Tom Hanks’ Father a Member of The Diamonds-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Emails and forum posts claim that Tom Hanks’ father was the lead singer for the popular 1950s band The Diamonds.
The Truth:
Tom Hanks’ father wasn’t a member of The Diamonds.
That rumor has persisted for years, but the band’s late lead singer and founder, “Diamond” Dave Somerville, was not Tom Hanks’ father.
Dave Somerville died at the age of 81 in July 2015. The singer’s obituary provides a definitive accounting of The Diamonds, and Somerville’s life, and Tom Hanks is not a part of it. Somerville had one child, a son named David Orlando, according to his obituary.
Tom Hanks’ actual father was a chef named Amos Hanks, according to his biography:
Thomas J. Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California. Tom was raised by Amos Mefford Hanks, a cook and restaurant manager, and Janet (Turner) Hanks, a hospital worker. His parents divorced when he was 5, and his father took him along with his three siblings, Sandra, Larry and Jim, to Reno, Nevada. Because his father was an itinerant cook, Tom had to move quite often in his childhood. The family eventually settled in Oakland, California, where Tom attended and graduated from Skyline High School in 1974.
Tom Hanks’s father wasn’t in the entertainment industry, and he wasn’t Diamond Dave Somerville.