Tom Hanks

Born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California, actor Tom Hanks began performing with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in 1977, later moving to New York City. He starred in the television sitcom Bosom Buddies, but became far more known when he starred in the Ron Howard film Splash. He went on to star in many more popular and acclaimed movies, including Big, Forrest Gump and Cast Away, and is now arguably one of the most powerful and well-respected actors in Hollywood.

Early Life and Career

Actor Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California. Hanks's parents divorced when he was 5 years old, and he was raised, along with his older brother and sister, by his father, a chef named Amos. The family moved frequently, finally settling in Oakland, California, where Hanks attended high school.
After graduating in 1974, Hanks attended junior college in Hayward, California. He decided to pursue acting after reading and watching a performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1946), and transferred into the theater program at California State University in Sacramento.
In 1977, Hanks was recruited to take part in the summer session of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Lakewood Ohio. Over the next three years, Hanks spent his summers acting in various productions of Shakespeare's plays and his winters working backstage at a community theater company in Sacramento. He won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor in 1978, for his portrayal of Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Continued Success

In 2002, Hanks produced the surprise hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, starring Nia Vardalos. His next producing projects included the Imax space documentary Magnificent Desolation (2005) and Evan Almighty (2007). In 2004, the actor starred in Joel and Ethan Coen's remake of the classic 1955 comedy Ladykillers. He later teamed again with Spielberg for the drama The Terminal (2004), and starred in the family film The Polar Express (2004).
Hanks was next seen in the highly anticipated The Da Vinci Code (2006), based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown and co-starring Audrey Tatou. The film grossed more than $750 million worldwide. During the 2007 Christmas season, Hanks appeared as the lead in Charlie Wilson's War, a drama based on a Texas congressman's efforts to assist Afghan rebels in their war with the Soviets. The performance earned Hanks a Golden Globe nomination. Then in 2009, Hanks appeared in Angels and Demons, the sequel to Da Vinci.
Hanks went on to perform voiceover work for the acclaimed TV miniseries The Pacific (2010, narrator) and the animated Toy Story 3 (2010), later starring in such films as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) and Cloud Atlas (2012).
In 2013, after a monumental screen career, the actor made his Broadway debut in the 2013 production Lucky Guy. Hanks garnered a Tony Award nomination for best performance by a lead actor, but lost to Tracy Letts (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). He was seen again that same year on the silver screen in the nautical thriller Captain Phillips (2013), playing the title character. Hanks also played Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), the biopic that shows how the studio head convinced P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson, to give him the rights to make Mary Poppins a cinematic project.
After Hanks was seen strutting his stuff in popster Carly Rae Jepsen's music video "I Really Like You," critics greatly took to his portrayal of a U.S. attorney in the Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies. The autumn 2015 outing saw the actor reunited with director Spielberg. 

Personal Life

Hanks met his first wife, actress and producer Samantha Lewes (real name: Susan Dillingham), while he was in college. They were married in 1978 and had two children, Colin and Elizabeth, before divorcing in 1987.
In 1988, he married actress Rita Wilson, with whom he co-starred in Volunteers. Hanks and Wilson have two children, Chester and Truman.
Hanks recently revealed that he has been facing a health challenge. He admitted in October 2013 that he has Type 2 Diabetes. Hanks shared this information on the air with late night talk show host David Letterman. "I went to the doctors and they said, 'You know those high blood sugar numbers you've been living with since you were 36? Well, you've graduated. You've got Type 2 diabetes.'"