An unusual star I must say. He lacks the good looks of Tom Cruise, the maturity of Harrison Ford, the toughness of Clint Eastwood, and the humor of Robin Williams, but yet, he ranks amongst, if not above them all as an actor. Why? Well, that's why we are featuring this guy, we will dig deep to find out the reason for Tom Hank's Success.

Starting out in high school with school plays, Tom Hanks must have gotten good instructions from a high school drama teacher (we don't know, we are just speculating). He later enrolled in Cal State but soon quit that (regrettably) to pursue acting full time. Lacking the looks, Tom Hanks got to a slow start which included his television stint, "Bosom Buddies." Have anyone seen this show? I've seen it for a couple of times, but I do not get the point of this series at all, so it must be crap. What the hell, no one can tell that he is a guy? Anyhow, he eventually got to do some films like "Money Pit" and "Splash." They pretty much set him up for his biggest break thus far in his career, "Big."

Well, after "Big," Tom had a few years of drought and was not cast in any serious films. But then, his place in film history was secured with his award winning role in "Philadelphia." His success continues through yet another award winning role in "Forrest Gump," "Apollo 13," and

"Saving Private Ryan." Instead of just a simple comedian who is struggling to make a living, Tommy is not a well respected celebrity who people look to for moral and inspiring works. This obviously is a lot of pressure on someone who only a few years ago, could act as mindless as he pleases (not that he did or anything). But anyway, my point is, we typecast these actors and actresses without thinking that they are only human and really doing these films for the love of the money, not the love of humanity.

After such successes in front of the camera, Tommy Boy decided to take his skills behind the camera. We first discover that he is only human in "That Think You Do!" Although this movie received some Oscar consideration for stuff like best song, to the general audience, it was a big let down from his previous works. but he quickly recovers with "From the Earth to the Moon." His talents were also extended to lending his voice to Woody in the "Toy Story" series. Yeah, Woody.

In his private life, Tom was more or less, just like the rest of us. His marriage to Samantha Lewes failed for reasons we do not care to discuss. With his two children, he later married his "Volunteers" costar, Rita Wilson. As far as we know, they are still married and has two additional children. Although behind the scenes, we all acknowledge that Tom has his own love, but in front of the camera, we, the audience loved his pairing to Meg Ryan. Ryan and Tom's chemistry in "Sleepless in Seattle" (although they only really had one scene together) was impeccable in the romantic comedy sense. The movie producers apparently decided to exploit their successful partnership in the not as good, but just as likeable "You've Got Mail."

Through his works in films from "A League of Their Own" to "The Green Mile," we saw the growth of a young comedian develop into a compassionate man. Although we do not agree with making a martyr out of him (since he is not suffering from these 100+ million box office totals), but we do applaud him for making the effort. Go Tom Go!