list_text=          Multi-award-winning actor Tom Hanks has lent his talent to some significant "firsts" at the Walt Disney Studios, beginning with the motion picture "Splash" in 1984, Disney's first release under the Touchstone Pictures banner.  Eleven years later, in 1995, he voiced the beloved cowboy action figure Sheriff Woody in Disney's first all-computer animated feature "Toy Story".
          While "Splash" marked Tom's first starring role in a major motion picture, today he is one of Hollywood's heavyweights. Many critics consider him a throwback to the Golden Era of Hollywood, when leading men more often played a range of performances, as Tom does, from comedy to quiet magnetism to quintessential "Everyman" roles. Despite his successes as an actor, director and producer, Tom maintains a reputation as Hollywood's "Nice Guy."
		  Director David Seltzer, who worked with Tom in the 1988 film "Punchline," told "Newsweek" magazine, "I've seen so many actors lose access to that wonderful personal thing ...  Tom is humble, and humility is the key to an actor's success in film."
		  His appeal resonates through his voice, as well.  Shortly after the release of "Toy Story," "USA Today" published, "Hanks makes Woody likable yet understandably insecure over the flashier Buzz (Lightyear)," the astronaut action figure voiced by Tim Allen.  After the film's success, Tom encored in Disney's 1999 sequel "Toy Story 2".
		  Born in Concord, California, on July 9, 1956, Tom studied drama at California State University, Sacramento.  After an impressive performance in Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard," he was recruited into the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Ohio in 1977.
		  By 1980, Tom stepped onto the silver screen in "He Knows You're Alone," which led to the television sitcom "Bosom Buddies," and more.  After the success of "Splash," he returned to Disney in 1989, to star in "Turner & Hooch," playing a small town cop with an unruly canine sidekick.
		  Tom won his first Oscar nomination for his starring role in Penny Marshall's "Big" in 1988. He went on to earn two back-to-back Oscars for his startling performance as a lawyer afflicted with AIDS in the 1993 motion picture "Philadelphia," followed by his lighter role as a slow-witted, but fast-running innocent in the 1994 "Forrest Gump".  Another two nominations arrived for his starring roles in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998, followed by "Cast Away" in 2000.
		  Some of his more popular roles were opposite Meg Ryan in the romantic screwball comedies "Sleepless in Seattle" in 1993 and "You've Got Mail" in 1998.  He moved behind the camera in 1996 to write, direct, produce, and star in "That Thing You Do!"
		  Two years later, Tom wrote, directed and produced the award-winning 1998 television mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon," and in 2001 executive produced with Steven Spielberg the miniseries "Band of Brothers" for HBO. Also, on the small screen, he appeared in "The Best of Disney: 50 Years of Magic" in 1991 and the "Wonderful World of Disney - 40 Years of Disney Television" in 1994.
		  Most recently Tom Hanks appeared in "The Road to Perdition," with Paul Newman, and the comedy "Catch Me If You Can," with Leonardo DiCaprio. He returns to Disney in 2004, starring in "The Ladykillers" for Touchstone Pictures.&