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Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson Celebrate 35 Years of Marriage

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson celebrated 35 years of marriage on Sunday. Credit: Rita Wilson / Twitter

On Sunday, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. Hanks, the famous actor and filmmaker, and Wilson, a popular Hollywood actress, singer, and producer, married in 1988.

Wilson is half Greek and Hanks converted to Greek Orthodoxy when the couple married. Both have Greek citizenship and share a home on the island of Antiparos.

To mark the occasion, Wilson shared an image on her social media accounts.

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson celebrate their anniversary

“35 years of marriage. April 30, 1988. Love is everything,” wrote Rita Wilson on her Instagram and Twitter accounts, accompanied by a picture of herself and her husband indulging with a cake to celebrate their anniversary.

The couple has two adult sons, Chet and Truman Hanks, aged 32 and 27 respectively. Chet followed in his parent’s footsteps by pursuing a career in acting and singing. Until recently, Truman has preferred to work behind the camera but he acted alongside his father in the movies News of the World and Who is Otto?

Hanks and Wilson met in 1981 on the set of the TV show Bosom Buddies. In 1985, they appeared onscreen together again, this time in the film Volunteers. The following year, they appeared on the red carpet together, effectively confirming their relationship to the public.

The couple got married at the Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox church in downtown Los Angeles in 1988. Their children were also baptized into the faith in the same church.

Greek connection

Owing to Wilson’s family background and Hanks’ conversion to Orthodoxy and keen embrace of the culture, the couple has a strong connection with Greece.

Wilson’s mother, Dorothea Tzigkou, was Greek, born in Albania near the Greek border, and her father was a Bulgarian Muslim born in Oraio, Greece. Her parents met in the US and her father, Hassan Halilov Ibrahimoff, converted to Orthodoxy. The family adopted the name Wilson to adapt to American culture more easily.

In 2019, the Greek government granted Hanks and Wilson citizenship, citing their “exceptional services to Greece”. A year before, the pair brought massive media attention and resources to help with the devastating wildfires of July 2018.

The pair picked up their new Greek passports in 2020 during a trip to the country and were pictured celebrating their citizenships with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his wife Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotakis.

The couple has been known to frequent their villa on the Greek island of Antiparos in the Cyclades. The property consists of a 450-square-meter stone villa located on a six-acre property between the villages of Glypha and Chora.

According to locals, that’s the only place where Hanks and Wilson are “left alone to relax, catch up with friends, throw dinner parties and unwind, away from Hollywood’s demands and flashing lights.”

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