Meet the forgotten first wives of Hollywood’s biggest stars – including the woman who introduced Tom Cruise to Scientology

Tom Hanks and Samantha Lewes

Tom Hanks is clearly enamoured with his wife, Rita Wilson, and they are the gold standard for long-lasting love in the spotlight. If they ever split up, that means love is absolutely dead in my opinion.

Before Tom and Rita became the golden couple, he was married to actress Samantha Lewes (real name Susan Dillingham) for almost ten years. The pair met while studying theatre at the California State University in Sacramento, and said “I do” in 1978, a year after welcoming their son, Colin Hanks – who has followed his father’s footsteps in Hollywood. 

They scraped by in Los Angeles as Tom struggled to find work in show business, and welcomed their second child, Elizabeth, in 1982. Tom and Samantha decided to call it quits in 1985, and finalised their divorce in 1987, with the mum of two being the kids’ primary caregiver. The Castaway actor went on to marry Rita, his Volunteers co-star, in 1988, and they later welcomed kids Chet and Truman.

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Things turned sour as Colin and Elizabeth grew up, and their mother’s mental health began to deteriorate. Elizabeth, who goes by the pen name E.A. Hanks, wrote in her 2025 memoir The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road about her difficult childhood living in Sacramento with Samantha.

“Eventually, a divorce agreement was settled, and I would visit my dad and stepmother (and soon enough my younger half-brothers) on the weekends and during summers, but from five to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I was a Sacramento girl,” Elizabeth explained.

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She recalled that Samantha suddenly moved her and Colin from Los Angeles to Sacramento without informing Tom. “My dad came to pick us up from school, and we’re not there. And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks, and he has to track us down.” I can only imagine how awful this must’ve been for the family man.

Elizabeth detailed the neglect she experienced living with her mother in the memoir, sharing that she would miss meals and that Samantha struck her when she was 14, which prompted Elizabeth’s decision to move in with Tom and Rita. Samantha passed away from lung cancer in 2002, aged 49. Despite their family pain, the Hanks’ are clearly a bulletproof unit today as a result.