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• Uncommon Type: Some Stories Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2017

1.  Uncommon type : some stories LCCN 2017006246 Type of material Book Personal name Hanks, Tom, author. Uniform title Short stories. Selections Main title Uncommon type : some stories / Tom Hanks ; photographs by Kevin Twomey. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2017. Description viii, 405 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm ISBN 9781101946152 (hardcover) CALL NUMBER PS3608.A71522 A6 2017 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• London Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/14/tom-hanks-movies-didnt-make-sense-or-money-interview-short-stories

  Tom Hanks: ‘I’ve made a lot of movies that didn’t make sense – or money’
  In the downtime between movies, Tom Hanks has written his first collection of short stories. He talks books, regrets, Hollywood egos and fat astronauts with Emma Brockes

  • Read Hanks’ story Three Exhausting Weeks, with audio from the author

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  Saturday 14 October 2017 10.00 BST
  Last modified on Saturday 14 October 2017 21.14 BST
  “T
  his is odd,” Tom Hanks says with a shake of his shoulders, the international sign of limbering up. We are in a photographer’s studio in LA, a setting that is as familiar to Hanks as the reason for our meeting is strange. He has written a collection of short stories called Uncommon Type and, balanced on the edge of the sofa, is exploring the novelty of giving an interview without “talking points from the studio”. Hanks-the-actor is cushioned; Hanks-the-author is not, and after humbly asking what other writers I’ve interviewed recently (Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis) barks with incredulous laughter. “Oh, shit,” he says.

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  For those of us who came of age in the late 1980s, Hanks has been around as long as we’ve been going to movies, and at 61 he is bizarrely unchanged: hair marginally greyer, face slightly fuller, but otherwise still Hanks, the boyish energy and cheerful cadences recognisable from three decades on screen. He often starts sentences with “Look, I get it”, or rather, “I-I-I get it”, the mild stutter synonymous with his brand of almost cartoonish affability. “Look, I get it,” he says, pushing his black spectacles up the bridge of his nose, hippy beads slack at his wrist. “I’m a famous guy and I wrote a book and all that, but the reality is, how much does a collection of short stories really warrant attention?”
  This is classic Hanks, appearing to break the fourth wall of his celebrity to let us all in; and if he has survived these years in the spotlight relatively intact, it is through a combination of good luck and this kind of strategy. Hanks gives every impression of being sincere, but I get the feeling he is also rather wily about his famous good humour. As he must know by now, it can make it hard to see anything else.

  What’s the male equivalent of the Hollywood actress considered too old for a lead? Unfairly, I don’t think there is one
  All of which makes Uncommon Type, a set of 17 stories written over many years in the downtime between movies, a more interesting production than it might otherwise have been. There are some good lines and some ambitious themes, but it is mainly of interest as an extension of Hanks the actor; a way of decoding the appeal that has made him worth an estimated $350m. His success as an actor relies less on any of the showier A-list attributes than on what one thinks of as a peculiarly American decency: the urbanity of his Walt Disney in Saving Mr Banks, the quiet heroism of Captain Phillips, the integrity of all those romantic leads – most notably as Sam, the widower in Sleepless In Seattle – in the 1990s, in which he appeared not only as the good guy, but as the good guy with solid self-awareness. He might exude large measures of “aw, shucks” bashfulness, but Hanks has just the right amount of ironic reserve – the suggestion of some darker humour in check – to make the shine on his performance that much brighter.

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  And, of course, the warmth. On the page, as on screen, Hanks is, simply, a lovely person to be around. His characters in Uncommon Type are families disintegrating or coming together, mismatched couples, immigrants looking for a first foothold in New York, people at the point of crisis who tack more towards humour than gloom. In the story Go See Costas, which he based on the real-life tale of his father-in-law Al Wilson’s arrival in the US from Greece, a penniless immigrant tries to score work at a diner. In the opening story, Three Exhausting Weeks, a dating couple size each other up via a lot of perky dialogue. In Who’s Who, an aspiring actor who once gazed dumbfounded at the crowds in New York and asked herself “Where is everyone going?” comes to the realisation that “Everyone was going everywhere”, one of the best open-ended lines of the book.
  “I just kept asking questions,” Hanks says. “Like, ‘Well, how long should they be?’ My editor would say, ‘Well, however long they are.’ ‘OK, how many do you want?’ ‘Well, you know, 15 would be good.’” It turns out Hanks has almost no vanity as a writer. “Look,” he says, “in my day job I provide the raw material and someone else makes all the decisions; the order, the editing, the lighting. So I don’t have any problems with someone coming in saying, ‘I think it should be like this.’ About six stories in, my editor said, ‘You’re always writing about people who are stumbling upon somebody, that becomes part of their world.’ I thought, I guess I am. Son of a gun.”
  The best story by a mile is A Special Weekend, which chronicles 48 hours in the life of a boy called Kenny, shuttling between divorced parents. Hanks’ own parents split up when he was very young and he was raised mainly by his father, a jobbing cook, and a series of stepmothers. In the story, Hanks captures the child’s-eye view of the world with pitch-perfect accuracy, integrating the slow external movement of time with the vast internal journeys children make at that age, and as a writing project it nails perhaps the hardest thing of all: a story in which nothing and everything happens.

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  Tom Hanks with his wife, Rita Wilson, at the 2017 Tribeca film festival. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
  “I think it ends up being the need for connectedness,” he says of his thematic interests. “Not just humankind, but also the human condition. Again and again, we’re searching for that person who’s a magic key for us, makes us feel connected, secure, part of something bigger than ourselves. Without it, the world ain’t any fun.”
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  For Hanks, that person has, for the past 30 years, been the actor Rita Wilson, his wife and the mother of his two youngest children, Chet and Truman, now in their 20s. (Colin and Elizabeth, Hanks’ children by his first wife, Samantha Lewes, are in their 30s.) Hanks is famously uxorious, and his reliability as an actor is something that, from his first marriage at the age of 21, he has pegged to the stability of his home life. He likes to be regular in his habits, moderate in his passions and, it turns out, modest in his assessment of what it is he does. “As an actor, I think your job is to show up on time. Crazy important to show up on time.”
  That’s really right up there? “Huge. It’s the first lesson I learned as a professional actor. You must. Show up. On time.” He beats his hand in time on the sofa. (In fact, today Hanks startled everyone by arriving at the studio 30 minutes early. “A fluke of traffic,” he says, but it’s an indication, perhaps, of a certain uptight underlay to the “hey, man” buoyancy of his style.) “Because, if you don’t, you don’t have the time. It’s as simple as that. Before the sun goes down, or just to get it right; to get everybody on the same page, momentum-wise. If you’re late, momentum can be lost.”
  He can’t bear to look back on his work. I mention that Saving Private Ryan, the 1998 movie directed by Steven Spielberg in which Hanks plays a noble squad leader on a mission to save a mother’s last surviving son, was on TV the night before.
  “OK, well, I can walk you through that [scene by scene]: horrible, terrible, should’ve done something else. That worked out. I don’t even remember doing that, so that’s a good sign. But they [his films] all end up just being these lingering examples of individual failures, somehow. Here’s what I’ve learned: the only thing you can do is to make it different. OK, you’re going to shoot something and it’s going to take 47 takes? In the course of those 47 takes, you’ll be able to do it different, and somewhere in the course of those 47 takes is the way it needs to be.”
  ***

  If you being a dick on set means you’re going to encroach upon my process, there’ll be a slug fest in the parking lot
  Goofballs don’t age the way other leading men do. Bruce Willis looks craggy and ancient these days. John Travolta is stretched tight as a drum. Hanks, on the other hand, an actor for whom funny was always more important than buff, is still recognisable as the guy we love – although, of course, ageing is less of an issue for all of these men than it is for their female counterparts. What’s the male equivalent of the Hollywood actress considered too old for a lead?
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  “Unfairly, I don’t think there is one.”
  You don’t age out of some genres?
  “No. But here’s what you can do: you can fat yourself out. If you’re fat, you can’t play an astronaut. Take a look at the guys who are still working; they’re in really good shape. Otherwise, they become character guys. So that’s possible. But it’s not the same as with women. With women, the biggest problem is that there’s usually a fraction of women in a movie compared with the number of men. There’s only ever one girl in an action movie, and it’s like, ‘Hi, I’m mysterious, but hot.’ That is literally the template for an awful lot of women in film. Television is not the same – it’s quite diverse – but in the commerce of motion pictures, it’s just not fair.”
  We are speaking a few weeks before the Harvey Weinstein allegations emerge. Hanks has never worked with Weinstein, but this week told the New York Times: “It all just sort of fits, doesn’t it?... You can’t buy, ‘Oh, well, I grew up in the 60s and 70s and so therefore...’ I did, too.”
  Hanks cites Nora Ephron as an exception in the film business: “She refused to buy into that shit.” The late writer and director worked with Hanks on Sleepless In Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, and was rehearsing her Broadway play Lucky Guy when she died in 2012. They were great pals, and Hanks dedicates Uncommon Type to her.
  “Nora was not a soft woman,” he says, smiling. “You did not want to cross her. Nora said, ‘Never turn down a front row seat for human folly.’ And I have turned down a lot of those front row seats, but human behaviour is constantly entertaining. Watching humans behave in one way results in a comedy, and in another way a tragedy, but it ends up being a constant fascination. Why in the world do we do what we do, and how does someone get to that place where they think that’s important? The people that are dicks in showbiz, I always say to them: ‘Why are you in this?’ I’m in it because there’s nothing more fun than doing this. This is like going to high school and finding out you can take a drama class instead of calculus. Sign me up!”

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  With Meg Ryan and Nora Ephron at the 1998 premiere of You’ve Got Mail. Photograph: Getty Images
  Well, they’re in it for the money, no?
  “The money can be good. But after that, man, you just want more money. There’s always another level of mammon that you require in order to keep yourself happy. Are you in it for power? To do what? To have a parking place right next to your trailer? If those are the talismans, after a while none of it’s going to be enough.”
  The business of handling obnoxious people on set is one about which, along with everything else, Hanks appears to be sanguine. “I learned a long time ago that you don’t have to like the people you work with,” he says. “But you have to respect their process. If someone wants to be a dick, it’s OK. Unless that dickishness is power play, because it’s fun to beat up on underlings. Then you got to take them off to the side and have a conversation.”

