July 3, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Tom Hanks -- Mr Nice Guy turns 50
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, July 3, Graphic News:  He once said that of his many movies, only five are good. But, as Tom Hanks approaches his 50th birthday on July 9, he looks likely to remain one of HollywoodÕs most popular actors for the simple reason that he is possibly the worldÕs most famous Òregular guyÓ.

This popularity is reflected in his earnings: Hanks is one of the highest earning actors of all time, with an international gross of $5.7 billion. Not bad for an untrained thespian who cut his teeth on screwball comedy.

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to a cook and a hospital worker who separated when he was five, remarried and then divorced. Hanks has said that his childhood was unsettled as he accompanied his father around the state in search of work before settling in Oakland. With typical self-deprecation, the actor has told interviewers that -- as a young man -- he showed little aptitude or ambition.

By 1978, however, he had moved to New York City to pursue his love of acting. There, a part as a cross dresser in the comedy series Bosom Buddies helped secure him a toehold in Hollywood with the lead in Splash, about a human who falls in love with a mermaid. An uneven patch followed, including the box office disaster Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) in which Hanks played a Wall Street executive involved in a hit and run incident.

Then in 1993 Hanks scored two major successes, first reprising his standard conflicted regular guy in the romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle and then establishing himself as a serious dramatic actor with his role as a gay lawyer who sues his firm for discrimination in Philadelphia. The part won him the Oscar for Best Actor. The following year brought a second Oscar for his portrayal of the well-meaning but simple-minded Forrest Gump.

To some extent, Gump is a typical Hanks movie in that the actorÕs fine but unshowy central performance lifts the entire movie almost without appearing to. Hanks turned in similar performances in Saving Private Ryan and Apollo 13. As a hitman on the run with his son in Road to Perdition, he demonstrated that he could also play the bad guy.

Moviegoers love Hanks because he appears not to take his craft too seriously -- though he was prepared to lose 30lbs for Philadelphia, and to gain and shed 50lbs for Cast Away -- and he seems generous to his co-stars. His latest movie, the adaptation of Dan BrownÕs blockbuster novel, The Da Vinci Code, earned almost $700 million in its first six weeks despite being panned by the critics.

In 2002 he became the youngest recipient of the American Film InstituteÕs Lifetime Achievement Award.

A vocal supporter of both the Democrats and the Cleveland Indians baseball team, Hanks is married to Rita Wilson, with whom he has two children. He also has two children from his first marriage to the late Samantha Lewes.
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