Tom Hanks Opens up about His Dad Witnessing His Grandfather's Death

Actor Tom Hanks recently sat with journalist Graham Bensinger on his eponymous show, “In Depth With Graham Bensinger.”

He opened up about his relationship with his father and recalled how his dad witnessed his grandfather’s murder. The actor said to Bensinger:

“My dad got a raw deal when he was a very young man because he happened to witness the murder of his father in a fight.”

Hanks said that his dad was between the ages of 8 and 10 at the time and witnessed his father get killed in the barn of the farm where they lived in Willows, California.

Hanks’s father, Amos, was one child out of four, and he was the only one who was present when the hired hand killed his father.He was taken to court to testify three times, and the poor young boy fought with how overwhelming the situation was.

Sadly, the man who killed Amos’s father was acquitted because the court deemed it a contentious fight by self-defense. Hanks said that experience ruined Amos and robbed him of a carefree life.

In July, after he and his wife, Rita Wilson, recovered from the illness, Hanks opened up about his ordeal and battle with coronavirus.

Amos was devoid of that sense of fairness or trust in the world. It became a heavyweight of injustice and unfairness that sat on his young shoulders. Hanks added that he was not sure if his dad could ever express the joy or happiness of anything that happened in his life.

The Oscar-winning actor revealed that Amos had great artistic talents and loved to write, but with the curveballs that life threw at him, he could not pursue those artistic desires.

Hanks and his father were never close until he starred in the 1986 movie, “Nothing In Common.” During production, Hanks parted ways with his wife, Samantha Lewes.

During that time, Amos and Hanks saw each other more and really communicated during the production process. The characters in the movie seemed very much like Hanks and Amos and somehow represented their relationship.

The tell-all interview came to a close with Hanks explaining how his father got to witness Hanks’s Oscars nomination for the 1988 comedy, “Big.”

The revealing interview with Bensinger came months after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March. In July, after he and his wife, Rita Wilson, recovered from the illness, Hanks opened up about his ordeal and battle with coronavirus.

The actor passionately spoke about how unpleasant the entire period was and called out people who refused to wear masks. He said he had no respect for people who declined to wear masks in public during the pandemic.

Hanks and his wife caught the disease while filming for the much-anticipated Elvis Presley biopic in Australia. Now that he and Wilson are in the clear, the actor is set to resume filming later in September.