  I avoided the pitfalls. I did the same degree of social influencing drugs as anybody else, but it didn’t become a habit
  The idea of being set straight by Hanks is vaguely terrifying, like being told off by a judge. “If it’s a dickishness that means everybody else doesn’t get to work at their best level – if you being a dick means you’re going to encroach upon my process, there’ll be a slug fest in the parking lot. There will be words exchanged. And I’ve worked with men and women where I’m like, ‘Are we going to have to go through this again?’ And, well, yes, because that’s what’s called for. On rare occasions, people are insane – but those are really rare.”
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  His own sanity is something he puts down to good decision-making and good luck. Certainly he didn’t come by it during childhood. Hanks talks about his early years with a kind of bleak whimsy, the constant moving around from town to town in California, the disruption of his parents’ new partners. When I ask if his baseline cheerfulness is something he might have learned from either of his parents, he bursts into laughter.
  “No. Dear lord. My parents were so busy with all their own problems, I don’t think they were even aware of the fact that sometimes we were in the house.” His father was a cook who hated cooking. His mother was someone who for many years he saw somewhat infrequently. In Pollyanna-ish style, Hanks has tried to salvage good things from this experience, for example, “the few times I’ve been afraid of a new environment, I got over it. And once you learn that it might be bad for a while, then you’re OK.” You’re an optimist, I suggest, and while Hanks allows this to be the case, he looks vaguely as if I have accused him of something. “I think the kneejerk reaction is that because you’re optimistic, you’re naive. Or that, because you’re essentially cheerful, you’re ignoring the pain of the real things that are going on. And that’s just not the case. I weigh everything. But I can’t help it that I wake up in the morning and think: what good thing is going to come around?”

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  Tom Hanks, photographed in Los Angeles, September 2017, by Chris Buck for the Guardian
  I wondered whether part of the reason Hanks wrote Uncommon Type was that, after 30 solid years of success at the box office – the combined receipts of his movies is around $8bn, and he has won two Oscars (for Forrest Gump and Philadelphia), multiple Golden Globes and a Tony nomination for Lucky Guy – he needed a new challenge. “Not at all,” he says. “If you’re looking back, yeah, shoot. I got it. That’s all fine. But that’s not the reason I did this.”
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  It’s not a question of getting sucked into the competitive horse race, either. If he hadn’t married and had kids early, Hanks says, he might have had a tougher time handling his fame. These days, 21 seems very young to have a family, and I ask him if, when he looks at his own 21-year-old son and imagines him becoming a father, his mind boggles. “Yeah,” he says. “I had to stop telling them, ‘You know what I had when I was your age? I had your older brother!’ It was young. Other than moments of total terror, what it provided me with was a nut that I had to provide: there’s three of us, now, and I need x numbers of dollars in order for us, literally, to survive.”
  It was a limitation he found freeing. “I need to make enough to be able to go to the dentist and fix my car, and as soon as I can get on a decent dental plan, then the rest is the high country. And that’s what life was like. I avoided all the parties, the pitfalls. I mean, I did the same degree of social influencing drugs that anybody else did, but it didn’t become a habit, and it didn’t become a reason to live.”
  He wasn’t resentful about having to stay in and provide? “No. I always had more fun just sitting around talking to people than going out. Look, I was ridiculously fortunate, but there was never a plethora of riches and luxury. What I was was a working guy. I made my nut. Then you rethink what that nut is. Slowly, you move along. I was the most naive and inexperienced and stupid 35-year-old that ever was, but at the time, the kids’ mom and I had restrictions upon us that meant we could not spin out of control.” He thinks for a moment. “If we did, shame on us.”
  The year that Hanks and Lewes divorced, 1987, was also the beginning of his great run of success. A year later, he made Big, still the movie for which many of us love him best, and after that the hits came so thick and fast that, after marrying Wilson in 1988, his second family had a very different experience from his first. “I talk about this with my [older] kids all the time,” he says. “They remember when life was normal. When we lived in standard houses and I sometimes had work or not. And there was not the ballyhoo that goes along with everything. My younger kids have always had this other guy who was their dad.”

  I actually like getting older. I always felt like I had a big ass and a squeaky voice when I was growing up
  The other guy is Hanks from his mid-30s onwards, and he tries hard to own his privilege. “Look, I’m rich.” He laughs. “I’m rich.” He is also careful with money. “I read a long time ago that you can’t have debt. If you’re in debt, you can’t say no. You have to have what David Niven called fuck-you money. So, the nut is what do you need in order to live right now, and that’s finite. My money’s in the bank, man. My money’s safe. I have all the groovy accoutrements that go along with being a celebrity, and it’s really great, but the nut stays where it is. Our nut is: if it stops tomorrow, we’ll be fine.”
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  He and Wilson tried to raise their kids in as normal an environment as possible. “I would say we lived in a relatively modest home until all the kids were grown up. I say relatively; if you saw the house, you would – relatively modest for somebody who does what I do for a living, and that still takes in the same security concerns. We didn’t move until they were older, and that was a conscious decision. You don’t want to fuck up the kids because, hey, guess what, we have a new boat in the driveway. The money was great, but both Rita and I have communicated to our kids that we really love what we do. We’re doing it for the sheer-ass pleasure.”
  What about the movies that failed? “Oh, I’d go through horrible doldrums. I’ve made an awful lot of movies that didn’t make any sense, and didn’t make any money, but that doesn’t alter the work that goes into it, or even what your opinion of it is.”
  Such as? “Like, I made a movie that altered my entire consciousness – Cloud Atlas – I thought, jeez, this thing is so fab; it’s the only movie I’ve been in that I’ve seen more than twice. And it didn’t do any business. And there’s nothing you can do about it. And you must allow yourself a week of thinking, jeez, I’m so bummed out. But that’s not the only reason to do it. It’s lovely when it all works and you get ballyhooed. But if it’s 50/50, you’re way ahead of the game. In reality, I think it’s more like 80/20; 80% of what you do doesn’t work.”
  Hanks has no qualms about being on the other side of 60. “I actually like getting older. I always felt like I had a big ass and a squeaky voice when I was growing up.” There were other hard things. “I will tell you, type 2 diabetes was a thing. I just wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t putting good stuff into the machine. And my doctor said, congratulations, you idiot, you now have type 2 diabetes. It’s not like you automatically change your behaviours, but that was a major signpost that said ‘This is optional, man. These are choices. And if you want to, go ahead. But: consequences. Dig it?’”

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  With his actor son Colin Hanks. Photograph: PA
  He and Wilson have always been relatively abstemious. “In the former firmament of Hollywood, everyone got shitfaced at 5pm. Everybody drank. We just didn’t do that.” And he doesn’t consider the longevity of their marriage strange. Everyone they know is married, Hanks says; that’s just how they hang out, with other married couples who’ve been together as long as they have. The biggest risk to their equilibrium right now isn’t marital strife, but Trump. “Every dinner party you have falls into this black hole of conversation. How long can we hold off? It’s such a huge, magnificent mess right now. Had Hillary Clinton been elected, and I voted for her, I think we’d be in some other form of hideous mess. The nature of discourse has been ‘us’ versus ‘them’ for some time and I think there was a massive amount of fatigue from the Bush-Clinton continuum.”
  Was his faith in the American people damaged by the election of Trump?
  “Faith in the American people?” He gives me a very Hanksian look, amused in a wry, senatorial way. “We still have this thing called the constitution. Even though it seems as though there are people hellbent on altering it, or bending it, or not living up to the oaths of protecting and defending the constitution, there are an equal number who are strapping on their brass knuckles.”
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  In different circumstances, I suggest, he might have been a Trump voter; what if he’d been a 61-year-old unemployed actor who’d never had a good part in his life? “Yeah, and if I’d been earlier, I could’ve died in Vietnam. I grew up thinking, hey, it’ll work out; hey, who cares? Don’t plan too much, just go ahead and do it. But look, I’m white. So, right then and there, I can drive across the country by myself in 1977 without any difficulties. I can walk into any store. The ongoing test is one of empathy. You always have to take into account how shitty a deal a person has had, along with how many opportunities they have squandered.”
  Hanks is so measured, so committed to the process of rationalisation that it is impossible to imagine him losing his temper. How does he fight?
  “Well,” he says, and thinks for a moment. “When I get pissed off, it’s emotional. I can get pretty complainy. And then syntax is of major importance. If you write this story and I call you on the phone and the first thing I say is, ‘Let me get this straight.’” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s bad news,” he says, and dispenses the broadest of smiles.
  • Tom Hanks’ Uncommon Type is published next week by William Heinemann at £16.99. To order a copy for £9.99, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846

• BookBrowse - https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/3006/tom-hanks

  An interview with Tom Hanks
  A conversation with Tom Hanks, author of Uncommon Type
  Typewriters are in each of your stories. When did you get your ?rst?

  In the summer of 1978 I traded in my worthless 1970s typewriter for a Hermes 2000 made in the 1950s. I adapted my experience into the story "These Are the Meditations of My Heart."

  What, for you, is the difference between sitting at a typewriter to write and sitting at a computer to write?

  A typewriter is for musing. And letters. A computer is for work. And documents.

  When did you first start writing?

  I've been writing on the record, meaning for pay, attaching my name to a project, and getting a wealth of criticism around the office, since the screenplay for That Thing You Do! in 1995.

  What is one book you wish you had written? Why?

  Manchester's The Glory and the Dream, as he captured the spine of our modern history from the Bonus March to Vietnam in all its blemishes, hubris, and humanity.

  Is there a line in your own book that you're most proud of having written?

