Tom Hanks

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Date of Birth : Jul 9th 1956

Emmy-winning director, voice-over artist and movie producer. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies before achieving notable success as a dramatic actor in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. He is also one of only two actors in the history of film to have seven consecutive US$100 million blockbusters, the other being Tom Cruise.

Hanks established himself both at the box office and within the industry, as a major Hollywood talent, with the fantasy/comedy Big. Hanks’s choice of roles continued to land him in trouble. He had another string of box-office failures. First, there was The ‘Burbs (1989), then Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and finally The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), which saw Hanks as a greedy Wall Street type who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident.

Hanks again climbed back to the top with his portrayal of an unsuccessful baseball manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Tom admits that his acting in earlier roles was not great and that he has improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks called the work that he’s done since his “modern era of moviemaking … because enough self-discovery has gone on…. My work has become less ‘pretentiously fake.”

Hanks won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech he revealed that his high school drama teacher was gay. The revelation inspired the 1997 film In & Out, starring Kevin Kline as an English Literature teacher who was outed by a former student in a similar way.