Tom Hanks Biography

Thomas J Hanks known as Tom Hanks was born on July 9, 1956 in Concord, California. Amos Hanks and Janet Hanks was Tom's Parent. They had four children Jim, Larry, Tom, and Sandra. Tom was the third of four children. When Tom was 5 years old his parents were seperated.

Eventually, in 1966, Amos settled in Oakland, where he attended both junior high and Skyline high school. His interests includes space and sports, especially baseball. While at Skyline High, he attended his first major league baseball game and discovered drama.

After this Tom Hanks joined the Thespian Club, where he got his first role as a stage manager on My Fair Lady, then he acted in movies Night Of The Iguana, Twelfth Night and South Pacific, and won Skyline's highest acting award for the category Best Actor in "South Pacific".

After graduation Tom attended Cabot College in nearby Hayward, California from 1974 to 1976. He was working as a sideline as a bellboy at the local Hilton. Doing the occasional drama class. Acting had moved from an interest to a professional career choice for Tom Hanks.

In late 1979, Tom auditioned for the Riverside Shakespeare Theater where he worked as Callimaco in The Mandrake. The ABC network had launched a talent development programme in the hope of finding some hot young kids to pep up their ratings. Tom went for it, enduring a gruelling series of auditions before landing one of the two leads in the sit-com Bosom Buddies.

A series of forgettable flicks later he got another opportunity to in "Big" for which he received his first Oscar nomination. In 1992, he commenced on his incredible run of hits when he did not see box office failure for close to eleven years.

In 1993, Hanks uncharacteristically played the role of a homosexual with AIDS in "Philadelphia." The movie went on to win critical and popular acclaim. The world had finally awoken to the talent of Tom Hanks. He had even managed to out stage the supremely talented Denzel Washington. Tom Hanks won the Oscar for Best Actor.

In Forrest Gump (1994) Hanks patterned his accent after the little boy who played young Forrest, who actually talked that way. This movie was like a three and a half hour exhibition of Tom Hanks's acting talents. He again won the Oscar. It was more than fifty years ago that anyone had won back to back Oscars.

In an effort to test the boundaries of his creativity, Tom Hanks wrote and directed "That Thing You Do" in 1996. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. In 1999 Hanks received another Oscar nomination for his role as Captain Miller in "Saving Private Ryan." He would go on to receive his fifth nomination for the title role in "Castaway."

One of the reasons for Hanks's success is the enduring relationships that he has managed to build with exceedingly creative people. He has worked with Steven Spielberg in "Saving Private Ryan", "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Terminal". Robert Zemeckis has directed him in "Forrest Gump" and "Castaway." Nora Ephron was the director and Meg Ryan was his co-star in "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail."

His most recent projects were The Green Mile (1999), Toy Story 2 (1999), and Cast Away (2000), for which he received his fifth Academy Award nomination. In addition, Hanks has found success wearing other hats, having executive-produced a pair of remarkable television miniseries: "From the Earth to the Moon" (1998) and "Band of Brothers" (2001).