  I'm very proud of the idiocy and authenticity of this section from "A Junket in the City of Light":
  14:50 – 15:00 – Radio interview with TSR-1
  15:05 – 15:15 – Radio interview with RTF-3
  15:20 – 15:30 – Radio interview with FRT-2

  How would you describe your collection of short stories?

  The stories are about the odd but undeniable connection shared in the Human Condition – that our lives depend on meeting up with each other.

  How would you describe the process of writing it?

  One damn thing after another, moments of crazy visions and lagging fingers that can't type fast enough to keep up with the too-fleeting images in my brain. And, pacing around.

  What was the best advice you received while writing? From who?

  Keep writing. From one E.A. Hanks (a relation). Just keep writing.

  How long have you been working on this project?

  About three years. One story at a time. Though I wrote "Stay with Us" as an unfilmed screenplay in the 1990s.

  How did it all begin?

  A few weeks after "Alan Bean Plus Four" ran, the offer came in from Penguin or Random House or Scooby Doo's Book Company, whatever it is called. I was flummoxed by the idea of a collection until I came up with putting a typewriter in every story. Then out they came, over years, from a single notecard with nothing but titles typed on it.

  A few of the stories in your collection include reoccurring characters —Hank Fiset, MDash, Steve Wong. Was there anything about these characters in particular that made you keep coming back to them?

  I read Three Dot columnists like Herb Caen in the SF Chronicle and played Mike McAlary in Nora Ephron's play. Ernie Pyle was a huge influence when I discovered his stuff in books like Ernie Pyle in London. I wanted to have the four characters like MDash, et al to run through the collection so I'd have contemporary stories in the mix.

  Screenplay. Short story. Novel. Which do you prefer to read? Why?

  Screenplays are work to read, like blueprints for buildings that are not yet built. Some may never see the light of day. Short stories are like ballgames – they play out in a certain amount of time and are all unpredictable. I don't read novels as much as non-fiction. I dig deep into history, or novels that are set in history, like Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow.

  What do you want to write next?

  I. Have. No. Idea. Leave me alone!
  Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

• CBS News - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-hanks-uncommon-type/

  October 15, 2017, 9:32 AM
  Tom Hanks: Actor, typist
  8 Comment Share Tweet Stumble Email
  Classic typewriters figure in a new book of stories written by Tom Hanks. Yes, THAT Tom Hanks. In fact, you might say typewriters play a supporting role in his life, as Lee Cowan saw first-hand: 
  There aren't a lot of places left in our touch screen world, where an old typewriter can find respect.
  But Gramercy Typewriter in New York City isn't just any place.
  Paul Schweitzer and his son, Justin, still sell and service these writers' tools of old. 
  CBS News' Morley Safer brought his typewriter here before he passed -- at least, so says the index card on file. After all, there are no computers here. 

  Tom Hanks puts a Smith Corona Clipper through its paces, at Gramercy Typewriter Company in New York City. CBS News
  But as repeat customers go, there are few who beat Tom Hanks.
  "That's a dense, dense, solid, solid machine," he said, testing one out.  "Look at that, isn't that a fine, manly, manly typewriter!"
  Typewriters are this Oscar-winner's vice, his not-so-guilty pleasure. ("Beautiful knobs!")  He has a personal collection of more than a hundred -- nearly every style, make and year.
  Funny that a guy who's name is synonymous with "You've Got Mail" loves something even more vintage than AOL itself.
  "There's a percussive quality to writing sometimes, you know?" he said.
  "Feels like you're doing something, right?" noted Cowan.
  "If the drums are the backbone of any rock and roll band, the sound of a typewriter is the sound of productivity."

  Knopf
  They intrigue him so much, Hanks even made typewriters the supporting characters in his very first book, a collection of short stories fittingly titled "Uncommon Type" (Knopf).
  "Did you intend to weave a typewriter into each story? Or did that just sort of happen?" asked Cowan.
  "Yeah, that was on purpose," Hanks replied. "It helped me formulate each story."
  "Because each typewriter had sort of a personality?"
  "Yeah, yeah, Exactly."
  His short stories -- 17 in all - are not about typewriters, nor are they really about Tom Hanks, although you may catch glimpses of him, including his life growing up in a fractured home.
  "When I was 10 years old, both my parents had already been married three times, and I'd lived in 10 different houses," he said. "And I thought of it as kind of like a cool adventure. I was confused a lot by why it happened. We just were moving; we just had new people in our lives. We didn't know why! They were good people!
  "In some ways it's like I'm going back and looking at those times, for me and my siblings, and trying to put context on the confusion."
  Besides his own life, Hanks also drew inspiration from his big-screen life, too. You won't find Private Ryan in his book, but you will find two World War II Army buddies who reconnect every year on Christmas Eve.

  Actor-author Tom Hanks. CBS News
  "The third act of these guys' lives are things that I always wondered about," Hanks said. "And I always thought, how did these guys set up the electric trains around the Christmas tree in 1954? How did they do that?"
  He wondered, too, about Jim Lovell, the astronaut he played in "Apollo 13," and what it must have felt like to feel the pull of the Moon's gravity instead of the Earth's.
  "There is a tick of a clock," Hanks said. "There's a moment that goes like this (snaps) when you leave one and begin the other. We all cross some brand of barrier like that -- a river, a boundary, an event, that is our own personal Rubicon."
  Despite that vivid description, Hanks wasn't at all sure that he had a book in him.
  "As far as the solitary, hard labor of being a writer, I think I thought there was some kind of trick to it, that I would never be able to master," he said. "Something that was more than just the one-damn-thing-after-another of writing. That's the beast, and you just keep plowing away at it."
  "But that feeling when you do finish a sentence or a paragraph and you know you've gotten it, is great," said Cowan.
  "Well, I can't say I ever, like, stopped once, said 'Black Jack!' I never necessarily felt that way. You can control a certain amount of your fate in the direction that it goes in, but there's also times when you just throw yourself up to the void and hope, you know, some fairy dust is sprinkled upon your efforts."
  "Are you scared?"
  "Uh, no, uh … yeah (laughs)."

  Typewriters, at the Gramercy Typewriter Company in New York City.  CBS News
  The first thing he remembers writing, other than a script, was a farewell to his longtime make-up artist, Danny Striepeke.
  "He was 75, and he called me up and he said, 'Kid, I gotta tell you. I want you to be the first to know. I'm done. And I don't mean done, I mean done done!'"
  Striepeke, a 40-veteran of Hollywood, had transformed Hanks into everything from a bedraggled castaway, to a young man named Forrest. But when it came to writing his appreciation of Striepeke, Hanks asked for help from his friend, the late writer-director Nora Ephron.
  "I sent it to her and I said, 'Is this anything? Is this a thing?'" he recalled. "And she said, 'Yes, it's definitely a thing. But it lacks a voice.'"
  "Ouch!" said Cowan.
  "And I had no idea what that meant. She says, 'There's something here, but it's got no DNA to it.'"
  He kept writing and re-writing, a skill he jokes he learned from watching Johnny Carson. "Kirk Douglas was on 'The Tonight Show,' talking about his memoir, ['The Ragman's Son]. And Johnny Carson asked Kirk Douglas, 'So how did you write?' 'Well, you know Johnny, the secret of writing is re-writing!' And I thought, 'Oh, I'm getting a literature lesson from Kirk Douglas!'"
  He eventually got his appreciation of Striepeke published in The New York Times, in 2006.
  The Man Who Aged Me by Tom Hanks (nytimes.com)
  The book, however, was a different story. It took him years to pound out, writing on planes, on movie sets and in hotels. His first public outing for a short story was in The New Yorker.
  Alan Bean Plus Four by Tom Hanks (thenewyorker.com)
  The response seemed good enough to keep on writing in that Hanksian voice of his.     
  From "A Special Weekend":
  In the driveway was an actual sports car, red, a two-seater, with wire wheels. ... The wood paneling was like furniture. The seats smelled like leather baseball mitts. The red circle in the middle of the steering wheel said FIAT. (laughs) "That's right -- FIAT!"
  His love of typewriters inspired his writing more than it facilitated it. He wrote his book, after all, on a computer. He's not an idiot.
  That said, there's an infectious quality to this hobby that is hard to resist.
  "If you wanted the perfect typewriter that would last forever, that would be a great conversation piece, I'd say get the Smith Corona Clipper," Hanks said. "That will be as satisfying a typing experience as you will ever have."
  Turns out he's as good a typewriter salesman as an actor; Cowan bought it. Hanks then sat down and wrote him a "Congratulations New Owner" note.

  CBS News
  From actor to author, Tom Hanks seems pretty comfortable in his new role, which may mean there's more ahead:
  "If I see enough stories that are around, and start asking enough questions about where it would go, I hope to write more." 

• Toronto Star - https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2017/10/14/tom-hanks-typecasts-himself-in-first-book-of-fiction.html

  Tom Hanks typecasts himself in first book of fiction
  Oscar-winning actor pays tribute to America and vintage typewriters in his first book of short stories, Uncommon Type.

