HANKS, TOM

born July 9, 1956, Concord, Calif., U.S. in full Thomas J. Hanks American film actor whose cheerful, exuberant persona made him a natural for leading roles in many popular films. After a nomadic childhood during which he lived wherever his father's job as a chef demanded, Hanks studied acting in high school and majored in drama at California State University. For three summers in the mid-1970s, he joined the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Lakewood, Ohio, where he played a variety of classical roles. He moved to New York City in the late 1970s and in 1980 had a small part in the horror film He Knows You're Alone. Hanks gained minor fame as the star of the television series Bosom Buddies (198082) and received critical acclaim for his comic abilities. His work in the hit film Splash (1984) earned him leads in other comedies, including Bachelor Party (1984), Volunteers (1985), and The Money Pit (1986). He successfully mixed comedy with drama in Nothing in Common (1986) and Punchline (1988), and his portrayal of a boy in an adult body in Big (1988) earned him an Oscar nomination and established him as one of the era's most popular stars. Hanks portrayed the drunken manager of a women's baseball team in the popular comedy A League of Their Own (1992) and delivered an Oscar-winning performance as a gay lawyer with AIDS in Philadelphia (1993). Hanks won a second best actor award for the phenomenally popular Forrest Gump (1994) and became the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars since Spencer Tracy. Hanks teamed with actress Meg Ryan for the romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998), delivered outstanding dramatic performances in Saving Private Ryan (1998) and The Green Mile (1999), portrayed astronaut Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 (1995), and provided the voice for the animated cowboy Woody in the Disney hits Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999). In addition to his acting, Hanks wrote and directed the hit comedy That Thing You Do! (1996). His experience in making Apollo 13 piqued his interest in the history of American space exploration and led him to produce and direct From the Earth to the Moon (1998), an Emmy Award-winning series of dramatized documentaries for HBO. Additional reading Roy Trakin, Tom Hanks: Journey to Stardom, updated ed. (1995).