Tom Hanks

In 1978, he married Samantha Lewes, an actress and producer. They were divorced in 1987. The couple has two children, Colin and Elizabeth.

He married Rita Wilson in 1988, an actress with whom he worked in the film ‘Volunteers’. The couple has two sons, Chester and Truman.

An asteroid “12818 tomhanks” is named after him.

Tom Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, to Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook and Janet Marylyn, a hospital worker, in Concord, California. His siblings are Sandra, Larry, and Jim.

His parents divorced in 1960. Tom, Sandra, and Larry were raised by his father while Jim, his youngest brother was brought up by his mother.

As a young boy, he had to cope with the continuous change in places, before his father finally settled in Oakland.

He completed high school at Skyline High School, Oakland and graduated from the institute in 1974.

He enrolled at Chabot College in Hayward, California, but he switched to California State University, Sacramento to pursue acting.

In 1978, his performance as ‘Proteus’ in Shakespeare’s ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ won him the Best Actor award in the Cleveland Critics Circle.

From 1978 to 1980, he acted in various summer productions of Shakespeare’s plays and in winters, he worked for a theater company in Sacramento.

In 1979, he moved to New York with the dream of performing in Broadway. In 1980, he made his onscreen debut in the low-budget horror movie, ‘He Knows You're Alone’.

The same year, he got a chance to perform in the television sitcom ‘Bosom Buddies’ which earned him critical acclaim.

In 1982, his guest appearance on the TV episode of ‘Happy Days’, impressed co-actor Ron Howard who invited him to star in the supporting role in ‘Splash’, a comic film in 1984 that became a great hit.

The 1999 animated film, ‘Toy Story 2’, where Hanks lent his voice for the character, Woody, the leader of the cowboy dolls, became a box-office hit making a record-breaking box-office sale of $80.8 million.

‘Apollo 13’ a film that deals with the lunar mission, released in 2002 in the IMAX format became a huge success earning $500 million at the box office.

‘The Da Vinci Code’ filmed in 2006, based on the best-seller written by Dan Brown, earned over $750 million at the box-office.