  Tom Hanks, author of Uncommon Type, Knopf.  (Austin Hargrave)  

  Tom Hanks has a collection of typewriters that he uses throughout his first collection of short stories, Uncommon Type. Here he is seen in Doug Nichol's film California Typewriter.  (Hot Docs)  

  Uncommon Type, Tom Hanks, Knopf Canada, 416 pages, $32.  (Knopf Canada)  

  Tom Hanks, author of Uncommon Type, Knopf.  (Austin Hargrave)  

  Tom Hanks has a collection of typewriters that he uses throughout his first collection of short stories, Uncommon Type. Here he is seen in Doug Nichol's film California Typewriter.  (Hot Docs)  

  By Deborah DundasBooks
  Sat., Oct. 14, 2017

  Tom Hanks has helped to define the mythology of America. As the unwitting revolutionary Forrest Gump, or Saving Private Ryan’s war hero Captain Miller, Philadelphia’s AIDS activist Andrew Beckett or Apollo 13’s Jim Lovell, his face is one of the most famous on the silver screen and his characters some of the most memorable.
  And so that sensibility is echoed in the two-time Oscar-winning actor’s first book of short stories, Uncommon Type, which plays on the themes Hanks has explored in many of his films.
  When you pick up this book, you’ll notice his stories have an unmistakable Hanksian feel. The themes are wide-ranging — and he clearly loves America while gently satirizing it. You can hear his soothing voice of reason as you read every sentence. Even certain words (“Yowza!”) seem like they were made to be spoken by Hanks himself. His characters, too, like the crotchety newspaper columnist Hank Fiset.
  Sure enough, in an interview with the Star, Hanks broke out into a cranky old man’s voice to imitate the character: “Who needs that? I can get a great hot dog right here in town!”
  The late screenwriter Nora Ephron, who directed him in You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, was the one who first really encouraged him to write, Hanks says, and Uncommon Type is dedicated to her as well as to his family.
  “She would read it over and she would give very, very specific advice, as in, ‘I don’t know what you mean here’ and ‘This paragraph should not be here,’” Hank says. “But she would also just say to me, ‘Voice, voice, voice. What voice are you using? What is your voice?’”
  The voice he used in his first short story “Alan Bean Plus Four,” about a group of friends who go to the moon, got him published in The New Yorker in 2014. After that, he says, he was contacted by Penguin Random House, asking whether he had any more stories.
  “I said no. And they said, ‘If you’d like to, you want to try some?’ and I said ‘Well, okay, I guess.’”

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  And so he started writing. He already had some characters in his head; he wrote down titles and themes as they came to him, winding up with 17 stories in all.
  The other thing you’ll notice about this book is the immediate connection with typewriters — a conceit Hanks uses to link the stories. Each begins with a photo of a typewriter from Hanks’s own collection, taken by the award-winning photographer Kevin Twomey. Each story also mentions a typewriter — whether in general terms or a specific model; sometimes in passing and sometimes at the centre of the tale.

  Tom Hanks has a collection of typewriters that he uses throughout his first collection of short stories, Uncommon Type. Here he is seen in Doug Nichol's film California Typewriter.
  “These Are the Meditations of my Heart,” for example, is a story that comes up quite a few times in our conversation. It’s about an unnamed woman enduring a break-up and aspiring to a more minimalist life, who decides to buy a toy typewriter at a church sale. The keys stick; she takes it for repair but ends up buying a better one instead. Once she starts writing she comes to a realization.
  “I want my yet-to-be-conceived children to someday read the meditations of my heart,” she says.
  It’s an optimistic end to a story filled with heartbreak and images of rust and brokenness. “You are seeking permanence,” the old typewriter salesman tells her.
  This tale, and others in the book, speaks to Hanks’s relationship with typewriters — and how he acquired his first good model, the Hermes 2000. He’s a keen collector and counts 25 or so in his office alone as we’re on the phone.
  “When you are putting something down . . . you are literally stamping ink into the fibres of paper. And outside of chiseling it in stone, it’s about the second best way in order to make something last forever,” he says.
  “That’s not the first reason you want to put it down on paper, but it’s a fact. The test is: are we still reading Metamora; or The Last of the Wampanoags here in the year 2017? I’m not sure we are but that was the real title of a book from a long time ago. But we might still every now and again be reading Nevil Shute or someone like P.G. Wodehouse or H.G. Wells.”
  That sense of permanence washes through Hanks’s stories; it verges often on nostalgia, like a Norman Rockwell painting capturing a certain type of American scene, but with a bit more edge. There’s a reference to TV dinner trays that have rusted; a son who watches his mother fly away in a plane without him; marriages that don’t last; good times long passed; and hard work and dreams in between.
  His stories jump here and there, between times — remembering a World War II battle in “Christmas Eve 1953,” to looking into the future and going to the moon in “Alan Bean Plus Four” — and genres. There are bits of science fiction, traditional narrative, magic realism.

  Uncommon Type, Tom Hanks, Knopf Canada, 416 pages, $32.
  Hanks doesn’t feel restricted by genre. “You take a look at everything that comes down the pipe by way of media and popular entertainment. You think you’re going to be seeing a story about people growing up hardscrabble in Kansas and it turns into a ghost story about ancient settlers or something . . . whatever mode of storytelling helps you explore the theme and make your point, well, it’s open game.”
  Despite his love for the aesthetic of a typewriter, he didn’t write his book on one. Well, not all of it.
  “Hell, no, that would be impossible!” He did use a typewriter for the first four pages of the first draft of “A Month on Greene Street,” he said, because he had some momentum going. “But once I started getting involved in the mechanics of the story itself and the real process, you can’t do that on a typewriter. You have to go to the laptop.”
  Although the laptop does nag. With a typewriter “there’s no blinking cursor that is just reminding you again and again that you haven’t done anything, you haven’t said anything,” Hanks says. “You’re also getting . . . a sensory manifestation of your progress. There is a sound to typing that comes specifically from the manual typewriter. It is a percussive beat and when it starts going faster you hear it and you get involved in it like it’s rock ’n’ roll music, a rock ’n’ roll record or something like that. And you roll along. And sometimes what is required in the process is dead silence, in which case there’s no buzzing, there is no sound, there is no sight other than what almost always is a very beautiful work of engineering.”
  Either way, Hanks figures the luckiest person in these stories is the guy “who dabbles in real estate. His mom died so he doesn’t really have to have a job anymore . . . he’s driving an old car but there’s a level of contentment.”
  A level of contentment he believes people yearn for in this era where “we’re constantly being sold something that we’re supposed to want, or being shown lives that other people are leading and we’re not.
  “I’m the kind of guy like, hey, if you can afford takeout Chinese food and you always have half a tank of gas, I think you’re doing okay.”

• New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/books/review/tom-hanks-by-the-book.html

  Tom Hanks: By the Book
  OCT. 13, 2017
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  Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
  Tom Hanks, the actor, producer, director and author of a new story collection, “Uncommon Type,” has no desire to read novels of murder and conspiracy.
  What books are on your nightstand now?
  “Blue Mars” and “Green Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson; “April 1865” by Jay Winik; James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son.”
  What’s the last great book you read?
  Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens.” That fellow connected an awful lot of dots in that work. I thought the book would be a dense read, a slog, with a struggle for my brain on every page. I had a highlighter ready to mark the more pavement-thick paragraphs I’d have to go back and re-ponder. Instead, I flew through it like it was a nonfiction “The Thorn Birds.” Does that mean I’m getting smarter?
  What influences your decisions about which books to read? Word of mouth, reviews, a trusted friend? Do you have fellow readers in Hollywood you regular trade recommendations with?
  I only care about the subject. What do I know, and how little do I know, and is there more I want to know? That, and certain authors who never let me down: Sarah Vowell, Ada Calhoun, Bill Bryson, William Manchester, Dave Eggers. The great David McCullough.
  Continue reading the main story
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  I stack up the books, three columns six or eight books at a time, and just wear that pile down. And, when someone tells me they finally read a book they could never crack, I take a whack out of a sense of a challenge. That’s how I finally read “Moby-Dick,” the book everyone pretends to know …
  What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
  This distillation of all that Buddhism says: “The person who craves nothing cannot suffer.” From Harari and “Sapiens.” That made me say “eek”, as there is nothing in there about God, or the indifferent universe, or our need to be part of a greater connected humanity. That is as simple as “if you don’t buy it you will never need it.” Turns out that Buddha was a sharpie.
  If you could play one fictional character from a novel on stage or screen, who would it be and why? And one real-life figure you first encountered in a work of nonfiction?
  I still am young enough to play Dean Reed, the American who, starting in the 1960s, was considered to be a big American singing star, but only to the Communist world. He was famous in the Soviet Union and East Germany and all over the Communist world. He was an actor, made movies, and was both beloved (by many) and dismissed (by many), was crazy-making good-looking and traveled in the upper echelons of the red world. That life, and all that attention, made for an inevitable tragedy by the 1980s. But those that loved him as a friend loved him very much.
  In the fiction world, I’d like a whack at James Ellroy’s Lloyd Hopkins character — a cop who is such a genius the only work for him is police work. He is so smart and off-world in his abilities, the L.A.P.D. just sort of leaves him to poke around. A brilliant creation from the oh-so-complicated typing of Ellroy.
  You’ve already starred in many movie adaptations of novels. Among those, which source material was your favorite?
  “The Green Mile” was a perfect adaptation from Stephen King. The screenplay folded into the six novellas hand in glove. “Forrest Gump” was a high-wire interpretation of Winston Groom’s book. And “Cloud Atlas,” for me, reached the high country — so different in form and function from the Mitchell book, but exact in every detail nonetheless.
  Which classic novel did you recently read for the first time?
  In 2011 I finally made it all the way from “Call me Ishmael” to “It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.”
  Which novelists do you especially enjoy reading?
  Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, Amor Towles, John Scalzi.
  What do you look for in a novel?
  Authenticity. I want to see the world accurately, and history examined is search of the detail of truth.
  You just wrote your first collection of short fiction. Which short story writers do you most admire? What makes for a great short story?
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  The Cheever stories, the Vonnegut stories, the Salinger stories (especially those I had to find online, before he became THAT Salinger). Bukowski wrote short stories that were prose poems, yet I read them as the vignettes of life that, to me, rate as full-blown short stories.
  What’s the best thing you’ve ever read about typewriters?
  Can’t say I’ve ever read about a typewriter, but I did see one that made me sit up and take notice. Ray Milland walking up Third avenue with his portable typewriter, looking for a pawn broker so he can hock it to buy alcohol. The typewriter was valuable to him so he could feed his addiction, but he was a writer! He was going to go all O. Henry and sell the tool of his trade, like a samurai warrior trading in his sword for a cheap blade and a jug of sake. He was committing creative career suicide. As a writer, he had only his mind and his typewriter, the latter had value but was made worthless without the former. He had lost his soul and had no more use for his typewriter — and it was a beauty!!
  What’s the last book that made you laugh?
  Ada Calhoun’s “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give.” I mean, underlining and yellow marker bust-out laughs.
  The last book to make you cry?
  “Hue 1968,” by Mark Bowden. Dear God, the horrors and the waste. And I know some of the people who were there …
  The last book that made you furious?
  James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” Nothing seems to have changed. He tells the story of going to the NYC Public Library on Fifth Avenue when he was 10. A cop — as large an authority figure in the world to a 10-year-old — said to him as he was crossing the avenue, “Why don’t you people stay in Harlem where you belong.” Heart-breaking and maddening …
  Which genres do you avoid?
  Novels of murder and conspiracy.
  How do you like to read? Paper or electronic? One book at a time or several simultaneously? Morning or night?
  Paper. One at a time. Anytime of day.
  What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
  Maeve Binchy! I love her stories and have since “Light a Penny Candle.”
  We have to ask: What was the most interesting thing you learned about the book world while working on “You’ve Got Mail”?
  That selling coffee in bookstores hooks buyers on a legal, addictive stimulant.
  What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?
  I was not a reader until junior high school when I read “Airport” and “Wheels” and “Hotel” by Arthur Hailey.
  If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
  “The Glory and the Dream” by William Manchester.
  You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
  David McCullough. Nora Ephron. Bill Bryson.
  Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
  I just gave up on a book about the Buffalo World’s fair and the Rainbow City as it did not have enough detail for me.
  Who would you want to write your life story?
  No one. That’s my IP.
  What do you plan to read next?
  “Homo Deus” by Harari.

