Why Tom Hanks’ Daughter E.A. Hanks Doesn’t Call Rita Wilson Her Stepmother
For E.A. Hanks, Disneyland has always been the happiest place on earth.
But reflecting on the future in her new memoir The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, the daughter of Tom Hanks and his ex-wife Susan Dillingham admitted that the inevitable death of her dad could change her perspective on the California theme park.
“Disneyland has been more of a constant in my life than any house I have ever lived in,” E.A., 42, wrote in the book. “I have spent Thanksgiving there. I have spent Christmas there. I have spent more birthdays than I can count there.”
More importantly, it was where she and Tom—who is also dad to Colin Hanks, 47, whom he shared with his ex-wife, as well as Chet Hanks, 34, and Truman Hanks, 29, with wife Rita Wilson—developed a deeper bond.
“I cannot separate my emotional connection to Disneyland from my emotional connection to my father,” she added, “because like many other California daughters, I have spent a lot of time at Disneyland with my dad, and because one day he’ll die.”
Stepping foot inside the park will always remind her of sweet memories with Tom, 68, especially with his voice as Woody in Toy Story immortalized in its rides and merchandise. (He later played Walt Disney himself in 2013’s Saving Mr. Banks.)
“I was thinking about that first time I will come back to Disneyland after my father dies—and how I will hear him when I hear Woody,” she continued. “In that moment, it was as if it had already happened, that I was somehow touching on what future me would feel, and I cracked open with emotion.”
But it’s a bittersweet thought for E.A., whose full name is Elizabeth Anne Hanks, adding, “Disneyland ensures that a part of my dad will live forever.”
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Along with her dad’s legacy at the park, she added that it has “become for me a monument for art, against death.”
As she put it, “Walt’s vision survives, and some part of my father will too. Art survives.”
Although her relationship with the Forrest Gump star is sweeter than a box of chocolates, her dynamic with Susan was more complicated. Looking back at her turbulent childhood, E.A. speculated that her mom may have been battling mental illness.
“Saying that my mother was mentally ill,” she explained in the book, “that she was possibly ‘bipolar with episodes of extreme paranoia and delusion,’ makes sense of the nights sitting with her on a blanket in the driveway, my mother sobbing and convinced there were men inside the house, bugging the walls, waiting for us in our bedrooms.”
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By age 14, she realized that her home life was “not right,” noting that there should have been “more food in the house” regularly, she should’ve “had help with homework” and that she shouldn’t have been “woken up at three in the morning to hear an impromptu lecture on why yoga was the devil’s work did not happen in other houses.”
Luckily, E.A. found support in Rita, 68, and her brothers in addition to Tom.
“When I say my parents, I really mean my dad and Rita because they’ve been together since before I can really remember,” she wrote. “They’ve been together since I was 4 or 5.”
“Rita’s not really a stepmother, she’s my other mother,” she noted. “I don’t think I’ve ever really referred to them as my half brothers, which I guess they technically are. Chester was five when I moved to Los Angeles and Truman had just been born, so neither of them remember a time when I didn’t live with them. We’re a posse.”
Now, read on for a breakdown of the Hanks family.
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Tom Hanks
While the world knows Tom Hanks as an Oscar-winning actor, to his four kids Colin Hanks, E.A. Hanks, Chet Hanks and Truman Hanks, he’s dad.
“Somewhere along the line, I figured out, the only thing really, I think, eventually a parent can do is say I love you, there’s nothing you can do wrong, you cannot hurt my feelings, I hope you will forgive me on occasion, and what do you need me to do?” the Forrest Gump star told The New York Times in 2019. “You offer up that to them. I will do anything I can possibly do in order to keep you safe. That’s it. Offer that up and then just love them.”
And for Tom, who married Rita Wilson in 1988, part of keeping his children safe is protecting their privacy.
“We were always able to separate the personal responsibilities from the private ones,” he said on a 2020 episode of In Depth with Graham Bensinger. “There are times you have to be in public and there are times when you shouldn’t be in public. When the kids were growing up, we protected that very, very specifically.”
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Susan Dillingham (a.k.a. Samantha Lewes)
Before Tom was married to Rita, he met wife Susan Dillingham (who acted in small roles as Samantha Lewes) when they were studying at Sacramento State.
The two were already parents to son Colin, born in 1977, when they wed in 1980 and went on to welcome daughter E.A. (her initials stand for Elizabeth Ann) in 1982.
But three years later, Tom and Susan split.
It was a “horribly painful time, fraught with emotion and bad feelings and the failures that you go, ‘Oh, I couldn’t be a worse father, and I couldn’t be a worse human being,'” the Big alum recalled on a 2020 episode of In Depth With Graham Bensinger. “I remember all those feelings as though I had cursed innocent beings with my own failings.”
Tom said he attended therapy and leaned on those he could confide in during that time.
“Sometimes it’s a priest at the church that you trust. Sometimes, it’s a really good friend,” he continued. “I’ve had versions of all those things that have been the type of people that have said, ‘You know, you’re not a horrible person, and this will pass. You just gotta have a little bit of faith and goodness that is inside yourself.'”
Susan died in 2002 after a battle with cancer.
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Rita Wilson
Tom and Rita first met in 1981 when she made an appearance on his show Bosom Buddies, and they later costarred in the 1985 film Volunteers.
