Born On: 9 July 1956 Born At: Concord, CA Height: 6' 1" (1.85 m) Birth Name: Thomas Jeffrey Hanks Notable role(s) Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump, Captain John H. Miller in Saving Private Ryan, Dr. Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code   Tom is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actor, voice-over artist and movie producer who starred in family-friendly and screwball comedies before achieving notable success as a dramatic actor.

He is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, with a combined gross of over USD$3.1 billion and an international gross of $5.7 billion. He is also co-owner of Playtone, a film production company.
Hanks was born in Concord, California to Amos Mefford Hanks, a Southern cook of English and Welsh heritage, and Janet Merilyn Frager, a hospital worker who was also of mostly English descent. As a child, Hanks experienced a wandering, middleclass life with neither ambition nor talent much in evidence. By the time he was five, his parents had separated.
In school, Hanks also was unremarkable. "I was a geek, a spaz," he told Rolling Stone. "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." Although he acted in a few school plays (the names of which he says that he can't remember), acting never seemed a real possibility until Hanks transferred from San Francisco Bay Area junior college Chabot College to Sacramento State University. "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant," Hanks told New York. "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."

It was during these acting classes that Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the Festival, which stretched into a three-year experience that covered everything from lighting to set design to stage management. Such a commitment required that Hanks drop out of college. But by the end of the three years, he had decided that he wanted to become an actor. Part of the bug was due to the Cleveland Critics Circle Award, which he won as best actor for his performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times that he played a villain.

In 1978 he moved to New York City, where he married actress-producer Samantha Lewes. Seven years and a son and daughter later they were divorced, but Hanks still sees his children regularly. While in New York City, Hanks acted for the Riverside Shakespeare Company. In addition, he made his film debut in a low-budget slasher film and got a part in a television movie entitled Mazes and Monsters. He continued to audition and finally landed a role on an ABC television pilot called Bosom Buddies. "It was flukesville," Hanks told Newsweek about the show. Hanks flew to Los Angeles, California where he was teamed with Peter Scolari as a pair of young ad men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. The series ran for two seasons, and, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. "The first day I saw him on the set," the show's co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, "I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years." But if Praiser knew it, he was not able to convince Hanks. "The television show had come out of nowhere," Hanks's best friend Tom Lizzio told Rolling Stone. "Then out of nowhere it got cancelled. He figured he'd be back to pulling ropes and hanging lights in a theater."

But it was Bosom Buddies and a cameo appearance on an episode of "Happy Days" that drew director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on Splash, a romantic comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a human. At first, Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, a role which eventually went to John Candy. Hanks instead got the lead and a career boost from Splash, which went on to become a box-office hit, grossing more than $69 million.
Hanks has been married to actress Rita Wilson since 1988. They became involved while working on the movie Volunteers (1985), although they first worked together in an episode of Bosom Buddies. (Wilson guest starred as a romantic interest of Peter Scolari's Henry Desmond character.) They have two children together.
Hanks is a member of the National Space Society, serving on the Board of Governors of the nonprofit educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun and was the producer of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program to send astronauts to the moon. Hanks also provides the voice over for the Hayden planetarium show at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

In June 2006 Hanks was inducted as an honorary member of the US Army's Ranger Hall of Fame for his accurate portrayal of a commander in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Besides his role in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks was cited for serving as the national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial Campaign, for being the honorary chairperson of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and for his role in writing and helping to produce the Emmy Award-winning miniseries, Band of Brothers.

Hanks, who was unable to attend the induction ceremony, becomes the first actor to receive such an honor.
Although he gives money to many Democratic politicians, Hanks usually keeps his opinons about politics to himself.