Tom Hanks
(1956 - )
Biography from Baseline

Thom Hanks
Actor
Also : Directore
Thomas J. Hanks
July 9, 1956, Concord, CA

A genial, blandly attractive actor, Hanks has proven equally adept at comedy and drama and in the 1990s has emerged as one of Hollywood's most acclaimed and best-loved performers. Raised by his father, a cook, Hanks spent most of his formative years in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began acting in high school and dropped out of college in 1977 to intern with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, OH. Hanks stayed for three seasons before moving East and making his New York debut as Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew at the Riverside Theater. Mainstream exposure came with his casting as Kip/Buffy Wilson opposite Peter Scolari in the sitcom "Bosom Buddies" (ABC, 1980-82), about a pair of slippery, wisecracking ad men forced to cross-dress in order to keep a cheap apartment in a NYC women's hotel.
Hanks found immediate stardom with his first leading movie role, opposite a be-finned Daryl Hannah in Ron Howard's mermaid comedy, SPLASH (1984). The funny, if relentlessly sophomoric BACHELOR PARTY (1984) was followed by a handful of misfires, including THE MAN WITH ONE RED SHOE (1985), VOLUNTEERS (1985), and THE MONEY PIT (1986). In 1988, Hanks displayed his versatility with two acclaimed performances: the volatile, caustic, ambitious, yet talented stand-up comedian in PUNCHLINE and as a teenager trapped in the body of a 35 year old man in Penny Marshall's BIG. The latter role, which earned Hanks an Oscar nomination as Best Actor, capitalized on his youthful charm, though it also fixed him—perhaps permanently—with the label "boyish."
Hanks's post-BIG attempts to play against type have met with mixed results. His casting as Wall Street heavyweight Sherman McCoy was considered one of the crucial misjudgments that scuttled Brian DePalma's adaptation of BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES (1990). Another attempt to shed his nice-guy image, in A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992, also directed by Marshall), was more successful, though Hanks' boozing, tobacco-chewing, ex-ballplayer routine convinced moviegoers more than it did critics.
Hanks continued the series of big boxoffice hits inaugurated by LEAGUE by moving back to gentler territory, returning to romantic comedies with the cross-country romance SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993), which teamed him with Meg Ryan and managed to suggest the loneliness of the aging "boy" who has found it hard to meet people. His choice of roles ventured into even sadder—and considerably more ambitious—territory with Jonathan Demme's well-intentioned PHILADELPHIA (1993), in which Hanks played a gay man fired from his job when it is discovered that he has AIDS. His "American boy" image, in this film shown to be crushed by an uncaring system, appealed to Oscar voters who named him the year's Best Actor.
Hanks followed with the whimsically genteel and populist smash hit FORREST GUMP (1994) that moved him even further into child-man territory as it showed his character's survival and triumph despite his innate limitations. FORREST GUMP went on to become the year's biggest grossing picture and won six Academy Awards including a second Best Actor citation for Hanks. Fresh from this triumph, Hanks portrayed astronaut Jim Lovell in Ron Howard's APOLLO 13 (1995) which depicted the ill-fated 1970 space expedition. As the flight commander, Hanks anchored the film and won yet another round of critical praise. He also voiced Woody, the cowboy threatened by Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), in John Lasseter's computed-generated animation wonder TOY STORY (also 1995). Hanks made his feature screenwriting and directing debut with THAT THING YOU DO, the story of 1960s rock-and-roll band, in which he also appears.

Tom Hanks
(1956 - )
Filmography from

1981 HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE performer
1982 MAZES AND MONSTERS performer
1984 BACHELOR PARTY performer
1984 SPLASH performer
1985 THE MAN WITH ONE RED SHOE performer
1985 VOLUNTEERS performer
1986 EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE performer
1986 THE MONEY PIT performer
1986 NOTHING IN COMMON performer
1987 DRAGNET performer
1988 BIG performer
1988 PUNCHLINE performer
1989 THE 'BURBS performer
1989 TURNER & HOOCH performer
1990 THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES performer
1990 JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO performer
1992 A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN performer
1992 RADIO FLYER performer
1993 PHILADELPHIA performer
1993 SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE performer
1994 FORREST GUMP performer
1995 APOLLO 13 performer
1995 TOY STORY performer

Tom Hanks
(1956 - )
Academy Awards®

© A.M.P.A.S.®
Nominated for Actor 1988: BIG
Actor 1993: PHILADELPHIA
Actor 1994: FORREST GUMP