Uncommon Type (Hanks) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—July 9, 1956
• Where—Concord, California, USA
• Education—California State University-Sacramento
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California


Thomas Jeffrey Hanks is an American actor and filmmaker, whose films have grossed more than $4.5 billion at U.S. and Canadian box offices and more than $9.0 billion worldwide, making him the third highest-grossing actor in North America. In 2017 Hanks published his collection of short stories, Uncommon Type.

Early years
Hanks was born in Concord, California, the son of Janet Marylyn (nee Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. The couple had four children; when they divorced in 1960, Tom stayed with his father, along with the two older children. The youngest child went with his mother. The family moved often — by the age of ten, Hanks had lived in ten different houses.

While Hanks' family religious history was Catholic and Mormon, he has characterized himself as being a "Bible-toting evangelical" for several years as a teenager. In school, he claims to have been 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, his father married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived in the Hank household during Hanks 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 transferred to California State University, Sacramento, two years later.  In 1986 he told New York magazine that

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 Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and all that.

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, an internship that stretched into a three-year experience, prompting Hanks to drop out of college.

Nonetheless, during the  internship, Hanks learned numerous aspects of theater production — including lighting, set design, and stage management. 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.

Professional career
Hanks is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Splash (1984), Big (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), A League of Their Own (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998), You've Got Mail (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), The Polar Express (2004), and The Da Vinci Code (2006), as well as for his voice work in the Toy Story series.

He has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia, as well as a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a People's Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in Forrest Gump. In winning Academy Awards for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump — in 1994 and 1995 — Hanks remains one of only two actors who won the Best Actor award for two consecutive years. (Spencer Tracy was the other.)

In 2004, Hanks received the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). In 2014, he received a Kennedy Center Honor and, in 2016, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, as well as the French Legion of Honor.

Hanks is also known for his collaborations with film director Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), and Bridge of Spies (2015), as well as the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks as a successful director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2010, Spielberg and Hanks were executive producers on the HBO miniseries The Pacific (a companion piece to Band of Brothers). (Author bio adapted from Wikkpedia. Retrieved 10/12/2017.)