“Rita and I just looked at each other and—kaboing—that was that,” Tom once told GQ, per People, about their connection on Volunteers. “I asked Rita if it was the real thing for her, and it just couldn’t be denied.”The actor and the singer wed in 1988. And they’re not only partners in life but also in work, with them appearing together in films like That Thing You Do! and Sleepless in Seattle and producing movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and A Man Called Otto.
Through life’s highs and lows—including her 2015 breast cancer battle—Tom and Rita have been by each other’s sides. And the actress, who celebrated 10 years of being cancer-free in March 2025, says they continue to put in the work to make their love burn bright.
“I think that any long-term relationship, if you are lucky enough to fall in love and have that spark ignite, it’s kind of a responsibility for both people in the relationship to keep that spark going and to keep that flame going,” she said in a 2019 interview with Access Hollywood. “Because over the years, over time, you’re gonna have ups and downs. It’s not going to be all fabulous every second of the day. So, to me, it’s that awareness of if you’ve got that, it always happens.”
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Colin Hanks
Colin Hanks is Tom’s oldest son from his previous marriage to Susan. And just like his dad, he fell in love with acting at an early age.
“To be honest, it really just came down to it was the most fun,” Colin said on a 2022 episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. “Acting was the thing I was drawn to the most. And when there was the least amount of pressure on me to enjoy it, that’s when I enjoyed it the most.”
Although, he admits there was a time when he turned away from acting because, given his famous father, people kept telling him, “Of course, that’s what you’re going to do.” However, Colin says it was his dad’s words of wisdom that got him back on that path.
“This is the one thing I will credit the old man with is he said, ‘Look, you have to want to do this. If you don’t really want this, then come up with something else. Because you will be miserable if this is not something that you truly are passionate about,'” he continued. “It was the best advice I could have gotten at the best time.”
Colin went on to star in many movies and TV shows, including Life in Pieces, Roswell, Orange County, King Kong, The House Bunny, and Untraceable. He’s also done voiceover work for animated projects like Talking Tom and Friends
Colin is married to Samantha Bryant and is dad to daughters Olivia and Charlotte.
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E.A. Hanks
E.A. Hanks is Tom’s only daughter from his previous marriage to Susan.
And while her siblings caught the filmmaking bug, she pursued a different career path.
Previously a writer for Vanity Fair, E.A. has contributed to outlets like TIME, The Guardian and The New York Times. She’s also an author, with her book The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road dropping April 8, 2025. According to a description from publisher Simon & Schuster, the book details E.A.’s journey as she “follows the same route as a long-ago road trip with her mother in an attempt to better understand the complicated woman who gave her life.”
In a book excerpt shared by People, E.A. looks back at the time following her parents’ split in which Susan had custody of her and Colin while Tom saw the kids on the weekends. But one day, she continued, her mom moved them from L.A. to Sacramento without giving their dad a heads-up.
“My dad came to pick us up from school and we’re not there,” E.A wrote. “And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks and he has to track us down.”
In the book, E.A. also shared her experience of living with her mom, writing the backyard was “full of dog s–t,” “the house stank of smoke,” and the “fridge was bare or full of expired food.”
“One night, her emotional violence became physical violence,” E.A. wrote, “and in the aftermath I moved to Los Angeles, right smack in the middle of the seventh grade.”
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Chet Hanks
Chet Hanks, born in August 1990, is Tom and Rita’s oldest son and has inherited their passion of acting.
Over the years, he’s appeared in TV shows like Running Point, Your Honor, Empire and Shameless as well as in movies like Dead Wrong, Fantastic Four and his father’s films Larry Crowne and Greyhound.
“My dad’s an actor. My older brother’s an actor. My mom. This was the family business,” he told Bustle in March 2025, “so I [knew] that was something I would go into at some point.”
Chet shares his mother’s love of music, too. In addition to releasing a few rap tracks, he’s part of the country music duo Something Out West. And in March 2025, they dropped a Forrest Gump-themed music video for their song “You Better Run” featuring Tom.
A cast member on the 2024 reality show The Surreal Life: Villa of Secrets, Chet has also made headlines for some controversial moments, including his decision to put on a Jamaican Patois accent at the 2020 Golden Globes and coin the phrase “white boy summer” the following year.
More recently, Chet has remained focused on his work, family (he shares daughter Michaiah with ex Tiffany Miles) and sobriety. And he’s thankful his parents have been there for him throughout his journey.
“They’ve always have been super supportive of me,” Chet said on a March 2025 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, noting he’s three years sober, “and I don’t take it for granted.”
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Truman Hanks
Born in December 1995, Truman Hanks is the youngest of the Hanks kids.
And like his older brothers, he’s following in dad Tom and mom Rita’s famous footsteps by entering the movie-making business. Although, his father notes Truman prefers being behind the camera.
“He’s been working with cameras and lenses and has been developing his own films since he was in high school,” the Cast Away star said on a 2023 episode of SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, later adding, “All my kids are Renaissance creatures. But he actually is a member of the Local 600, which is the camera union here in New York. So he works on films already in the camera department, and he’s actually shot his own stuff. He’s actually been a cinematographer already, director of photography.”
Truman has dabbled in acting as well, playing the younger version of his dad’s titular character in the 2022 film A Man Called Otto.
“His curse or blessing, you decide,” noted Tom, “is that he and I resemble each other almost completely at the age of 26.”
In addition to working in film, Truman is a mathematics major, who received his degree from Stanford University.
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