Tom Hanks

Hanks was born in Concord, California. His father, Amos Mefford Hanks (born in Glenn County, California, on March 9, 1924 – died in Alameda, California, on January 31, 1992), an itinerant cook, was a distant relative of President Abraham Lincoln (through Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks). His mother, Janet Marylyn (née Frager; born in Alameda County, California, on January 18, 1932), was a hospital worker. Hanks' mother is of Portuguese ancestry, while two of his paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Britain. Hanks's parents divorced in 1960. The family's three oldest children, Sandra (now Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Larry (now Lawrence M. Hanks, PhD, an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim, now an actor and film maker, remained with his mother in Red Bluff, California. Afterwards, both parents remarried. Hanks's first stepmother came to the marriage with five children of her own. Hanks once told Rolling Stone: ;Everybody in my family likes each other. But there were always about 50 people at the house. I didn't exactly feel like an outsider, but I was sort of outside it.; That marriage ended in divorce after two years.
In addition to having a family history of Catholicism and Mormonism, Hanks was a "Bible-toting evangelical teenager" for several years. In school, Hanks 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.; In 1965, Amos Hanks married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Tom during his high school years. 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 after two years, transferred to California State University, Sacramento. Hanks told The New York Times: Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat, and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Henrik Ibsen, and all that, and now look at me, acting is my job. I wouldn't have it any other way.
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, all of which caused 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.

Film Credits
1980 He Knows You're Alone
1982 Mazes and Monsters
1984 Splash
1984 Bachelor Party
1985 The Man with One Red Shoe
1985 Volunteers
1986 The Money Pit
1986 Nothing in Common
1986 Every Time We Say Goodbye
1987 Dragnet
1988 Big
1988 Punchline
1989 Turner Hooch
1989 The 'Burbs
1990 Joe Versus the Volcano
1990 The Bonfire of the Vanities
1992 A League of Their Own
1992 Radio Flyer
1993 Sleepless in Seattle
1993 Philadelphia
1994 Forrest Gump
1995 Apollo 13
1995 Toy Story
1996 That Thing You Do!
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1998 You've Got Mail
1999 Toy Story 2
1999 The Green Mile
2000 Cast Away
2002 Road to Perdition
2002 Catch Me If You Can
2004 The Terminal
2004 The Ladykillers
2004 Elvis Has Left the Building
2004 The Polar Express
2006 The Da Vinci Code
2006 Cars
2007 The Simpsons Movie
2007 Charlie Wilson's War
2008 The Great Buck Howard
2008 Mamma Mia!
2009 Angels & Demons
2009 The National Parks: America's Best Idea
2009 Where the Wild Things Are
2010 Toy Story 3
2011 Larry Crowne
2011 Hawaiian Vacation
2011 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
2012 Cloud Atlas

Television Credits
1980 The Love Boat
1980-1982 Bosom Buddies
1982 Taxi
1982 Mazes and Monsters
1982 Happy Days
1983 Family Ties
1994 Vault of Horror I
1998 From the Earth to the Moon
2001 Band of Brothers
2002 The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch
2006-2011 Big Love
2008 John Adams
2010 The Pacific
2011 Saturday Night Live