Tom Hanks is best known for being one of the United States’ most prominent actors for decades, but where did his life begin?
Tom Hanks started his life in California, and although he would move ten times during his childhood and teenage years, he didn’t leave the state until he was twenty three. After growing up in the Golden State, Hanks relocated to New York.
Read on to learn more about Tom Hanks’ upbringing.
Rough Beginnings
The multi-award winning superstar that is Tom Hanks is well-known for his enormous roster of chart-topping movies. By 2020, Tom Hanks had won two Oscars, several Emmys and Golden Globes, and a swathe of other prestigious awards.
In 1999, Tom Hanks was awarded the highest civilian award that could be bestowed by the US Navy. He and Steven Spielberg received the Distinguished Public Service Award for their incredible work on Saving Private Ryan.
He’s one of the highest paid Hollywood actors in history, with a reputation for being truly amiable and caring. It might surprise you to learn that Tom Hanks had to transition through a considerable struggle to reach the place he is in today.
As a child, Tom Hanks grew up in and around California. He was born in Concord in 1956, but the Hanks home would soon become broken. When he was just four years old, his parents divorced, and the family split. Hanks’ father assumed custody of the three eldest siblings, but a younger brother was sent off with his mother.
His parents remarried multiple times as Hanks grew up around California, leading to a long line of step-relations. When Tom Hanks was a child, his father’s working life caused deeper and more disruptive issues. The family moved around a lot, and by the age of just ten years old, Hanks had lived in ten different homes.
This reportedly led to Hanks having an inability to remain grounded, and caused him to become very lonely as he grew up. However, as Hanks transitioned into High School in Oakland, California, he would come to discover his love for acting. In June of 2020, Hanks uploaded a never-seen-before picture of himself on Twitter, taken during his time in High School.
After spending several more years gaining his education in California, Tom Hanks made the decision to move across the entire country. In 1979, he found himself in New York, almost immediately launching into his movie and television debuts. It was here that the struggles faded and the success began.
A Long Way From Home
Despite being three thousand miles from his family and where he grew up, Tom Hanks prospered incredibly well in New York. Within just a year of arriving, he had secured a lead role in an ABC television role. As the eighties progressed, he would land further lead roles in major movies.
Tom Hanks’ success would come relatively early in his acting career, winning two back-to-back Academy Awards in consecutive years. He became instantly recognizable and an icon in the world of Hollywood movies.
Nurturing a desire to have a family of his own, Tom Hanks married his first wife in 1978, and they subsequently had two children – a boy and a girl. Unfortunately, and in an ironic comparison to his younger life, they would divorce by 1987.
Hank met his current wife in the early eighties, an event that ultimately led to the downfall of his first marriage. In interviews, Hanks explained that his first marriage was broken from the start, but he and Rita had felt “an immediate spark”.
Hanks and Wilson would go on to have two children, finally giving Tom the strong family life he had always searched for. There’s a great video on YouTube that explores Hanks’ family, including his children.