Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actor who starred in family-friendly comedies before achieving notable success as a dramatic actor. He is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, with a combined gross of over $3.1 billion and an international gross of $5.7 billion. Hanks is regarded by some as one of the best and most versatile actors ever to grace the screen.
It was during these acting classes that Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the Festival, which stretched into a three-year experience that covered everything from lighting to set design to stage management. Such a commitment required that Hanks drop out of college. But by the end of the three years, he had decided that he wanted to become an actor. Part of the bug was due to the Cleveland Critics Circle Award, which he won as best actor for his performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times that he played a villain.
In 1978 he moved to New York, where he married actress-producer Samantha Lewes. Seven years and a son and daughter later they were divorced, but Hanks still sees his children regularly. While in New York, Hanks acted for the Riverside Shakespeare Company. In addition, he made his film debut in a low-budget slasher movie and got a part in a television movie entitled Mazes and Monsters. He continued to audition and finally landed a role on an ABC television pilot called Bosom Buddies.
"It was flukesville," Hanks told Newsweek. Hanks flew to Los Angeles, California where he was teamed with Peter Scolari as a pair of young ad men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. The series ran for two seasons, and, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. "The first day I saw him on the set," the show's co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, "I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years." But if Praiser knew it, he wasn't able to convince Hanks. "The television show had come out of nowhere," Hanks's best friend Tom Lizzio told Rolling Stone. "Then out of nowhere it got cancelled. He figured he'd be back to pulling ropes and hanging lights in a theater."
But it was Bosom Buddies that drew director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on Splash, a romantic comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. At first, Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, a role which eventually went to John Candy. Hanks instead got the lead and a career boost from Splash, which went on to become a box-office blockbuster, grossing more than $100 million.
More comedies followed, but none clicked with audiences. With Nothing in Common (1986)?about a young man alienated from his parents who must re-establish a relationship with his father, played by Jackie Gleason?Hanks began to establish the credentials of not only a comic actor but of someone who could carry a serious role. "It changed my desires about working in movies," Hanks told Rolling Stone. "Part of it was the nature of the material, what we were trying to say. But besides that, it focused on people's relationships. The story was about a guy and his father, unlike, say, The Money Pit, where the story is really about a guy and his house."
After three more flops, Hanks succeeded again with Big (1988), both at the box office and within the industry, establishing Hanks as a major Hollywood talent. "It's not easy being successful in this town," his friend Scolari told Rolling Stone, "particularly for a man of conscience. You get fed a steady diet of adulation. You get fed things that aren't necessarily bad or poisonous or toxic in any way. But they're not really on your meal plan. You have to stop and say, 'Wait a minute?I didn't order this.' You have to take your life by the horns. You have responsibilities that have nothing to do with being an actor. Tom Hanks has dealt with his success. I have never known him to be happier."
Despite this success, Hanks's choice of roles again landed him in trouble with another string of box-office failures. First The 'Burbs (1989), then Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and finally the colossal bomb The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), which saw Hanks as a greedy Wall Street type who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident.