• Morning Edition, NPR - http://www.npr.org/2017/10/16/557636219/tom-hanks-is-obsessed-with-typewriters-so-he-wrote-a-book-about-them

  < Tom Hanks Is Obsessed With Typewriters (So He Wrote A Book About Them) October 16, 20174:53 AM ET Listen· 7:19 7:19 Queue Download Embed Facebook Twitter Email DAVID GREENE, HOST: Here is a guy who is crazy - just crazy about typewriters. TOM HANKS: I have too many typewriters, David. You want one. I should have brought one for you and the staff... GREENE: (Laughter) Next time. HANKS: ...Just to help out, man. I don't want these to be a burden to my children when I kick the bucket. I don't want them to say, what are we gonna do with dad's typewriters? GREENE: So that is, of course, the Tom Hanks. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "APOLLO 13") HANKS: (As Jim Lovell) Houston, we have a problem. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SAVING PRIVATE RYAN") HANKS: (As Captain John H. Miller) I don't know anything about Ryan. I don't care. Man means nothing. It's just a name. But if finding him so he can go home - if that earns me the right to get back to my wife, well then, that's my mission. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN") HANKS: (As Jimmy Duggan) There's no crying in baseball. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAST AWAY") HANKS: Wilson. Wilson. GREENE: Hanks has made us believe he can be anyone, do anything on the big screen. And now he is taking us on a journey on the page. So the first question I have about your new book... HANKS: My new book... GREENE: ...Your new book (laughter) - your book... HANKS: (Laughter) How about, that's it? GREENE: Your first book (laughter)... HANKS: That's it. That's my only shot. GREENE: OK, Tom Hanks has written a book - just one for now. It's a collection of short stories with varied subjects. There's a World War II veteran on Christmas Eve in 1953. There's a California surfer kid who makes an unsettling discovery. There's even one about time travel. And in every story, Hanks sneaks in the machine he is so obsessed with, the typewriter. Sometimes it's a plot device. Sometimes it really does feel almost hidden. His book is called "Uncommon Type." And talking to Hanks, you realize his thing with typewriters is not a gimmick. It's a love affair. HANKS: Yeah. Yeah, it is. There's something about - I don't know. It's a hex in my brain. There is something that I find reassuring, comforting, dazzling and that here is a very specific apparatus that is meant to do one thing. And it does it perfectly. And that one thing is to translate the thoughts in your head down to paper. Now, that means everything from a shopping list to James Joyce's "Ulysses." Short of carving words into stone with a hammer and chisel, not much is more permanent than a paragraph or a sentence or a love letter or a story typed on paper. GREENE: Yeah, there's - you talk about the authority - I mean, that a to-do list takes on a whole different life when it is imprinted on a piece of paper in that way. HANKS: There's no doodles. There's no happy faces that you use to dot your eyes with. And I feel very free in writing almost anything on a typewriter, provided it's not much more than a, you know, a page and a half. You do cut and paste your typewritten documents with scissors (laughter) and a stapler and glue. That's the only way you can do it. GREENE: It gets a little messy. HANKS: Yeah. Yeah... GREENE: And then sudenly a computer seems like maybe that would be easier to use. HANKS: That would be the greatest thing in the world (laughter). GREENE: There's a beautiful story in your collection, "These Are The Meditations Of My Heart." HANKS: Oh. GREENE: And I mean, it starts with a woman who has gone through a breakup and has no need necessarily for a typewriter for anything. But she buys this plastic typewriter... HANKS: ...Hunk-a-junk typewriter. GREENE: Yeah, like a toy essentially... HANKS: Yeah, yeah. GREENE: I mean, how did that story come together for you? HANKS: Well, that's actually the story of how I got my first typewriter. I had - a friend of mine had gotten a new Olivetti electric that was gorgeous state of the art typewriter for 1973. GREENE: When was this? HANKS: 1973. GREENE: You got your first ever in... HANKS: Yeah. He gave me his old typewriter. GREENE: OK. HANKS: But I used it for about about a year and a half or so. And I just wanted to get my typewriter service just like the girl did. And it's that - what happens to her in the shop is almost verbatim the conversation I had with the old man. GREENE: This is a reading. I'd love for you to do it... HANKS: All right. GREENE: ...From page 232. HANKS: Now this man speaks with an accent that I probably won't do here, but... GREENE: Do it anyway you can. HANKS: All right. GREENE: Yeah. HANKS: (Reading) Look here. The old man waved his arms at the typewriters that lined the wall mountain shelves. These are machines. They are made of steel. They are works of engineers. They were built in factories in America, Germany, Switzerland. Do you know why they are up on that shelf right now? Because they are for sale? Because they were built to last forever. That guy altered my concept of the place a typewriter can hold in your life. It is equal to a wooden chest that your great grandfather carved or the perfect set of doilies that your grandmother hand-stitched themselves or a quilt that your mom passed down to you that she made for you when you were five years old. A typewriter is a - you can carry it around. It can go with you anywhere in the world. Even the biggest one, you can put in a box and lug if you're dumb enough to try to get through... GREENE: (Laughter). HANKS: ...Airport security with something like that. GREENE: But it's - I mean, it's not just typewriters. I mean, it's just gadgets and appliances and cars. I mean, the Plymouth with the power flight auto transmission, Kelvinator fridge and Mr. Coffee Maker... HANKS: Yeah, yeah. GREENE: It goes on and on. I mean, do you have a reverence for machinery? HANKS: There was a time when you as a 6-year-old kid were really invested in the choice of a refrigerator because you'd seen all these commercials - you know, Frigidaire. What a beautiful name - Frigidaire. You look - you know what it means? It means frigid, cold air - frigid air. And that's what's inside a refrigerator. GREENE: My god, I never even realized - I'm kind of stupid for admitting I never made that connection, but - yeah. HANKS: Then there was was Norge - N-O-R-G-E. And the jingle was knock on any Norge (clapping). And if you knocked on a Norge, you could hear how solid this refrigerator was. A Norge was a solid refrigerator. You know how you knew? - by (singing) knock on any Norge (clapping). I remember being a kid, and I'd go into somebody else's house. And I'd say, wow, you got a Norge. GREENE: (Laughter) Yeah. HANKS: That's exciting. And I'd open up the door and see how it would click and see how the shelves were... GREENE: And you felt like an expert in this. I mean, you knew a lot about fridges. HANKS: I watched TV. GREENE: Yeah. HANKS: There's a book in there, "The Great Refrigerator Wars Of The Early 1960s." GREENE: That's coming... HANKS: It'd be a good nonfiction piece. GREENE: Yeah. That's amazing. HANKS: Yeah. GREENE: I find you to be someone who enjoys some personal moments of reflection, looking at the world. HANKS: Oh, yeah. GREENE: It was funny. I was finishing a book last night at a really quirky bar-restaurant in Santa Monica. HANKS: Which one? GREENE: The Galley. HANKS: (Laughter) Galley - good steaks at The De Galley GREENE: Good fish, too... HANKS: ...Good fish - yeah. No... GREENE: I had grilled - yeah - grilled fish... HANKS: ...Galley's a great place... GREENE: ...On a salad last night. No, it's great. HANKS: Yeah, yeah. GREENE: But I was people-watching. There was this couple next to me and they were just, like, such personalities. She was complaining to the server about everything. He was, like, wishing that she weren't doing that. Can you do that because of your celebrity? Like... HANKS: Yeah, yeah. GREENE: Can you - how do you do it? HANKS: Well, one is you just show up, you know? You don't have the black SUV and the guys in suits that are opening the doors and clearing the way for you. But if you're not working, you know, you're just a guy in a pair of pants and a sweatshirt and you just go in - and some people might notice you, but you'll be amazed at how often you can hide in plain sight. GREENE: Tom Hanks, thank you. HANKS: Thank you, David - pleasure talking to you. GREENE: Tom Hanks. His collection of short stories is called "Uncommon Type."

