(L-R) Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, E.A. Hanks; cover of ‘ The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road’. Photo:
Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty; Gallery Books
E.A. Hanks holds a special place in her heart for Rita Wilson.
PEOPLE spoke with the 42-year-old daughter of Tom Hanks and ex-wife Susan Dillingham ahead of the Tuesday, April 8, release of her book The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road.
E.A. (short for Elizabeth Anne) tells PEOPLE that Wilson, who has been married to her father since April 1988, is someone she considers more than a stepmother.
“When I say my parents, I really mean my dad and Rita, because they’ve been together since before I can really remember. They’ve been together since I was 4 or 5,” E.A. says.
E.A. Hanks and Tom Hanks in Wrocław, Poland. E.A. Hanks
Wilson and Hanks first met on the set of ABC’s sitcom Bosom Buddies in 1981. At the time, Hanks was still married to Dillingham, with whom he shares E.A. and son Colin, 47. The two divorced in 1985 and Hanks began dating Wilson in 1986.
Following their marriage, Hanks and Wilson welcomed Chester “Chet” Marlon Hanks, 34, and Truman Theodore Hanks, 29. Dillingham, who acted in small roles under the name Samantha Lewes, died from lung cancer in 2002 at age 49.
Because of how young she was when Wilson and Hanks wed, E.A. tells PEOPLE, “Rita’s not really a stepmother, she’s my other mother.”
Tom Hanks, his wife actress Rita Wilson and E.A. Hanks and Truman Theodore Hanks. Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty
“And my younger brothers, I don’t think I’ve ever really referred to them as my half brothers, which I guess they technically are,” the author continues. “Because Chester was five when I moved to Los Angeles and Truman had just been born … So neither of them remember a time when I didn’t live with them. I think we’re all kind of in that era of trying to get our own thing going and individuate and all of that, but we’re a posse.”
Family is at the center of The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, which follows E.A.’s six-month road trip on Interstate 10, from L.A. to Palatka, Fla., where her mom’s family had once lived, to learn more about her complicated past.
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The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road is available now, wherever books are sold.
