Tom Hanks’ bizarre first encounter with Cher: “No you did not”
Tom Hanks might have rubbed elbows with more famous people than anybody else on the entire planet. As an actor, he’s co-starred with everyone who’s anyone, and has been directed by megastars like Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Wes Anderson, and Steven Spielberg. Through his love of space travel, he’s hobnobbed with some of the world’s most famous astronauts and he’s even a distant cousin of former US President Abraham Lincoln.
America’s dad wasn’t always a big star, mind you, so he had to earn a living just like the rest of us. He put himself through various acting colleges in California during his teenage years and had a number of jobs in order to front the costs. As he told Renée Zellweger as part of Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ series, one of his pre-fame gigs was as a bellboy in a hotel. Even then, however, he was still able to attract big names.
“I carried Cher’s bags!” Hanks revealed, to which Zellweger exclaimed, “no, you did not!” As Hanks explained, “when she was married to Gregg Allman, I brought in the bags, and I said, ‘I believe these are the bags you asked for, Mr. Allman.’ He said, ‘I don’t know – Toots?’ And then Toots was Cher, and she came in, and yeah, that was her bag.”
Cher – actor, singer, and all-round icon – was married to musician Gregg Allman (of The Allman Brothers Band) between 1975 and 1979. That would put Hanks in his late teens/early 20s when he ran into her. Hanks’ movie career didn’t begin until 1980, when he bagged a small role in a low budget horror movie called He Knows You’re Alone, so at this point, he was still trying to make his way his world get started on making his dreams come true.
“I got my first professional job when I was 20. I was at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival,” Hanks revealed. It was Vincent Dowling, the head of the Festival, that inspired Hanks was to follow his passions full-time, leading to him dropping out of college to pursue an acting career. “I got into the Actors’ Equity union 43 years ago,” he continued. “My first actual thing that aired on TV was an episode of The Love Boat in 1980.”
Not to be outdone, Zellweger also had some stories from her days working in a cocktail bar in her native state of Texas. “The guys from Bad Company would come in,” said the Bridget Jones actor. “Nick Nolte came in, Gary Busey came in.” At the mention of Busey, whom Hanks actually beat for the lead role in Big, the Toy Story star joked, “oh, that — he was there for a while.” Hanks later clarified his statement, saying, “Gary would appreciate it, because he’s bone-dry sober right now.”
Despite both being huge international stars, Hanks and Cher have never appeared in a film together. The closest they came was Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again; Hanks served as one of the film’s executive producers, whilst the ‘Believe’ singer made an appearance as Ruby Sheridan, grandmother of Amanda Seyfried’s character Sophie. Whilst Hanks has never acted alongside Cher, his wife has. Rita Wilson was in a 1996 TV movie called If These Walls Could Talk. The film was split into three sections, the third of which featured both Wilson and Cher, who also directed.
