Long before he was Hollywood’s resident “everyman” or a multi-Oscar winner, Tom Hanks spent the 1970s as a wandering, highly energetic theater kid trying to find his footing. If you looked at him in 1975, you wouldn’t see a movie star; you’d see a self-described “extroverted, colorful” teenager working as a bellhop at the Oakland Hilton and obsessing over stage productions. His journey through the decade was a classic, grinding origin story.
Hanks started the decade at Skyline High School in Oakland, California. Coming from a fractured, nomadic childhood (his parents divorced early, and he moved homes constantly), he found an emotional anchor in his school’s drama program. His very first acting experience was playing in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
After graduating high school in 1974, he headed to Chabot Community College in Hayward, California, where his love for the stage completely took over. He wasn’t just acting; he was working as a stagehand, absorbing everything he could about how live theater operated. In 1976, Hanks transferred to California State University, Sacramento, to major in drama. While there, he met Vincent Dowling, a director associated with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. Dowling invited Hanks to intern for the summer of 1977.
Hanks packed his bags for Cleveland, and that internship turned into a three-year stint that essentially replaced his college education. He dropped out of CSU Sacramento because he was learning more on the job. He did everything: tracked props, built sets, managed stages, and played minor roles (making his official professional stage debut as Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew in 1977). By 1978, his hard work paid off when he won the Cleveland Drama Critics Award for Best Actor for playing Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The end of the decade brought massive shifts in his personal and professional life, In 1977, his college sweetheart, Samantha Lewes (Susan Dillingham), gave birth to their first child, Colin Hanks. The couple married in 1978 when Tom was just 21 years old. Armed with his Cleveland theater experience, a young family to support, and immense determination, Hanks moved to New York City in late 1978 to try and break into professional film and television.
The hustle was real, he spent a lot of 1979 hitting pavement and visiting unemployment offices. But right at the tail end of 1979, the hard work began to materialize. He landed a small role in a low-budget, slasher horror flick called He Knows You’re Alone (released in 1980), which served as his feature film debut. More importantly, the auditions he ran at the close of 1979 set up the ultimate turning point of his early career: landing the co-leading role in the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies, which premiered in late 1980 and officially launched him into the public consciousness.
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