For much of the ’80s, Tom Hanks was on track to becoming Hollywood’s next leading man.
Appearing in classics such as Splash, Bachelor Party and Big, audiences couldn’t get enough of the goofy yet charismatic all-American man.
However, at home, his family life was crumbling.
So is outlined in his eldest daughter, EA Hanks’ recent memoir The 10: A Memoir Of Family And The Open Road. In it, EA (short for Elizabeth Anne), 42, frankly recounts her life from her childhood through to her teens, where she claims she was subjected to years of “confusion, violence, [and] deprivation” at the hands of her mother, Tom’s first wife Susan Dillingham.
According to EA, the mistreatment started following her parents’ divorce in 1985, during which Susan won primary custody of her and brother Colin and moved them from Los Angeles to Sacramento, without telling their father.
“My dad came to pick us up from school and we’re not there,” she writes in the book, adding that he was forced to track them down after he hadn’t heard from them in two weeks.
She also lays bare the horrid conditions she lived in at the Sacramento home with her mother, who she claims was suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, revealing what began as a “white house with columns, [and] a backyard with a pool,” soon turned into a house that “stank of smoke” and a backyard “so full of dog s**t that you couldn’t walk around it.”
She adds, “The fridge was bare or full of expired food more often than not, and my mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible.”
Disturbingly, she reveals one night she watched on in horror as her mother’s “emotional violence became physical violence”.
Eventually, the custody arrangement was reversed, and EA was able to go and regularly visit Tom and stepmother Rita Wilson in Los Angeles on the weekends and for summers.
But while her life got back on track, Susan’s condition only worsened, with the former actress being diagnosed with bone cancer before passing away in 2002 age 49.
EA’s memoir comes just weeks after her half-brother, Chet Hanks, 34, also laid bare his tumultuous childhood living with their superstar father.
“I’ll tell you something about my childhood. People think that being Tom Hanks’ son, like, I would grow up feeling like I was the sh*t [but] I actually grew up feeling completely f**king worthless,” he said on MTV’s Surreal Life: Villa Of Secrets last year.
“It was a battle for me mentally and emotionally just to be able to walk outside, look someone in the eye and say, ‘What’s up? I’m Chet,’” he continued.
The notoriously private Tom, now 68, rarely opens up about his life, however EA’s memoir combined with Chet’s comments would be sure to haunt him as a father.
In a rare interview in 2020, Tom gave an insight into his divorce to Susan and its ramifications within their family, calling it a “horribly painful time, fraught with emotion and bad feelings”.
“I couldn’t be a worse father and I couldn’t be a worse human being,” the Academy Award winner told the In Depth With Graham Bensinger podcast of his mindset at the time.
“I think the job as a parent, one of the things I’ve learned, is to try to guarantee a carefree life for your children for as long as possible.
“They should not be burdened with the cares of the world until they can handle them,” he added.
