What is it that makes Tom Hanks the NICEST man in Hollywood?
In a world of towering egos and self-gratifying divas . . .
parent and do this,’ he told Vanity Fair. By the time his first marriage ended after nine years with an acrimonious divorce in 1987, Hanks had already encountered the woman who would become the love of his life.
Rita Wilson, an attractive GreekAmerican, was his co- star in the 1985 comedy The Volunteers — although Hanks had fallen for her many years earlier when she played a cheerleader in an episode of the Seventies children’s TV show, The Brady Bunch.
They married in 1988 and are still together, admired as one of Tinseltown’s happiest couples, in spite of recent family crises.
Rita, by whom he has two more sons — Chet and Truman — announced last year she’d had a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery after a breast cancer scare.
She believes she has beaten the disease. Hanks said that all he could do at the time was ‘bow down before the courage of my wife’.
Then there has been heartache in the form of their son Chet’s problems with drug addiction.
Chet, 25, announced in late 2014 he had struggled with substance abuse since he was 16. The aspiring rapper admitted online that he had been smoking crack and snorting so much cocaine ‘I couldn’t even snort it up my nose any more because it was so clogged’. He also confessed to selling cocaine. Chet, who partly blamed the pressures of having such a famous father, insisted later in 2014 he had shaken off his drugs and alcohol addictions after going into rehab.
Within months, however, he was in trouble again when he was accused of smashing up a hotel room near Gatwick Airport, causing £1,200 damage, after a wild night out in London.
His parents also face a lawsuit from a California motorist who claims Chet was under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he rear-ended his car.
The motorist is suing Chet’s parents, as partially responsible, claiming they were aware of his addiction problems and still lent him their car.
Hanks has previously praised his son’s ‘bravery and honesty’ for coming clean about his problems, adding: ‘As a parent you love your kids unconditionally. You support them every step of the way.’
Inevitably, Hollywood has found it almost impossible ever to cast Hanks — who has four new films coming out this year alone — in a truly villainous role. Instead, he has carved out a spectacularly successful career as the ‘ordinary Joe’ — decent, compassionate and good-humoured.
It’s no accident. Hanks said he chose his Oscar-winning role as Forrest Gump, the slow-witted but goodnatured man, because he saw it as the sort of optimistic film that would give ordinary people ‘some hope for their lot and position in life’. The sort of hope he had as a small child sharing a bedroom with his father and brother.
It often comes as an immense shock to fans to discover that actors are nothing like the characters they portray.
Tom Hanks, once again, is the exception to the rule.