Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American film actor, director, voice-over artist, writer and film producer. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies before achieving success as a dramatic actor portraying several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title role in Forrest Gump, Commander James A. Lovell in Apollo 13, Captain John H. Miller in Saving Private Ryan, Michael Sullivan in Road to Perdition, and Sheriff Woody in Disney/Pixar's Toy Story. Hanks is the third most successful actor in terms of box office totals, which exceed $3.3 billion.People Index from Box Office Mojo

Biography

Early life

Hanks was born in Concord, California. His father, Amos Mefford Hanks (born in Glenn County, California on March 4, 1924 – died in Alameda, California on January 31, 1992), was a distant relation of President Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks. His mother, Portuguese American Janet Marylyn Frager (born in Alameda County, California on January 18, 1932), was a hospital worker; the two divorced in 1960.Reitwiesner, William Addams. "Ancestry of Tom Hanks" - William Addams Reitwiesner Genealogical Services The family's three oldest children, Sandra, (now Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer),Sandra Hanks Benoiton - Seychelles.netParadise Preoccupied Larry (now Lawrence M. Hanks, Ph.D., an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign),Lawrence M. Hanks, Associate Professor - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Tom went with their father, while the youngest, Jim, now an actor and film maker, remained with his mother in Red Bluff, California. Afterwards, both parents remarried. The first stepmother for Sandra, Larry, and Tom came to the marriage with five children of her own. Hanks once told Rolling Stone magazine: "Everybody in my family likes each other. But there were always about fifty people at the house. I didn't exactly feel like an outsider, but I was sort of outside it." That marriage ended in divorce after just 2 years, and Amos Hanks became a single parent, working long hours and relying on the children to fend for themselves often, an exercise in self-reliance that served the siblings well. In school, Hanks was unpopular with students and teachers alike, 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, Amos Hanks married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Tom during his high school years. Tom acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California. Hanks studied theater at Chabot College, and after two years, transferred to California State University, Sacramento. Hanks told the New York Times: "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 Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Henrik Ibsen, and all that, and now look at me, acting is my job. I wouldn't have it any other way."