Elizabeth Anne Hanks — or EA, as she now prefers to be called — is stepping into the spotlight not as the daughter of Hollywood royalty, but as a woman ready to tell her own story.
In her powerful new memoir, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, EA opens up about the raw and often painful realities of growing up as the daughter of Tom Hanks and his first wife, the late Samantha Lewes (born Susan Dillingham). Long before red carpets and iconic roles shaped her father’s legacy, Elizabeth’s childhood was marked by emotional chaos, strained relationships, and an ongoing quest for identity.
In an excerpt shared with People, she paints a vivid picture of the fractured family life she and her brother Colin Hanks endured following their parents’ 1985 divorce. “My only memories of my parents being in the same place at the same time are Colin’s high school graduation, then my high school graduation,” she wrote, underscoring how rare — and emotionally distant — moments of unity were in her early life.
She recalled the sudden uprooting from Los Angeles to Sacramento after the divorce — a move led by her mother, with no explanation or forewarning. For a time, there was comfort in the new home: a Sacramento girl’s dream, complete with a columned house and a pool in the backyard. But the illusion faded. Her mother’s declining health and emotional volatility soon cast a dark shadow. “Confusion, violence, deprivation, and love” is how EA described the years that followed, a complex cocktail of emotions she carried from ages 5 to 14.
The once-idyllic home began to decay — both physically and emotionally. Elizabeth recalled a backyard filled with dog waste, and a house permeated by the stench of cigarette smoke. And when the emotional abuse turned physical, she made a life-altering decision: she left. In the middle of seventh grade, she packed up and moved back to Los Angeles — a place that once felt like the past, now becoming her refuge.
The shift was more than geographical. Her custody arrangement reversed, and Sacramento became the place she visited on weekends and holidays — no longer home, but a reminder of where she’d been. Her mother’s death from lung cancer in 2002, when EA was just 19, left her with unanswered questions and a deep yearning to know the woman behind the pain.
Now, through her memoir, EA Hanks is not only searching for her mother but reclaiming her own voice. The 10 traces both the literal and emotional roads she’s traveled — and it offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into a life shaped by fame but not defined by it.
