Behind one of Hollywood’s best-known families was a reality few people could imagine.
Elizabeth Ann Hanks decided to tell her story in her memoir, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, where she recounts the difficult years she spent with her mother, Samantha Lewes, Tom Hanks’s first wife.
Her parents separated when she was young, and although she initially lived with her father, she and her brother Colin eventually moved in with their mother in Sacramento, California.
But living together became increasingly difficult. Elizabeth recalled that the refrigerator was often empty or filled with expired food, that the house was falling apart, and that she began finding guns in various corners.
The most painful part came when her mother began physically abusing her. According to her account, there were episodes when her mother pushed and shook her and locked her in a closet.
Until one day, she decided she could not go on living that way and moved to Los Angeles to stay with Tom Hanks, who was granted custody of her.
Years later, her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in 2002. Elizabeth acknowledges that their relationship was marked by feelings that were difficult to reconcile.
Interestingly, Tom read the book before it was published and, according to his daughter, felt it faithfully portrayed what it meant to love her mother and, at the same time, be afraid of her.
Elizabeth did not write her memoir to accuse her father, but to tell the story of a childhood that for years remained far removed from the public image of her famous family.
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