy Story (1995), The Green Mile (1999), and Toy Story 2 (1999).

Hanks directed his first movie That Thing You Do! in 1996. He and producer Gary Goetzman went on to create Playtone, a record and film production company named after the record company in the movie. Next, Hanks executive produced, co-wrote, and co-directed the From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part television mini-series.

In 1998, Hanks teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make a film about soldiers searching through war-torn France after D-Day to bring back a soldier. The movie, called Saving Private Ryan, is known as one of the finest war films ever made.

Hanks' cement prints in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood

2000s

In 2000, Hanks starred in Robert Zemeckis's Cast Away. For most of the movie, he is the only actor on the screen.

In 2001, helped direct and produce the Band of Brothers, the story of Easy Company during World War II. He also teamed with Steven Spielberg again to star with Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can. The same year, Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson produced the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Hanks at Post-Emmys Party, September 2008

Hanks starred in other movies in the 2000s as well: The Terminal (2004), The Polar Express (2004), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and Charlie Wilson's War (2007),

Hanks also continued producing movies. He executive produced the The Ant Bully (2006), Mamma Mia (2007), and the miniseries John Adams (2007).

Hanks with World War II veterans in 2010

2010s

Hanks contued his acting career 2010s, starring in the movies Toy Story 3 (2010), Captain Phillips (2013), [[Saving Mr. Banks] (2013), Sully (2016), Toy Story 4 (2019), and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019). He was also executive producer of the miniseries The Pacific, another World War II biography.

2020s

The COVID-19 scare slowed Hanks's career for a bit. His most famous films of the 2020s are Greyhound and Elvis.

Upcoming

HBO confirmed in January 2013 that it was developing a third World War II miniseries based on the book Masters of the Air with Hanks and Spielberg to follow Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Hanks is also appearing in In the Garden of Beasts. In February 2022, it was announced that Hanks will star in the feature adaptation of Here.

Awards and honors

President Obama giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Hanks in 2016

In Hanks's career as an actor and producer, he has received many award nominations. He has received six Academy Award nominations (2 wins), a Tony Award nomination, and 12 Primetime Emmy Award nominations (7 wins).

Honors

• 2002: AFI Life Achievement Award
• 2006: Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award
• 2014: Kennedy Center Honors Medallion
• 2016: Presidential Medal of Freedom
• 2016: French Legion of Honor, at the rank of Chevalier (Knight), for his presentation of World War II and support of World War II veterans.
• 2019: Honorary citizen of Greece.
• 2020: Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award

Personal life

Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson at the 1989 Oscars

Hanks married American actress Samantha Lewes (1952–2002) in 1978. They had one son, actor Colin (b. 1977), and one daughter, Elizabeth (b. 1982). Hanks and Lewes divorced in 1987. Lewes died in 2002 at the age of 49 from bone cancer.

In 1988, Hanks married actress Rita Wilson. They have two sons, Chet and Truman. Hanks lives with his family in Los Angeles, California, and Ketchum, Idaho.

He is a fan of the Oakland Athletics and English Premier League club Aston Villa.

On December 27, 2019, the President of Greece, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, signed an honorary naturalization order for Hanks and his family, making them Greek citizens.

Political views and activism

Hanks with Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Barack Obama at Winfield House in London

Hanks with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the Kennedy Center Honors

Hanks has donated to many Democratic politicians. He endorsed Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden.

Hanks opposed the 2008 Proposition 8, an amendment to the California constitution that defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.

A supporter of environmentalism, Hanks is an investor in electric vehicles and owns a Toyota RAV4 EV and the first production AC Propulsion eBox.

Hanks serves as campaign chair of the Hidden Heroes Campaign of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. The stated mission of the campaign is to inspire a national movement to better support the military and veteran caregivers.

Hanks has donated espresso machines to the White House press corps.

Other activities

Hanks with Steven Spielberg (left) at the National World War II Memorial in March 2010

Hanks supports NASA's crewed space program and is a member of the National Space Society. He also produced miniseries From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program to send astronauts to the Moon. He co-wrote and co-produced Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D. Hanks provided the voice-over for the premiere of the show Passport to the Universe at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

In June 2006, Hanks was made an honorary member of the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame because of his performance in Saving Private Ryan. He was the first actor to receive this honor. Hanks served as the national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial Campaign, was an honorary chairperson of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and helped write and produce the Emmy Award-winning miniseries, Band of Brothers.

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.

Legacy

Hanks at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, on February 5, 2004.

Hanks is often compared to James Stewart, and has also frequently been referred to as "America's Dad."

Asteroid 12818 Tomhanks is named after him.

