$350,000,000
Tom Hanks
Net Worth
Born in (City)
Concord
Born in (Country)
United States of America
Date of Birth
09th December, 1956
Date of Death
-
Mother
Janet Marylyn
Father
Amos Mefford Hanks
Children
- Colin Hanks
- Elizabeth Hanks
- Chester “Chet” Hanks
- Truman Theodore Hanks
About
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, Hanks is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Hanks’s films have grossed more than $4.9 billion in North America and more than $9.96 billion worldwide, making him the fifth-highest-grossing actor in North America. Hanks made his breakthrough with leading roles in the comedies Splash (1984) and Big (1988). He won two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor for starring as a gay lawyer suffering from AIDS in Philadelphia (1993) and a young man with below-average IQ in Forrest Gump (1994). Hanks collaborated with film director Steven Spielberg on five films.
Early Life
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, on July 9, 1956. 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." Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California. 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. 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."
Road to Success
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. In 1984, Hanks landed the lead role in Splash, which went on to become a surprise box office hit, grossing more than US$69 million. The broad success of the fantasy comedy Big (1988) established Hanks as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hanks then suffered a run of box-office underperformers. In the last, he portrayed a greedy Wall Street figure who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident. 1989's Turner & Hooch was Hanks's only financially successful film of the period. 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.
Challenges
Subsequently, a conspiracy meme shared on social media asserted that the actor had not been affected by COVID-19 at all, and claimed that report was a cover-up for Hanks’ having been taken into custody for “pedophilia,” and fitted with an ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts. Unfortunately, Hanks has been one of multiple celebrities — along with others such as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres — who have become the target of bizarre conspiracy theories about their alleged involvement in “elite pedophile sex trafficking rings.” Tom Hanks has been tired of the Jimmy Stewart comparisons for more than 30 years. “It’s Jimmy Stewart this, Jimmy Stewart that,” Hanks told Parade in 1987. “It’s as big a compliment as you can get, but it’s not anywhere near accurate.” Yet he can’t make them stop. But like Jimmy Stewart, Hanks’s work playing darker characters has been overshadowed by his persona as the kindest man in the room, which only grows with the release of his latest film.
Failures
Hollywood star Tom Hanks has shared that there was a time when he felt like a total failure. He experienced this low phase in his personal life. Hanks was married to Samantha Lewes from 1978 to 1987 and had two children with her, daughter Elizabeth and son Colin. During a conversation, Hanks shared that he thought his children might think he was "abandoning" them when he walked out on the marriage. The 'Forrest Gump' star felt that way when his parents divorced, and didn't want to "burden" his children with the same feeling. "I'd go off and talk to somebody and say, 'What... What have I done wrong?' And they would say, 'Well, what do you think you've done wrong?' 'Why am I so unhappy?' 'Well, tell me about your unhappiness'," Hanks said. "And you work through that till you figure out that, you know, number one, you have been an idiot, but number two, you're no longer an idiot," he added.
Achievements
He won two Academy Awards consecutively in 1994 and 1995 for his outstanding performance in the films ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Forrest Gump’.|In 2002, he was the recipient of American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, presented by Steven Spielberg. He became the youngest recipient of this prestigious honour.|He was inducted into the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame in 2006.
Quotes
- If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.
- Never give up because you never know what the tide will bring in the next day.
- If you’re funny, if there’s something that makes you laugh, then every day’s going to be okay.