The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Tom Hanks

The Forrest Gump star was born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, Calif., as Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, per Biography. While his mother worked in a hospital, his father was an itinerant cook. However, Hanks has spoken about his upbringing on several occasions, noting that it wasn't picture perfect. According to The New York Times, "Hanks grew up in Northern California, in the era of the Zodiac Killer and Patty Hearst and the Black Panthers and the People's Park riots." The publication also noted that Hank's dad "worked long hours," often leaving the children to their own devices at home.

Hanks revealed to The New York Times that there were some things he wasn't taught to do as a child. He explained, "No one told me how to brush my teeth ... I never flossed until I was out of high school, because dental hygiene was handled by a filmstrip that we saw in second grade that said, really, try to eat an apple, and that cleans your teeth. So, hey, I had an apple last week, so my teeth are kind of clean." Despite missing out on some of the basics as a child, Hanks seems to have turned out okay.

Tom Hanks has been happily married to actress Rita Wilson since 1988, so a lot of fans might not realize that the Philadelphia star was married once before. Hanks got married to Samantha Lewes in 1978, and the couple had two children together — son Colin, who is also an actor, and daughter Elizabeth, bringing the total number of Hanks' kids to four. However, according to the New York Post, the couple separated in 1984 and later divorced in 1987, with Tom remarrying the following year.

According to People, Hanks told GQ that he very quickly developed feelings for his second wife, Wilson, on the set of 1985 movie Volunteers, having previously co-starred with her on the sitcom Bosom Buddies in 1981. The actor opened up about the failure of his first marriage during an interview with the Express and said, "I was looking for something I had not found as a kid. A broken marriage meant I was sentencing my own kids to the sort of feelings I had at their age. I was just too young and insecure for marriage. I was 23 and my son Colin was already two when I married for the first time. I was not really ready to take on those responsibilities." As Hanks went on, "My own life has not been as smooth as my career."

Having directed a handful of TV episodes, Tom Hanks made the jump to movie writer and director for 1996's That Thing You Do!. While Hanks had a small part in the movie, it focused on a band in the '60s and what happened after they made a one-hit-wonder. Despite featuring Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron, the flick was somewhat of a box office disappointment. Box Office Mojo reported that the movie made around $34.5 million after being made on a $26 million budget. Clearly, that's not the best return, especially for a film with Hanks attached.

Even though the movie wasn't a huge financial success, Hanks' directorial debut seems to have accrued more fans since it was first released. In 2020, the actors responsible for playing the movie's band, The Wonders, reunited for a That Thing You Do! watch party in aid of the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund. The stars of the film have only positive things to say about the experience, too. Actor Steve Zahn told Entertainment Weekly, "I mean, technically it was his first time directing, but when you've done it that long, you kind of get it on so many different levels ... I've worked with a lot of first-time directors. A lot. And Tom was a veteran."

Fans were shocked when Tom Hanks' wife, Rita Wilson, revealed in April 2015 that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. In a statement to People, Wilson announced she'd undergone a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction following the "diagnosis of invasive lobular carcinoma." The actress credited getting a second opinion and catching the condition early for her recovery, after "a friend who had had breast cancer suggested [she] get a second opinion on [her] pathology and [her] gut told me that was the thing to do."

According to Stylist, Wilson gave an interview to Sunday People singing her husband's praises for supporting her throughout her cancer diagnosis. She said, "When I was going through my diagnoses and surgery, the one thing I really­ wanted to tell people­ is that there are still times when you have love and you smile and you laugh. ... [Tom and I] watched movies­, we watched great documentaries­, we ate good food and we did our best to maintain­ our spirit and be thankful." 

As of 2020, Wilson has been cancer-free for five years.

Most people are well aware that Tom Hanks was one of the first celebrities to reveal that they'd tested positive for coronavirus. Hanks made the announcement in an Instagram post on March 12, 2020, and wrote, "[Rita Wilson] and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive." At the time, Hanks was in Australia to shoot Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic.

Both Hanks and Wilson made full recoveries, and on March 23, the Toy Story star wrote on Twitter, "Two weeks after our first symptoms and we feel better." On March 27, it was reported that the famous couple had flown back to the United States after being given the all-clear. Since then, the award-winning performer has revealed that he is helping coronavirus research by donating blood and plasma. During an interview on NPR's Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!, Hanks joked, "We have not only been approached; we have said, do you want our blood? Can we give plasma? And, in fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the Hank-ccine." We have our fingers crossed.