11 May,2012 07:41 AM IST | | The Centre stage Team
CS takes a peek into Tom's life:
>> Thomas Jeffrey âTom' Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor, director, producer and writer.
>>u00a0u00a0Tom was born in Concord, California. u00a0While his mother, Janet Marylyn was a hospital worker, his father Amos Mefford Hanks was an itinerant cook.
>>u00a0u00a0Tom told an international magazine, "I was a geek and a spaz. I was a horribly, painfully, terribly shy kid. At the same time, I was the little guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips."
>>u00a0u00a0He studied theater at the Chabot College in Hayward, California. Two years later, he transferred to the California State University, Sacramento.
>>u00a0u00a0Tom made his film debut with He Knows You're Alone (1980).
>>u00a0u00a0Early in 1979, Tom played the lead role in Niccolò Machiavelli's The Mandrake, directed by Daniel Southern. This remains Hanks's only New York stage performance till date.
>>u00a0u00a0The handsome actor turned to directing with his 1996 film That Thing You Do!, also playing the role of a music producer.
>>u00a0u00a0A supporter of NASA's manned space program, he says he wanted to be an astronaut but "didn't have the math."
