E.A. Hanks and Our Cultural Obseession with Tom Hanks' Kids

E.A. Hanks (short for Elizabeth Anne), the 42-year-old daughter of Tom Hanks and his ex-wife, Samantha Lewes, released her memoir this week, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. The book recounts her troubled childhood, which she attributes almost entirely to her mother, who died of bone cancer in 2002 at the age of 49.

According to E.A., her mother likely had undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She describes a chaotic home life: a backyard so full of dog sh*t they couldn’t walk through it, a refrigerator stocked with expired food, a house that reeked of smoke, and a mother who spent most of her time in bed reading the Bible.

E.A. also said in an interview that her mother never recovered from her ex-husband’s “catastrophic fame.”

“She felt that his stature in the world obliterated her and any chance she had at continuing her stage career,” she recently told Vanity Fair. “The uncomfortable truth — and there are a lot of them in this book — is she didn’t really have a career, and her ex-husband becoming the Tom Hanks was more insult to injury than significant impediment.”

That’s one of many revelations in the memoir, which follows E.A. on a road trip to Florida to better understand the mother she lost. The memoir might be brilliant. E.A. Hanks might be a remarkable writer. But let’s be honest: The only reason most of us are paying attention is because she’s the daughter of Tom Hanks.

That curiosity extends to all of Hanks’ children, including Colin Hanks and, especially, the famously troubled Chet Hanks, who’s found sobriety in recent years and seems to have turned his life around (he’s very good in the Kate Hudson Netflix series, Running Point).

America isn’t just obsessed with Tom Hanks, we’re obsessed with his kids, too. One of my favorite episodes of Marc Maron’s podcast featured Colin Hanks talking about the misconceptions people have about being Tom Hanks’ son. Colin—the eldest child—spent most of his childhood with his mother, visiting Tom on weekends and during the summer. E.A., who is seven years younger, eventually ended up living primarily with Tom due to their mother’s worsening condition.

It’s strange to think of Tom Hanks, America’s Dad, as someone who shared custody. It’s strange to think of him as having been married to someone other than Rita Wilson. And it’s almost surreal to consider that Chet Hanks, of all people, is the son of the nicest guy in Hollywood.

And that, to me, is part of the obsession: How does a guy with Tom Hanks as a dad grow up so dysfunctional? How does the older brother, who grew up with the troubled mother, turn out more like Tom than the sibling who was raised by Tom himself?

Honestly, I think it makes the rest of us feel a little better about our own parenting missteps. If even Tom Hanks didn’t raise perfect kids, maybe we can give ourselves a break. But it’s also fascinating to think that someone’s goodness — that their kindness and likability — could be so “catastrophic” to those closest to them.

That second part of E.A. Hanks’ quote about her father’s fame is telling: “‘Catastrophic’ also because that brand of megawatt fame erases what actually matters in an artist and what set my dad apart in the first place: humanity and talent.”

It’s jarring to consider that one man’s humanity could negatively impact those around him, but I also get exactly why that might be true.