Synopses & Reviews
Tom Hanks is the world's greatest actor. Ousting rivals like Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford, his incredible run of success now guarantees him blockbuster status and a reserved seat at the Academy awards. With his everyman good looks, the double-Oscar winner has reduced audiences worldwide to tears and laughter and has achieved that rare balance of critical acclaim and monster box-office success. Yet the enigma of Tom Hanks is that the private man has managed to stay private even though his face is known in every corner of the globe.
Now in this detailed and absorbing biography, David Gardner examines the personality behind the characters of such Oscar-winning blockbusters as Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Saving Private Ryan, and discusses aspects of the actor's life rarely seen by the public, such as:
- His complex childhood and the emotional scars left by his parents' divorce
- How he was affected by the breakdown of his first marriage to his college sweetheart
- How Princess Diana called him after seeing Philadelphia, and their subsequent friendship
- His support for President Clinton and how they fell out during the Lewinsky scandal
With the help of in-depth interviews with Hanks' close friends and family, David Gardner has built up a vivid picture of the man who, with his down-to-earth decency and refusal to accept violent roles, has supplanted traditional, muscle-bound action heroes to become an icon for his time.