Actor Biography - Tom Hanks Posted by: Hollywood Lot Staff

On July 9th, 1956, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California. Tom Hanks lived a childhood similar to that many families, moving around a lot. Even with all of the change he went through as a child, he feels he is close with his family.

In 1978 Hanks moved to New York to find acting work. There, he met his first wife, actress Samantha Lewes, whom he married in 1978. They were married for 7 years and had two children.

His film popularity really began with the 1984 film Splash – a love story between a man and a mermaid. In 1989, playing a boy trapped in a man's body, Hanks won several awards and an Oscar nomination for the movie Big. Continuing in his award winning career, Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar in 1994 for the film Philadelphia and consecutively the next year won another for his lead role in Forrest Gump, a feat unheard of for 50 years in the Academy.

Throughout the '90s Tom Hanks worked in particular with Meg Ryan in several films. Among them is Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998). A few other mentionable films, which have added to the public image of a lovable Hanks as he's known by many today, are films such as Turner & Hooch (1989), The Money Pit (1986), A League of Their Own (1992) and Cast Away (2000).

Upcoming movies include the highly anticipated film The Da Vinci Code, The Great Buck Howard, A Cold Case, Charlie Wilson’s War, and The Risk Pool, all coming out in 2006.

In 1996 Hanks made his debut as a director with the film, That Thing You Do!. Hanks married his second wife in 1988, actress Rita Wilson, whom he met during the filming of the movie Volunteers. Together they have two children, Truman and Chester.