• Wikipedia -

  Tom Hanks
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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  This article is about the American actor. For the seismologist, see Thomas C. Hanks.
  Tom Hanks

  Hanks receiving the 2014 Kennedy Center Honors Medallion
  Born
  Thomas Jeffrey Hanks
  July 9, 1956 (age 61)
  Concord, California, U.S.
  Residence
  Los Angeles, California
  Alma mater
  California State University, Sacramento
  Occupation
  Actor, filmmaker
  Years active
  1977–present
  Net worth
  $390 million (May 2014)[1]
  Political party
  Democratic
  Spouse(s)
  Samantha Lewes
  (m. 1978; div. 1987)
  Rita Wilson
  (m. 1988)
  Children
  4, including Colin Hanks
  Relatives
  Jim Hanks (brother)
  Larry Hanks (brother)
  Thomas Jeffrey Hanks[2] (born July 9, 1956)[3][4] is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Splash (1984), Big (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), A League of Their Own (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), You've Got Mail (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), The Polar Express (2004), Larry Crowne (2011), Cloud Atlas (2012), Captain Phillips (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), and Sully (2016). Hanks is also known for starring in the Robert Langdon film series, and for his voice work as Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story film series.
  Hanks' films have grossed more than $4.5 billion at U.S. and Canadian box offices and more than $9.0 billion worldwide,[5] making him the third highest-grossing actor in North America.[6] Hanks has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia, as well as a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a People's Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in Forrest Gump. In 1995, Hanks became one of only two actors who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in consecutive years, with Spencer Tracy being the other.[7] This feat has not been accomplished since. In 2004, he received the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).[8] In 2014, he received a Kennedy Center Honor and, in 2016, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama,[9] as well as the French Legion of Honor.[10]
  Hanks is also known for his collaborations with film director Steven Spielberg on the films Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), Bridge of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017), as well as the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks as a successful director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2010, Spielberg and Hanks were executive producers on the HBO miniseries The Pacific.

  Contents  [hide] 
  1
  Early life
  2
  Career
  2.1
  Early acting career (1979–1985)
  2.2
  Period of successes and failures (1986–1991)
  2.3
  Progression into dramatic roles (1992–1995)
  2.4
  Continued success (1996–1999)
  2.5
  International recognition (2000–2009)
  2.6
  Later projects (2010–present)
  3
  Filmography
  4
  Personal life
  5
  Politics and activism
  6
  Other activities
  7
  Works (writings)
  8
  Legacy and impact
  9
  Awards
  9.1
  Other recognition
  10
  References
  11
  Further reading
  12
  External links

  Early life
  Hanks was born in Concord, California, the son of Janet Marylyn (née Frager; died 2016),[11] a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook.[4][12][13] His mother was of Portuguese descent (her family's surname was originally "Fraga"),[14] while his father had English ancestry.[15][16] Hanks' parents divorced in 1960. The family's three oldest children, Sandra (later Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer),[17] Larry (an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)[18] and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, Jim, who also became an actor and filmmaker, remained with their mother in Red Bluff, California.[citation needed] In his childhood, his family moved often. By the age of ten, Hanks had lived in ten different houses.[19]
  While Hanks' family religious history was Catholic and Mormon, he has characterized himself as being a "Bible-toting evangelical" for several years as a teenager.[20] In school, Hanks was unpopular with students and teachers alike, later telling Rolling Stone magazine, "I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible."[21] In 1965, his father married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived with Hanks during his high school years. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California.[22]
  Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and transferred to California State University, Sacramento, two years later.[23] During a 2001 interview with Bob Costas, Hank was asked whether he would have an Oscar or a Heisman Trophy. Hank replied he would rather win a Heisman by playing halfback for the California Golden Bears.[24] Hanks told New York magazine in 1986, "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and all that."[25]
  During his years studying theater, Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio.[12] At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the festival. His internship stretched into a three-year experience that covered most aspects of theater production, including lighting, set design, and stage management, prompting Hanks to drop out of college. During the same time, Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain.[26] Time Magazine named Hanks one of the "Top 10 College Dropouts." [27]
  Career
  Early acting career (1979–1985)
  In 1979, Hanks moved to New York City, where he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You're Alone (1980)[12][28] and landed a starring role in the television movie Mazes and Monsters.[29] Early that year, he was cast in the lead, Callimaco, in the Riverside Shakespeare Company's production of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Mandrake, directed by Daniel Southern.
  The following year, Hanks landed one of the lead roles, that of character Kip Wilson, on the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies. He and Peter Scolari played a pair of young advertising men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel.[12] Hanks had previously partnered with Scolari on the 1970s game show Make Me Laugh. After landing the role, Hanks moved to Los Angeles. Bosom Buddies ran for two seasons, and, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. "The first day I saw him on the set," co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, "I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years." However, although Praiser knew it, he was not able to convince Hanks. "The television show had come out of nowhere," Hanks' best friend Tom Lizzio told Rolling Stone.
  Bosom Buddies and a guest appearance on a 1982 episode of Happy Days ("A Case of Revenge," in which he played a disgruntled former classmate of Fonzie) prompted director Ron Howard to contact Hanks. Howard was working on the film Splash (1984), a romantic comedy fantasy about a mermaid who falls in love with a human.[30][31] At first, Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, a role that eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role in Splash, which went on to become a surprise box office hit, grossing more than US$69 million.[32] He also had a sizable hit with the sex comedy Bachelor Party, also in 1984.[2] In 1983–84, Hanks made three guest appearances on Family Ties as Elyse Keaton's alcoholic brother, Ned Donnelly.[33][34]
  Period of successes and failures (1986–1991)

  Hanks at the Academy Awards after party in March 1989
  With Nothing in Common (1986) – a story of a young man alienated from his father (played by Jackie Gleason) – Hanks began to extend himself from comedic roles to dramatic roles. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Hanks commented on his experience: "It changed my desires about working in movies. Part of it was the nature of the material, what we were trying to say. But besides that, it focused on people's relationships. The story was about a guy and his father, unlike, say, The Money Pit, where the story is really about a guy and his house."[35]
  After a few more flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet, Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success of the fantasy comedy Big (1988) established Hanks as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the industry as an actor.[2][12][36] For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.[37] Big was followed later that year by Punchline, in which he and Sally Field co-starred as struggling comedians.
  Hanks then suffered a run of box-office underperformers: The 'Burbs (1989), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).[12] In the last, he portrayed a greedy Wall Street figure who gets enmeshed in a hit-and-run accident. 1989's Turner & Hooch was Hanks' only financially successful film of the period.
  Progression into dramatic roles (1992–1995)

  Hanks on the film set of Forrest Gump (1994)
  Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992).[12] Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of moviemaking ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began in 1993 for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle and then with Philadelphia. The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves.[38] Richard Schickel of TIME called his performance "charming," and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.[39]
  In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination.[12] Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia.[12][40] During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.[41]
  Hanks followed Philadelphia with the 1994 hit Forrest Gump which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office.[42] Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.[43] (Spencer Tracy was the first, winning in 1937–38. Hanks and Tracy were the same age at the time they received their Academy Awards: 37 for the first and 38 for the second.)[44][45]
  Hanks' next role—astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the 1995 film Apollo 13—reunited him with Ron Howard.[12] Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's CGI-animated hit film Toy Story, as the voice of Sheriff Woody.[46]
  Continued success (1996–1999)

  Hanks' cement prints in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood
  Hanks made his directing debut with his 1996 film That Thing You Do! about a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.[47][48] Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman went on to create Playtone, a record and film production company named after the record company in the film.[49][50]
  Hanks then executive produced, co-wrote, and co-directed the HBO docudrama From the Earth to the Moon. The 12-part series chronicled the space program from its inception, through the familiar flights of Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell, to the personal feelings surrounding the reality of moon landings. The Emmy Award-winning project was, at US$68 million, one of the most expensive ventures undertaken for television.[51][52]
  In 1998, Hanks' next project was no less expensive. For Saving Private Ryan, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make a film about a search through war-torn France after D-Day to bring back a soldier.[53] It earned the praise and respect of the film community, critics, and the general public.[54] It was labeled one of the finest war films ever made and earned Spielberg his second Academy Award for direction, and Hanks another Best Actor nomination.[55] Later that year, Hanks re-teamed with his Sleepless in Seattle co-star Meg Ryan for You've Got Mail, a remake of 1940's The Shop Around the Corner.[2] In 1999, Hanks starred in an adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Green Mile.[56] He also returned as the voice of Woody in Toy Story 2, the sequel to Toy Story. The following year, he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a marooned FedEx systems analyst in Robert Zemeckis's Cast Away.[57][58]
  International recognition (2000–2009)
  In 2001, Hanks helped direct and produce the Emmy-Award-winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.[59] He also appeared in the September 11 television special America: A Tribute to Heroes and the documentary Rescued From the Closet.[60] He then teamed up with American Beauty director Sam Mendes for the adaptation of Max Allan Collins's and Richard Piers Rayner's graphic novel Road to Perdition, in which he played an anti-hero role as a hitman on the run with his son. That same year, Hanks collaborated once again with director Spielberg, starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can, based on the true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. The same year, Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson produced the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.[61][62] In August 2007, he along with co-producers Rita Wilson and Gary Goetzman, and writer and star Nia Vardalos, initiated a legal action against the production company Gold Circle Films for their share of profits from the movie.[63][64][65] At the age of 45, Hanks became the youngest-ever recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award on June 12, 2002.[66][67]
  In 2004, he appeared in three films: The Coen brothers' The Ladykillers, another Spielberg film, The Terminal, and The Polar Express, a family film from Zemeckis for which Hanks played multiple motion capture roles. In a USA Weekend interview, Hanks discussed how he chooses projects: "[Since] A League of Their Own, it can't be just another movie for me. It has to get me going somehow ... There has to be some all-encompassing desire or feeling about wanting to do that particular movie. I'd like to assume that I'm willing to go down any avenue in order to do it right". In August 2005, Hanks was voted in as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[68]
  Hanks next starred in the highly anticipated film The Da Vinci Code, based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown. The film was released May 19, 2006, in the U.S. and grossed over US$750 million worldwide.[69] He followed the film with Ken Burns's 2007 documentary The War. For the documentary, Hanks did voice work, reading excerpts from World War II-era columns by Al McIntosh. In 2006, Hanks topped a 1,500-strong list of "most trusted celebrities" compiled by Forbes magazine.[70]

