Long before Tom Hanks was one of the most well respected actors in Hollywood, he was just a high school student with a big dream. When Hanks was 18 years old, he wrote a letter to acclaimed director George Roy Hill, who won the Best Director Oscar in 1974 for "The Sting," and asked to be discovered.
The letter was on display with other Hollywood artifacts at the Library of the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. The contents of the letter, released by NPR, will make you fall in love with Hanks if you haven't already.
"Dear Mr. Hill, Seeing that ... I have seen your fantastically entertaining and award-winning film 'The Sting,' starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and enjoyed it very much, it is all together fitting and proper that you should 'discover' me," Hanks started out. "Now, right away I know what you are thinking: 'Who is this kid?' and I can understand your apprehensions. I am a nobody. No one outside of Skyline High School has heard of me. ... My looks are not stunning. I am not built like a Greek God, and I can't even grow a mustache, but I figure if people will pay to see certain films ... they will pay to see me," he said.
Hanks, 59, never got a chance to work with the acclaimed director he wrote to, who died in 2002 at the age of 82, according to ABC News.
"Let's work out the details of my discovery. We can do it the way Lana Turner was discovered, me sitting on a soda shop stool, you walk in and notice me and -- BANGO -- I am a star," Hanks wrote. "Mr. Hill, I do not want to be some bigtime, Hollywood superstar with girls crawling all over me, just a hometown American boy who has hit the big-time, owns a Porsche, and calls Robert Redford 'Bob'," he ended.
Hanks did not get discovered that way, but his plans for fame did work out for him in the end.
