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While Tom Hanks may be considered “America’s Dad,” he does have four grown-up kids of his own. The 66-year-old actor has been a beloved star for decades, from his early successes in movies like Big and Forrest Gump to more recent critically-acclaimed roles like playing Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. His familiarity has made him adored by fans of all ages, and earned him the title of “America’s Dad.”
Throughout his life, Tom’s been married twice and has four kids between the two marriages. He wed his first wife Samantha Lewes in 1978, and the pair had his two elder children. After divorcing in 1987, he tied the knot with Rita Wilson the following year, and the pair have been together ever since. Of Tom’s four kids, three are boys, with him sharing his daughter Elizabeth Ann, 40, with his first wife. Find out everything you need to know about Tom’s three sons here.
Colin Hanks
Tom’s eldest son Colin, 44, was born in 1977 before he married Samantha. Colin really is the spitting image of his dad. Besides looking just like the Toy Story star, Colin has also followed in the family business and become an actor himself, going on to star in movies like King Kong, Orange County, and more. He’s also acted alongside his dad in The Great Buck Howard, which Tom also produced.
Colin has revealed that having his dad be a successful actor made him know that it could be a suitable career for him too. “I was fortunate enough in that there was someone else in my life that had done it, and it was a viable thing. It wasn’t some hair-brained—’It’ll never happen, kid, get over it’—kind of thing,” he said in a past interview with The Off Camera Show. “There was someone that said, ‘If this is what you want to do, you can do it, but you have to really want to,’ and that was the only one real piece of advice my dad gave me.”
Outside of acting, Colin and Tom clearly have a special bond. Even though he’s a loving son, Colin has regularly joked that his dad is Michael Keaton, dating back to mistakes his dad would run into on foreign press junkets early in his career. He revealed that he likes to joke that his dad is the Batman star is his dad during radio interviews when asked about his dad, during a 2021 interview with Access. “My dad [Tom] gets a good kick out of it too. Whenever I post a picture of Michael Keaton, he gets a good laugh,” he said.
Chet Hanks
After Tom and Rita got married in 1988, they had their first son Chet Hanks, 31, together in August 1990. Like his parents and older stepbrother, Chet has dabbled in acting, appearing in TV Shows like the series Shameless and Empire. He’s also made some music, releasing it under the name Chet Hanx, with singles like “White Boy Summer” in 2021. Chet has opened up about his battles with addiction and sobriety, and how he struggled with accepting them when they helped him get sober, in a 2017 interview with Hollywood Unlocked. “They were trying to reach me. I wasn’t in communication with them, because I had so much anger and resentment towards them,” he said. “They wanted me to get better, but I didn’t want myself to get better.”
It’s not totally clear where exactly Chet and Tom stand in their relationship. When the Forrest Gump star and his wife were diagnosed with COVID-19 in March 2020, Chet was the one who was giving fans updates on how his parents were doing, assuring them that everything was okay. Despite being the one to offer health updates for his mom and dad, Chet did come under fire when he made a YouTube video in February 2022, where he opened up about being Tom’s kid. In the video, Chet explained that he developed a bit of “contempt” for growing up around fame. He said that while he was thankful for the opportunities that having a famous father was, and he was glad that Tom taught him to work hard, he also said that the attention also made him feel uncomfortable. The one comment that rubbed fans the wrong way was when he was “ashamed of [his] upbringing.” He said, “I didn’t have a strong male role model.”
Truman Hanks
Tom’s youngest son Truman, 26, was born in December 1995. Of all of the A League of their Own stars, Truman is the most private, and not much information is readily available about their relationship. Like his brothers, the youngest Hanks son also works in the movie and TV business, but unlike them, he mostly stays behind the camera. He’s been in the camera department for hit films like West Side Story and Black Widow, per IMDb.
While some of Truman’s older siblings have opened up about having a famous dad, his dad has spoken very little about his personal life. Tom explained how he tries to keep his family life private in a 2020 interview on In Depth With Graham Bensinger. “We were always able to separate the professional responsibilities from the private ones. There are times you have to be in public and times you shouldn’t be in public. When the kids were growing up, we protected that very, very specifically,” Tom said. “Early on, when they’re little kids, you just try to be a guy who drives the carpool and is around as much as possible.”