  Hanks at Post-Emmys Party, September 2008
  Hanks next appeared in a cameo role as himself in The Simpsons Movie, in which he appeared in an advertisement claiming that the U.S. government has lost its credibility and is hence buying some of his. He also made an appearance in the credits, expressing a desire to be left alone when he is out in public. Later in 2006, Hanks produced the British film Starter for Ten, a comedy based on working-class students attempting to win on University Challenge.[71]
  In 2007, Hanks starred in Mike Nichols's film Charlie Wilson's War (written by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin) in which he played Democratic Texas Congressman Charles Wilson.[72] The film opened on December 21, 2007, and Hanks received a Golden Globe nomination.[73] In the comedy-drama film The Great Buck Howard (2008), Hanks played the on-screen father of a young man (played by Hanks' real-life son, Colin) who chooses to work as road manager for a fading mentalist (John Malkovich). His character was less than thrilled about his son's career decision.[74] In the same year, he executive produced the musical comedy, Mamma Mia and the miniseries, John Adams.[75][76]
  Hanks' next endeavor, released on May 15, 2009, was a film adaptation of Angels & Demons, based on the novel of the same name by Dan Brown. Its April 11, 2007, announcement revealed that Hanks would reprise his role as Robert Langdon, and that he would reportedly receive the highest salary ever for an actor.[77][78] The following day he made his 10th appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live, impersonating himself for the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. Hanks produced the Spike Jonze film Where The Wild Things Are, based on the children's book by Maurice Sendak in 2009.[79]
  Later projects (2010–present)
  In 2010, Hanks reprised his voice role of Woody in Toy Story 3, after he, Tim Allen, and John Ratzenberger were invited to a movie theater to see a complete story reel of the movie.[80] The film went on to become the first animated film to gross a worldwide total of over $1 billion as well as the highest-grossing animated film at the time.[81][82][83] He also was executive producer of the miniseries, The Pacific.[84]
  In 2011, he directed and starred opposite Julia Roberts in the title role in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne.[85] The movie received poor reviews, with only 35% of the 175 Rotten Tomatoes reviews giving it high ratings.[86] Also in 2011, he starred in the drama film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.[87] In 2012, he voiced the character Cleveland Carr for a web series he created titled Electric City.[88] He also starred in the Wachowskis-directed film adaptation of the novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas and was executive producer of the miniseries Game Change.[89]
  In 2013, Hanks starred in two critically acclaimed films—Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks—which each earned him praise, including nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for the former role.[90][91] In Captain Phillips, he starred as Captain Richard Phillips with Barkhad Abdi, which was based on the Maersk Alabama hijacking.[92] In Saving Mr. Banks, co-starring Emma Thompson and directed by John Lee Hancock, he played Walt Disney, being the first actor to portray Disney in a mainstream film.[93] That same year, Hanks made his Broadway debut, starring in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.[94]
  In 2014, Hanks' short story "Alan Bean Plus Four" was published in the October 27 issue of The New Yorker.[95] Revolving around four friends who make a voyage to the moon, the short story is titled after the Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean. Slate magazine's Katy Waldman found Hanks' first published short story "mediocre", writing that "Hanks' shopworn ideas about technology might have yet sung if they hadn't been wrapped in too-clever lit mag-ese".[96] In an interview with The New Yorker, Hanks said he has always been fascinated by space. He told the magazine that he built plastic models of rockets when he was a child and watched live broadcasts of space missions back in the 1960s.[97]
  In March 2015, Hanks appeared in the Carly Rae Jepsen music video for "I Really Like You", lip-syncing most of the song's lyrics as he goes through his daily routine.[98] His next film was the Steven Spielberg-directed historical drama Bridge of Spies, in which he played lawyer James B. Donovan who negotiated for the release of pilot Francis Gary Powers by the Soviet Union in exchange for KGB spy Rudolf Abel. It was released in October 2015 to a positive reception.[99] In April 2016, Hanks starred as Alan Clay in the comedy-drama A Hologram for the King, an adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name.[100]
  Hanks starred as airline captain Chesley Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood's Sully, which was released in September 2016.[101] He next reprised his role as Robert Langdon in Inferno (2016),[102] and co-starred alongside Emma Watson in the 2017 science fiction drama The Circle.[103] He voiced David S. Pumpkins in The David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special, which aired October 28, 2017, on NBC, a character he had portrayed in episodes of Saturday Night Live.[104]
  Filmography
  Main article: List of Tom Hanks performances
  Personal life

  Hanks and wife Rita Wilson at the 1989 Oscars
  Hanks was married to American actress Samantha Lewes[105] from 1978 until they divorced in 1987.[2] The couple had two children: son Colin Hanks (born 1977)[106] and daughter Elizabeth Hanks (born 1982).[2]
  In 1988, Hanks married actress Rita Wilson, with whom he costarred in the film Volunteers.[2] They have two sons. The elder, Chester Marlon "Chet" Hanks, had a minor role as a student in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and released a rap single in 2011.[107] Their younger son, Truman Theodore, was born in 1995.[108]
  On October 7, 2013, on The Late Show with David Letterman, Hanks announced that he has Type 2 diabetes.[109]
  Before marrying Rita Wilson, Hanks converted to the Greek Orthodox Church, the religion of Wilson and her family.[110][111] Hanks said, "I must say that when I go to church—and I do go to church—I ponder the mystery. I meditate on the 'why?' of 'why people are as they are' and 'why bad things happen to good people,' and 'why good things happen to bad people' ... The mystery is what I think is, almost, the grand unifying theory of all mankind."[20]
  Hanks is a descendant of former president Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. Hanks is the third cousin, four times removed, of the former president, and his link comes through the president’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784 – 1818)[112]. Hanks has known he was a distant relative of Lincoln since he was a child, with details of his ancestry passed down by members of his extended family. He once mentioned: 'I'm related to Abraham Lincoln. His mother was called Nancy Hanks and the members of my branch of the family are either cousins or in-laws or poor relations.[113][114]
  Politics and activism
  Hanks supports same-sex marriage, environmental causes, and alternative fuels. He has donated to many Democratic politicians, and during the 2008 United States presidential election uploaded a video to his MySpace account endorsing Barack Obama.[115] He also narrated a 2012 documentary, The Road We've Traveled, created by Obama for America.[116] In 2016, Hanks endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.[117]
  Hanks was outspoken about his opposition to the 2008 Proposition 8, an amendment to the California constitution that defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Hanks and others raised over US$44 million to campaign against the proposition, in contrast to the supporters' $39 million,[118] but Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.[119] It was overruled in June 2013, when the Ninth Circuit lifted its stay of the district court's ruling, enabling Governor Jerry Brown to order same-sex marriage officiations to resume.[120] While premiering a TV series in January 2009, Hanks called supporters of Proposition 8 "un-American" and criticized the LDS Church members, who were major proponents of the bill, for their views on marriage and role in supporting the bill.[121][122] About a week later, he apologized for the remark, saying that nothing is more American than voting one's conscience.[123]
  A proponent of environmentalism, Hanks is an investor in electric vehicles and owns a Toyota RAV4 EV and the first production AC Propulsion eBox. He was a lessee of an EV1 before it was recalled, as chronicled in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?[124] He was on the waiting list for an Aptera 2 Series.[125]
  Hanks serves as campaign chair of the Hidden Heroes Campaign of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. The stated mission of the campaign is to inspire a national movement to more effectively support military and veteran caregivers.[126][127]
  Other activities

  Hanks with Steven Spielberg at the National World War II Memorial in March 2010
  A supporter of NASA's manned space program, Hanks said he originally wanted to be an astronaut. Hanks is a member of the National Space Society, serving on the Board of governors of the nonprofit educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun.[128] He also produced the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program to send astronauts to the moon. In addition, Hanks co-wrote and co-produced Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D, an IMAX film about the moon landings.[129] Hanks provided the voice-over for the premiere of the show Passport to the Universe at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[130]
  In 2006, the Space Foundation awarded Hanks the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award,[131] given annually to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to public awareness of space programs.[132]
  In June 2006, Hanks was inducted as an honorary member of the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame for his accurate portrayal of a captain in the movie Saving Private Ryan; Hanks, who was unable to attend the induction ceremony, was the first actor to receive such an honor.[133] In addition to his role in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks was cited for serving as the national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial Campaign, for being the honorary chairperson of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and for his role in writing and helping to produce the Emmy Award–winning miniseries, Band of Brothers.[134] On March 10, 2008, Hanks was on hand at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct The Dave Clark Five.[135]
  Hanks is a collector of manual typewriters and uses them almost daily.[136][137] In August 2014, Hanks released Hanx Writer, an iOS app meant to emulate the experience of using a typewriter; within days the free app reached number one on the App Store.[138][139]
  Works (writings)
  In November 2014, Hanks said he would publish a collection of short stories inspired by his typewriter collection.[140] The book, Uncommon Type, was published in 2017.
  Uncommon Type (New York: Knopf, October 17 2017)[141]
  Legacy and impact
  Hanks is perceived to be amiable and congenial to his fans. In 2013, when he was starring in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy on Broadway, he had crowds of 300 fans waiting for a glimpse of him after every performance. This is the highest number of expectant fans post-show of any Broadway performance.[142]
  Hanks is ranked as the third highest all-time box office star in North America, with a total gross of over $4.5 billion at the North American box office, an average of $100.8 million per film.[6] Worldwide, his films have grossed over $9.0 billion.[143]
  Asteroid 12818 Tomhanks is named after him.[144]
  Awards
  Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Tom Hanks

  Hanks receiving the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom
  2006: Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award
  2014: Kennedy Center Honors Medallion
  2016: Presidential Medal of Freedom[145]
  2016: French Legion of Honor, for his presentation of WW II and support of WW II veterans, along with Tom Brokaw, retired NBC anchor, and Nick Mueller, President of the WW II Museum, New Orleans
  Other recognition
  Hanks was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs (in the footsteps of John Huston, Arthur Rubinstein, Luciano Pavarotti, and more than 2500 other celebrities who were 'castaways' (guests on the show) since 1942) on May 8, 2016, giving a 45-minute interview with insights into his personal life and career.[146][147]

