Tom Hanks' Daughter Writes of Early Life Filled With 'Violence'

We've seen Tom Hanks' oldest son, Colin Hanks, take a star turn in Fargo, and his middle son, Chet Hanks, pump out rap songs and music videos and make headlines in ... other ways. Now we get to hear from EA Hanks, the 68-year-old Forrest Gump actor's daughter with first wife Susan Dillingham, via a memoir coming out that takes a deep dive into the late Dillingham's life—one that EA Hanks says was a troubled one—and the younger Hanks' own stormy childhood. USA Today notes that while on her cross-country journey to put together the memoir, which comes out Tuesday, Hanks followed along with her mother's diaries and discovered details "darker and more violent than she ever imagined," according to the book's description. Dillingham died of lung cancer in 2002, at the age of 49. More, per excerpts in People:

• Hanks, who calls herself "a kid from the First (non-famous) Marriage"—her father's second and current wife is actor Rita Wilson—says that after her mom and dad divorced in the mid-'80s, she and Colin lived in the California city of Sacramento with Dillingham, who acted under the name Samantha Lewes. Hanks writes that from the ages of 5 to 14, her life was "filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love," in "a white house with columns, a backyard with a pool, and a bedroom with pictures of horses plastered on every wall."

• As time went on, however, and Dillingham's mental state deteriorated, so did their living conditions: "The backyard became so full of dog s--- 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."
• Hanks says that a change of custody took place after Dillingham's "emotional violence became physical violence" and she and Colin went to live with their dad in LA. She tells People she never let her father know too much about what was happening while living with Dillingham, as she felt like a "protector" of her mother's secrets, per USA Today.
• EA says Tom Hanks has been supportive of her memoir. "I'm equally my father's daughter because he taught me to tell the truth and move forward," she says.

More excerpts here. (More Tom Hanks stories.)