10 fabulous facts about Tom Hanks to celebrate his 69th birthday

With a career spanning over 40 years, Tom Hanks is one of the most recognisable film stars in the world.

With a talent for both comedy and drama, he’s provided us with many iconic roles throughout his career, and is known in the industry as being one of the genuinely nice guys.

To celebrate him turning 69 (nice) we’ve put together some facts about the man behind so many of our favourite film characters.

Happy birthday, Tom Hanks!

1. He has been collecting typewriters since the ‘70s and has over 300 of them in his collection.

2. He is a distant relative of President Abraham Lincoln (third cousin, four times removed)

3. He has an asteroid named after him called 12818 Tomhanks.

4. After marrying Rita Wilson, who has Greek heritage, he converted to Greek Orthodox.

5. As a kid, he originally wanted to be an astronaut.

6. His first job, at age 14, was selling peanuts at Oakland A’s baseball games. He got robbed twice.

7. He supports Aston Villa Football Club.

8. His brother, Jim Hanks, has been both a body and a voice double for him. Jim Hanks stood in for Tom during some of the running sequences in Forrest Gump. He also has voiced Woody in various Toy Story projects when Tom wasn’t available to do them.

9. He was the first actor to be inducted as an honorary member of the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame.

10. For his role as Chuck Noland in ‘Castaway’, he lost 55lbs in just 4 months.