Uncommon Type

264.34 (Aug. 21, 2017): p84.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Uncommon Type
Tom Hanks. Knopf, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1101-94615-2
Oscar-winner Hanks's debut collection is a wide-ranging affair of 17 stories threaded together by the recurring image of typewriters--some stories, like the intriguing "These Are the Meditations of My Heart," build entire narratives around the machines, while others mention them in passing. In "Alan Bean Plus Four," one of the collection's best entries, four friends decide to build a backyard rocket and orbit the moon. These same characters star in two more stories, the enjoyable bowling yarn "Steve Wong Is Perfect," and the less noteworthy "Three Exhausting Weeks," which uses standard romantic comedy tropes in recollecting a wacky and doomed relationship. Hanks's stories sometimes lead to pat, happy endings, but not always--"Christmas Eve 1953" develops a simple holiday story into a rumination on war. Similarly, "The Past Is Important to Us" employs a sharp, unexpected conclusion to elevate a story of time travel and romance at the 1939 World's Fair. Hanks's narrators speak with similar verbal tics--multiple narrators say "Noo Yawk," for example--but the stories they tell generally charm. The only true misfires come when Hanks breaks away from traditional structure: the story-as-screenplay "Stay With Us" drags, and faux newspaper columns by man of the people Hank Fiset start clever but turn grating. 250,000-copy announced first printing. (Oct.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
"Uncommon Type." Publishers Weekly, 21 Aug. 2017, p. 84. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA501717283&it=r&asid=49291a8ee2d33ef9edff846c6aefccfa. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A501717283

Uncommon Type: Some Stories

David Pitt
113.22 (Aug. 1, 2017): p27.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Uncommon Type: Some Stories. By Tom Hanks. Oct. 2017.41 Bp. illus. Knopf, $26.95 (9781101946152).
As an actor, Tom Hanks has an understated performance style; the hard work seems to get done under the surface, where we can't see it. All we see is the truth of the character. The same goes for the 17 short stories in this thoroughly engaging book, Hanks' fiction debut. Here are stories about friends who become lovers and then decide that wasn't a good idea; about old war buddies whose Christmas Eve conversation sparks some powerful memories; about a movie star enduring a press junket; about a billionaire and his assistant on the trail of acquisitions who find in America's heartland a humanity very different from their glass-tower world. The stories are brief and sometimes seem abbreviated, but they possess a real feel for character and a slice-of-life realism that combine to deliver considerable depth beneath the surface. A surprising and satisfying book from a first-time fiction writer.--David Pitt
HIGH-DEMAND BACKST0RY: Hanks is both much loved and often criticized as an actor; his writing, however, may well cross that divide with its undeniable craft and plainspoken insight.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
Pitt, David. "Uncommon Type: Some Stories." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2017, p. 27. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA501718763&it=r&asid=4a8a137c6d3ab39e338656e1468d1527. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A501718763

Hanks, Tom: UNCOMMON TYPE

(July 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Hanks, Tom UNCOMMON TYPE Knopf (Adult Fiction) $26.95 10, 17 ISBN: 978-1-101-94615-2
Seventeen wide-ranging and whimsical stories--with a typewriter tucked into each one.Only one of the stories in Hanks' debut features an actor: it's a sharp satire with priceless insider details about a handsome dope on a press junket in Europe. The other 16 span a surprisingly wide spectrum. There's a recently divorced mom who's desperate to avoid the new neighbor who might be hitting on her; a billionaire inventor who's become addicted to taking time-travel vacations; a World War II veteran whose Christmas Eve 1953 is disturbed by memories of Christmas Eve 1944; a young man who celebrates his 19th birthday by going surfing with his dad; a Bulgarian immigrant literally just off the boat, spending his first few days as a New Yorker. Three stories are editions of a small-town newspaper column called "Our Town Today with Hank Fiset." Three others feature a group of pals named MDash, Anna, Steve Wong, and an unnamed first-person narrator. In one story, the friends go bowling; in another, they go to the moon; in the third, the narrator and Anna try dating for three weeks only to find that "being Anna's boyfriend was like training to be a Navy SEAL while working full-time in an Amazon fulfillment center in the Oklahoma Panhandle in tornado season." Or as Steve Wong puts it, "We are like a TV show with diversity casting. African guy, him. Asian guy, me. Mongrel Caucasoid, you. Strong, determined woman, Anna, who would never let a man define her. You and her pairing off is like a story line from season eleven when the network is trying to keep us on the air." There's a typewriter in every tale, be it IBM Selectric, Royal, Underwood, Hermes 2000, or some other model. Hanks can write the hell out of typing, and his dialogue is excellent, too. Has he read William Saroyan? He should. While these stories have the all-American sweetness, humor, and heart we associate with his screen roles, Hanks writes like a writer, not a movie star.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
"Hanks, Tom: UNCOMMON TYPE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA498345309&it=r&asid=f31f7aeb20876ff3ad40b4d5a619f1f2. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A498345309

Uncommon Type: Some Stories

142.11 (June 15, 2017): p10a.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game--and then anotherand then anotherand then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN's newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves. These are just some of the tales Tom Hanks tells in this first collection of his short stories. They are surprising, intelligent, and heartwarming.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
978-1-101-94615-2 | $26.95 | 250,000 | Knopf | HC | October
978-0-7352-7383-2 | $32.00C | Knopf Canada

* 978-1-101-94616-9 | * AD: 978-1-101-92366-5 | * CD: 978-1-101-92365-8
SHORT STORIES
Social: @TomHanks RA: For fans of fiction written by celebrities such as Steve Martin and B.J.Novak
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
"Uncommon Type: Some Stories." Library Journal, 15 June 2017, p. 10a. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA495668200&it=r&asid=ef35ee91e861b11ed93ad7809dbb27eb. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A495668200

Book World: Tom Hanks, Ann Patchett and the man in her basement

Ron Charles
(Oct. 10, 2017): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Byline: Ron Charles
Uncommon Type: Some Stories
By Tom Hanks
Knopf. 416 pp. $26.95
---
This is a happy story about a very big author and a very tiny magazine.
The author you know: He's Tom Hanks, the Academy Award-winning actor, whose films have grossed more than $9 billion.
The magazine you probably don't know: It's One Story, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit with 12,000 subscribers.
How these two got connected is a curious tale of serendipity.
Next week, Hanks will release his first collection of short stories, "Uncommon Type," inspired by his passion for typewriters. With blurbs from Steve Martin, Mindy Kaling and Stephen Fry, the collection is sure to be an instant best-seller.
In 2014, one of these stories appeared in the New Yorker. You might expect that prestigious magazine - or Vanity Fair or Entertainment Weekly - to print another one of Hanks' stories as the publication date rolls around for his full collection.
But no.
Instead, in the days leading up to the release of "Uncommon Type," you'll find one of Hanks' stories only in One Story magazine: Issue No. 232 - "A Month on Greene Street."
In the publishing world, this is a very uncommon type of good luck.
It came about because of a man in Ann Patchett's basement.
Patchett is the beloved author of seven novels, including "Bel Canto" and "Commonwealth." For some 20 years, she has been friends with Patrick Ryan, the editor in chief of the unadorned little magazine One Story, founded in 2002. In each diminutive issue, it publishes - as you might have guessed - (BEGIN ITAL)one(END ITAL) story and just (BEGIN ITAL)one(END ITAL) story.
But let's get back to the basement.
Each year, Ryan travels to Patchett's home in Nashville for what they call their own private "writing camp."
"I stay in her basement, which is larger than my apartment in New York, and work on whatever book I'm working on," Ryan says. "And she, two floors up, works on whatever book she's working on, and we meet on the first floor for meals, moral support and to read aloud to each other."
When Ryan arrived at Patchett's house this year, she was raving about a collection of stories she had read by - of all people - Tom Hanks. Curious, Ryan got a hold of an early copy, too, and was just as impressed.
He dreamed of publishing one of Hanks' stories in his little magazine, but that seemed like asking one of the world's most famous actors to - (BEGIN ITAL)well(END ITAL) - publish one of his stories in a little magazine. In response to his first entreaty to Penguin Random House, Ryan was told he was too small. He pointed out that One Story had published works later included in "The Best American Short Stories" and "The O. Henry Prize Stories." He wooed. He pleaded.
This is where Patchett came in. She had recently agreed to write a blurb for "Uncommon Type" and to fly to Washington to interview Hanks on Oct. 20 at the Warner Theatre.
Could she ask the publisher for a favor in return?
How about a story for a certain magazine?
"I've been a huge One Story fan since I edited 'Best American Short Stories' in 2006," she says. "I hoped that the Hanks story would be a boost for them, but I also know that One Story readers would love to get such a great story in their mailboxes. It was a perfect storm. Everything about this deal, and everything about 'Uncommon Type,' confirms my long-held suspicion that Tom Hanks is a good guy."
From the famous author's point of view, this long-winded tale of a little magazine getting a big break sounds different.
"It was a very difficult process," Hanks says. "First, One Story asked. I admire what they do, so I said yes."
The end.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th Edition)
Charles, Ron. "Book World: Tom Hanks, Ann Patchett and the man in her basement." Washington Post, 10 Oct. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA508928813&it=r&asid=db5772804895617f0face7feb954f5ed. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A508928813

"Uncommon Type." Publishers Weekly, 21 Aug. 2017, p. 84. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA501717283&asid=49291a8ee2d33ef9edff846c6aefccfa. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017. Pitt, David. "Uncommon Type: Some Stories." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2017, p. 27. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA501718763&asid=4a8a137c6d3ab39e338656e1468d1527. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017. "Hanks, Tom: UNCOMMON TYPE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA498345309&asid=f31f7aeb20876ff3ad40b4d5a619f1f2. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017. "Uncommon Type: Some Stories." Library Journal, 15 June 2017, p. 10a. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA495668200&asid=ef35ee91e861b11ed93ad7809dbb27eb. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017. Charles, Ron. "Book World: Tom Hanks, Ann Patchett and the man in her basement." Washington Post, 10 Oct. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA508928813&asid=db5772804895617f0face7feb954f5ed. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

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