Inside Tom Hanks' little-known first marriage to abusive actress

Hollywood actor has been married to his wife, Rita Wilson, for almost 40 years, but this isn't his first marriage. Before meeting Rita, the Forrest Gump star was married to actress Samantha Lewes, and together, they welcomed two children.

In her upcoming memoir, their daughter of a challenging upbringing with "confusion, violence, deprivation, and love" with her late mum, who passed away at the age of 49 from bone cancer in 2002. Elizabeth, also known as EA, bravely talks about the "emotionally and physically violent" behaviour that she alleges better known by her stage name Samantha Lewes, subjected her to during her youth.

Tom met his first wife, Samantha, who was four years his senior when they were both attending California State University in Sacramento to study theatre. They are said to have formed a close friendship that quickly grew into a romantic relationship. In 1977, they welcomed their first child together, a son called Colin Hanks, who is now 47.

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A year later, in 1978, the couple moved into a run-down apartment in Manhattan as Tom, who was 22 years old at the time, tried to launch his career in acting. In the same year, the couple tied the knot, and by 1982, they had welcomed their daughter Elizabeth, who is now 42 years old.

As Tom's career took off and he began making a name for himself in Hollywood, he found himself busy and away from the family, which is said to have impacted his marriage. After seven years of marriage, the couple decided to part ways, and their divorce was finalised two years later in 1987.

Following their divorce, their children were primarily in the custody of their mother, but Tom remained an active presence, visiting them on weekends and during the holidays. Reportedly, Samantha moved with the children from Los Angeles to Sacramento without informing the renowned actor. EA, who was five years old at the time, recalled in her tell-all memoir, 'The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road,' that her father had to "'track us down" when he allegedly found out they were no longer in the same city.

EA wrote: "My dad came to pick us up from school and we're not there." She added: "And it turns out we haven't been there for two weeks and he has to track us down."

In EA's tell-all memoir, 'The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road,' she describes her parent's relationship as "two hurt kids trying to dig out of a well together". In his Desert Island Discs interview, Tom spoke about his divorce and reflected: "sentencing my own kids to the sort of feelings I had at their age."

Tragically, in 2002, Susan passed away at the age of 49 after a battle with bone cancer, leaving behind daughter Elizabeth and son Colin. In her tell-all memoir, EA delves into the complexities of her tumultuous relationship with her late mother, recounting experiences of neglect and mistreatment during their years in Sacramento following her parents’ separation.

including her belief that her mother, Samantha suffered from bipolar disorder despite never receiving an official diagnosis, and opens up about her challenging history. A poignant snippet from her memoir reveals her roots and subsequent upheaval: "I was born in Burbank, but after my parents split up, my mother took my older brother and me to live in Sacramento. I have few memories of the early years in Los Angeles.

"Eventually a divorce agreement was settled, and I would visit my dad and stepmother (and soon enough my younger half brothers) on the weekends and during summers, but from 5 to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I was a Sacramento girl. I lived in a white house with columns, a backyard with a pool, and a bedroom with pictures of horses plastered on every wall.

"As the years went on, the backyard became so full of dog s**t that you couldn't walk around it, the house stank of smoke. The fridge was bare or full of expired food more often than not, and my mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible. One night, her emotional violence became physical violence, and in the aftermath I moved to Los Angeles, right smack in the middle of the seventh grade.

"My custody arrangement basically switched - now I lived in L.A. and visited Sacramento on the weekends and in the summer. When I was 14, my mother and I drove across America along Interstate 10 to Florida, in a Winnebago that lumbered along the asphalt with a rolling gait that felt nautical."

The excerpt ends with: "My senior year of high school, she called to say she was dying."