>> TOM HANKS
The Da Vinci Code is about to propel Tom Hanks back onto the silver screen where he belongs. David Paul Nixon recounts the career of this acclaimed actor, director and all-round nice guy.
Tom Hanks harks back to the Hollywood tradition of leading men. The solid, regular guy, given to finding himself in extraordinary situations, he has been compared to those classic idols of old, Cary Grant and James Stewart. Hanks, who descends from the same ancestral line as Abraham Lincoln no less, has become one of Hollywood’s heavyweights, racking up an impressive catalogue of awards for a career, both in front of and behind, the camera.
His career in front, however, started off uncomfortably. He played a cross-dressing advertising executive for two seasons of the comedy series Bosom Buddies. Short appearances in comedies like Happy Days and Taxi led to him being discovered by director Ron Howard who auditioned him for the support in mermaid comedy, Splash: Hanks was awarded the lead.
The film was successful. But Hanks wandered into lukewarm waters with a series of mid-’80s comedies such as Bachelor Party, The Money Pit, and TV nostalgia film, Dragnet. Then in 1988 Hanks really did make it big with…well, Big. Hank’s sensitive role as a boy transformed into a 35-year-old man became a family classic and earned him his first Oscar nomination, even though he was third choice to play the part. Imagine what the film would’ve been if top choices De Niro or Harrison Ford had been cast …
He ended the ’80s with more varying comedies. He appeared with Meg Ryan for the first time in Joe Versus the Volcano, and teamed up with a large dog in the quintessentially ’80s comedy, Turner & Hooch.
The ’90s saw him playing against type, firstly in the unpopular Brian De Palma adaptation of The Bonfire of The Vanities. Hanks then put on 30 pounds to play baseball coach Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own. With a team including Madonna and Geena Davis, he started a run of significant box-office successes, continuing with Sleepless in Seattle alongside Meg Ryan.
Hanks finally broke free of his comedy roots when he took on the sensitive role of AIDS victim Andrew Beckett in 1993’s moving Philadelphia. His renaissance became complete with another performance to really tug at the heartstrings: Forrest Gump, the tale of a simple man who believed in the analogy of life as a box of chocolates. These performances gained him two concurrent Best Actor Oscars, the first man to do so since Spencer Tracy back in the ’30s.
The string of success continued with true-life heroism in Apollo 13. He was immortalised as the first fully computer animated lead in the delightful Toy Story. Hanks then expanded his range, stepping behind the camera for nostalgic music comedy, That Thing You Do; he did a stint presenting Saturday Night Live and presented a mini series on space, before returning to more serious, award-winning endeavours.
Teaming up with Spielberg, Hanks re-enacted the brutal realities of war in the gripping Saving Private Ryan, but deciding to vary his roles, he followed up against the less dangerous Meg Ryan once more in You’ve Got Mail. Then he returned as Woody for the even more delightful Toy Story 2.
Inspirational prison drama, The Green Mile and the Robinson Crusoe-esque, Castaway netted Hanks another couple of big hits before he stepped once again behind the camera. Teaming up again with Spielberg, he co-wrote and directed the award-winning mini series, Band of Brothers, a depiction of the men of 101st airborne division throughout the war, a series which benefited from opening commentary from the real life veterans of that very company.
Two more winning performances in Road to Perdition and Catch Me If You Can were followed by a slight damp patch: an ill-advised remake of the classic The Ladykillers, disappointing box-office takings for The Terminal and some mixed reviews for The Polar Express. But this won’t hold the man down. He’s set to play hero Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code, a film destined to put bums on seats as quickly as people rushed out to buy the book.
In Hanks we trust, he is strong and reliable. The acting equivalent of a big hug, we’ll go on loving him for it.
David Paul Nixon