Thomas Jeffery Hanks was born in Concord, California on July 9, 1956. He
acted in school plays while attending Skyline High School in Oakland.
Hanks studied theater in college and became an intern at the Great Lakes
Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. Next it was on to New York City and
Hanks’s first screen roles.
Here’s Hanks in his VERY FIRST movie, 1980’s slasher film “He Knows You’re
Alone.” I missed this one, but apparently it’s about a creepy serial
killer who attacks women on the night before their weddings, because
they’re ALWAYS completely alone then. (Like, I’m so sure.)
However, we ALL saw Tom Hanks in the hit 1980-82 T.V. show “Bosom
Buddies.” He played Kip/Buffy Wilson, one of two male roommates who
pretend to be women in order to finagle cheap rent in an all-female
hotel. He met his second wife, Rita Wilson, on the set. She appeared in
an episode in the second season of “Bosom Buddies”. Interesting side
note: “My Life” is the show’s theme song, but that’s NOT Billy Joel
singing it:
Hanks appeared in episodes of “Taxi”
and “Happy
Days”. Then it was on to the made-for-television movie “Mazes and
Monsters” in 1982. It totally capitalized on the
Dungeons and Dragons brouhaha.
After a recurrent role as Ned Donelly on “Family Ties”, Hanks made a huge
onscreen splash playing Allen Bauer opposite Darryl Hannah’s mermaid in
1984:
And it was totally uphill from there. The same year, he portrayed goofball
Rick Gassko, engaged to straight-laced Debbie Thompson. Debbie, by the
way, was none other than Tawny Kitaen. Yes, THAT
Tawny Kitaen.
He starred with James Belushi in “The Man with One Red Shoe”, a goofy spy
comedy:
And with John Candy and future wife Rita Wilson in “Volunteers,” a goofy
Peace Corps movie:
Having established himself as a WAY goofy (but likeable! with off-beat
good looks and charm!) character actor, Hanks was the perfect choice for
the fabulous 1986 comedy, “The Money Pit.” The movie, also starring
Shelley Long, embodies every home remodeler’s nightmare, with hysterical
results:
“Nothing in Common” was a bit more serious, and a bit less well-received.
Jackie Gleason portrayed Hanks’s cranky, increasingly needy dad in this
poignant and mostly unfunny movie:
“Every Time We Say Goodbye” was another serious, heartfelt movie starring
Hanks. This was a wartime love story, and, while it was moving and
genuine, we were starting to miss the goofball Tom Hanks:
“Dragnet,” in which he costarred with Dan Ackroyd, was a step in the right
direction, but the wacky detective comedy left us wanting more:
We wanted our goofy, playful, lovable, quirky-cute, Tom Hanks, back,
dangit!
With 1988’s “Big”, we TOTALLY got it. Hanks portrayed Josh Baskin, a kid
who gets his wish to be a grown-up. Elizabeth Perkins played Susan, an
actual grown-up who falls for Josh. Alas, their romance is going to have
to wait a few years until Josh is of legal age.
“Punchline,” a movie about stand-up comics which costarred Sally Field,
fell flat in 1988. I don’t even remember hearing about this one:
“The ‘Burbs” was a MUCH bigger hit. It’s a murder mystery set in a
paranoid regular-guy neighborhood. (And yes, Tom Hanks is once again
goofy in it.)
Rounding out Hanks’s eighties’ contributions is 1989’s “Turner and Hooch,”
a not-terrible comedy about an uptight detective who is partnered with a
slobbery dog.
Tom Hanks went on to be WILDLY successful in, like, all kinds of stuff.
Check out his
IMDB page
for a complete list of his acting roles (goofy AND serious) and
bazillion other film contributions.
While you enjoy his more current, awesome work, keep Hanks’s humbler
beginnings in mind. While we might snicker a bit at movies like “Mazes
and Monsters,” we can see the glimmers of the guy we came to love in
scenes like this one:
