Elizabeth Hanks, the daughter of Tom Hanks and first spouse Samantha Lewes, opened up about her turbulent childhood and complicated relationship along with her mom in her new e-book, “The ten: A Memoir of Household And The Open Highway.”
In an excerpt obtained by Individuals Thursday, the writer — who now goes by E.A. for Elizabeth Anne — wrote about how her dad and mom’ cut up in 1985 formed her and brother Colin Hanks’ early years.
“I’m a child from the First (non-famous) Marriage. My solely recollections of my dad and mom in the identical place on the identical time are Colin’s highschool commencement, then my highschool commencement,” she started. “I’ve one image of me standing between my dad and mom. In it, my mom’s finest wig is barely askew.”
The writer, now 42, was “born in Burbank” however has very “few recollections of the early years in Los Angeles” as a result of her mother moved them, with out warning, six hours away to Sacramento shortly after her divorce from the “Forrest Gump” star.
“Finally a divorce settlement was settled, and I might go to my dad and stepmother (and shortly sufficient my youthful half brothers) on the weekends and through summers, however from 5 to 14, years full of confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I used to be a Sacramento lady,” she wrote, per Individuals.
“I lived in a white home with columns, a yard with a pool, and a bed room with footage of horses plastered on each wall.”
Nevertheless, issues took a flip “because the years went on” and her mother’s psychological well being suffered.
“The yard turned so stuffed with canine s—t that you simply couldn’t stroll round it, the home stank of smoke. The fridge was naked or stuffed with expired meals as a rule, and my mom spent increasingly more time in her large four-poster mattress, poring over the Bible,” she recalled within the excerpt.
“One evening, her emotional violence turned bodily violence, and within the aftermath, I moved to Los Angeles, proper smack in the midst of the seventh grade.”
The Vassar Faculty graduate mentioned her dad and mom’ “custody association principally switched” after that time and he or she discovered herself solely visiting Sacramento “on the weekends and in the summertime.”
“Once I was 14, my mom and I drove throughout America alongside Interstate 10 to Florida, in a Winnebago that lumbered alongside the asphalt with a rolling gait that felt nautical,” she continued.
“My senior yr of highschool, she known as to say she was dying,” the excerpt ended.
Lewes, whose actual identify was Susan Dillingham, died from lung most cancers in 2002 at age 49. E.A. was simply 19 on the time.
In 2019, E.A. went on one other six-month street journey from Los Angeles to Palatka, Fla., the place Lewes as soon as lived, by way of Interstate 10.
She set out on the journey to study extra about her mother and wrote the upcoming memoir about her experiences alongside the way in which.
E.A. instructed Individuals she suspected that Lewes lived with undiagnosed bipolar with episodes of utmost paranoia and delusion.
Lewes met the “Forged Away” actor, 68, within the mid ’70s whereas they had been each learning theater in Sacramento.
The then-couple welcomed their first youngster, son Colin, 47, in 1977 and tied the knot one yr later. They turned dad and mom of two in 1982 when Elizabeth was born.
Nevertheless, the bliss was short-lived and the pair separated in 1985. Their divorce was finalized two years later.
Lewes bought main custody within the divorce and the youngsters had designated weekend and summer season visits with their dad — till the state of affairs flipped of their teenage years.
Whereas Lewes by no means remarried, Tom went on to marry actress Rita Wilson in 1988. They share sons Chet, 34, and Truman, 29.
“The ten: A Memoir of Household and the Open Highway” by E.A. Hanks is out April 8.