In 2003, Hanks was voted Number 3 in Channel 4's countdown of the 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time. He was included on Forbes' list of the top ten most powerful celebrities in the world, in 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Tom Hanks quotes

• "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."
• "The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are."
• "If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great."
• "Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there's less joy."

Interesting facts about Tom Hanks

• Hanks is a distant cousin of President Abraham Lincoln and children's television show host Fred Rogers.
• As a child, he wanted to be an astronaut.
• He built plastic models of rockets when he was a child and watched live broadcasts of space missions back in the 1960s.
• When Hanks was a teenager, he got a job selling peanuts and soft drinks at baseball games.
• During college, Hanks worked as a bellhop for Hilton hotels.
• He had a guest-starring role on the show Happy Days with Ron Howard.
• When Howard was directing films, he remembered Hanks. Hanks starred in some of the movies he produced.
• Tom Hanks received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992.
• Tom's brother, Jim Hanks, stepped in on one of the scenes where Forrest is seen running during the movie Forrest Gump.
• Hanks was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2013.
• Tom Hanks supports meatless Monday.
• Tom Hanks has starred in multiple films based on true stories.
• He is a licensed pilot and owns his own private aircraft.

Filmography

As an actor only

Year	Title	Role(s)	Notes	Ref(s).
1980	He Knows You're Alone	Elliot
1984	Splash	Allen Bauer
1984	Bachelor Party	Rick Gassko
1985	The Man with One Red Shoe	Richard Harlan Drew
	Volunteers	Lawrence Whatley Bourne III
1986	The Money Pit	Walter Fielding, Jr.
	Nothing in Common	David Basner
	Every Time We Say Goodbye	David Bradley
1987	Dragnet	Detective Pep Streebek
1988	Big	Josh Baskin
	Punchline	Steven Gold
1989	The 'Burbs	Ray Peterson
	Turner & Hooch	Detective Scott Turner
1990	Joe Versus the Volcano	Joe Banks
	The Bonfire of the Vanities	Sherman McCoy
1992	Radio Flyer	Older Mike / Narrator
	A League of Their Own	Jimmy Dugan
1993	Sleepless in Seattle	Sam Baldwin
	Philadelphia	Andrew Beckett
1994	Forrest Gump	Forrest Gump
1995	Apollo 13	Jim Lovell
	Toy Story	Sheriff Woody	Voice role
1996	That Thing You Do!	Mr. White	Also director and screenwriter
1998	Saving Private Ryan	Captain John H. Miller
	You've Got Mail	Joe Fox
1999	Toy Story 2	Sheriff Woody	Voice role
	The Green Mile	Paul Edgecomb
2000	Cast Away	Chuck Noland
2002	Road to Perdition	Michael Sullivan, Sr.
	Catch Me If You Can	FBI Agent Carl Hanratty
2004	The Ladykillers	Professor G.H. Dorr
	The Terminal	Viktor Navorski
	The Polar Express	The Conductor/Hero Boy/Father/ Scrooge/Santa Claus/Hobo	Voice and motion capture
2006	The Da Vinci Code	Professor Robert Langdon
2007	Charlie Wilson's War	Charlie Wilson
2009	The Great Buck Howard	Mr. Gable
	Angels & Demons	Professor Robert Langdon
2010	Toy Story 3	Sheriff Woody	Voice role
2011	Larry Crowne	Larry Crowne	Also director and screenwriter
	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	Thomas Schell Jr.
2012	Cloud Atlas	Dr. Henry Goose/Hotel Manager/ Isaac Sachs/Dermot Hoggins/ Cavendish Look-A-Like Actor/Zachry
2013	Captain Phillips	Captain Richard Phillips
	Saving Mr. Banks	Walt Disney
2015	Bridge of Spies	James B. Donovan
2016	A Hologram for the King	Alan Clay
	Sully	Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
	Inferno	Professor Robert Langdon
2017	The Circle	Bailey, EamonEamon Bailey
	The Post	Bradlee, BenBen Bradlee
2019	Toy Story 4	Sheriff Woody	Voice role
	A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood	Rogers, FredFred Rogers
2020	Greyhound	Krause, Commander ErnestCommander Ernest Krause	Also screenwriter
	News of the World	Kidd, Captain Jefferson KyleCaptain Jefferson Kyle Kidd
2021	Finch	Finch Weinberg
2022	Elvis	Parker, Colonel TomColonel Tom Parker
	Pinocchio	Geppetto
	A Man Called Otto	Otto Anderson
2023	Asteroid City	Stanley Zak
2024	Here	TBA	Filming

See also

In Spanish: Tom Hanks para niños