James Robert Parish - Tom Hanks: Actor

As a boy, Tom was fascinated with space travel. This interest led to his role in the film Apollo 13 many years later.

Source: Photofest.

As a youngster Hanks never dreamed of becoming an actor. His great passions were sports and, especially, the U.S. space program. He hoped one day to become an astronaut. (Hanks was able to live out this fantasy when he starred as astronaut Jim Lovell in the 1995 movie Apollo 13.) During high school Hanks became intrigued with the theater world and make-believe. Once he came under the spell of the acting profession, it became the only career option for this highly imaginative teenager with the self-deprecatingand goofysense of humor. Years later, long after he had mastered his creative craft, Hanks would still remain boyishly enthusiastic about his choice of professions. "I have this insane job that lets me put on other people's clothes and pretend to be somebody else for a time, and they pay me ludicrous amounts of money to do it."

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, a very distant relative of President Abraham Lincoln, was born July 9, 1956, in Concord, a town in northern California about 23 miles northeast of San Francisco. Tom was third of the four children of Amos and Janet Hanks. His mom was a waitress. His dad (known to friends as "Bud") was a restaurant cook who once aspired to be a writer and had always dreamed of moving to Australia. Those hopes vanished when Amos married Janet and the two soon became parents. Once caught in the responsibilities of a sizable household, Amos Hanks and his family moved frequently as he changed jobs within the food industry. Meanwhile Janet stayed at home to care for their children.

In 1961 Amos and Janet, already married for 10 years, became parents for the fourth time with the arrival of their son James. By then the emotional and financial pressures of domestic life had badly damaged the couple's relationship. One day in January 1962 Amos disappeared without informing his children where he was going. When he finally returned home a month later, he had been to Reno, Nevada, where he filed for divorce from Janet. That night, without explanation, he told his three oldest kids (Sandra, Lawrence, and Tom) to gather a few of their belongingsat most there was room for each to bring along only one or two favorite toysand to hurry out to the pickup truck in the driveway. (Jimmy, still an infant, remained behind permanently with Janet Hanks.) Amos drove his three children to Reno, where he had already found a new job as a hotel/casino chef and had rented a small basement apartment. Amos enrolled Tom in the Holy Child Day Care Center in Reno because, unlike the older children, Tom was too young to be on his own while Amos was working.

There were soon new changes in the fragmented Hanks household. On April 23, 1962, four days after Amos's divorce from Janet became final, he married his landlady, Winifred Finley, who was recently divorced and had five children of her own. Suddenly Tom and his siblings had a whole new family. However, their dad, who was never good at communication, did not explain this latest change. Overnight Tom and the seven other children were sharing the cramped basement quarters of a small house, while the newlyweds lived upstairs. Years later Hanks said of the disorienting setup, "I remember in school we had to draw a picture of our house and family and I ran out of places to put people. I put them on the roof. I drew dad in bed, sleeping, since he worked so hard in the restaurant."