Tom Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Hanks has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won Academy Awards for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia and for his role in Forrest Gump. The 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers launched Hanks as a successful director, producer, and writer. As of 2014, Hanks’ films have grossed over $4.2 billion at the U.S. and Canada box offices, and over $8.4 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors in film history. (More from Wikipedia)
Someone put together a backstory for the characters in the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do!. Some of the people were entirely made-up; presumably those are the ones who are actually in the film. Others are famous to one degree or another: Bob Dylan, Suzanne Pleshette, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Jerry Murad’s Harmonicats, Timi Yuro.
And then they threw Linda Pierre King into the mix – and that just isn’t playing fair. Neither one of the CD’s that I have provides any information to speak of about her. The liner notes in one of them describe her as a quintessential hippie folksinger, and the small picture that is included bears that out. Now anyone trying to ferret out information about Linda Pierre King has to get past all of the made-up story line about her hanging out in a Greenwich Village club called Beanie’s something-or-other, and then meeting and marrying the so-called King of Barber Shop.
(April 2015/2)
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I go back a long way with Under Appreciation. When watching TV as a kid, I of course paid a lot of attention to the stars, but I would also notice the character actors that showed up in small parts in a lot of the shows. One of my favorites back when was Dabbs Greer; he just seemed to show up all the time on TV, and eventually I picked up his name from the credits in one of those shows. Scanning his write-up in Wikipedia, he was in an episode of The Twilight Zone and several of the Perry Mason shows; but it was mostly Saturday morning shows where I remember seeing him.
Imagine my surprise decades later when Dabbs Greer appeared in some of the first scenes in The Green Mile; he played the Tom Hanks character in later life who was relating the story to a friend at the nursing home where he was living.
(Year 5 Review)