Tom Hanks On the Power of Friendship

With a freshly printed Actors’ Equity union card in my thin wallet, I had a Rubicon to cross. I was an unemployed actor. I had spent two seasons playing shoulder to shoulder with actors from all over the regional-theater map, from Minneapolis’ Cricket Theatre to repertory companies in Missouri, Indianapolis and Milwaukee. I had never been out of California before getting the job in Cleveland. The comfort of the West Coast was calling me back to find what work I could in San Francisco or Berkeley, near where I grew up, or to woo the Harsh Mistress of Showbiz, who reigns over Los Angeles — to gamble against the odds like so many had before. I could go anywhere. All of my worldly possessions fit in my 1970 VW Beetle. So I asked around: Where should I go?  

George and MichaelJohn made quick work of telling me: I would go to New York! Just as they had! New York City is where actors and artists go to test their talent and their wherewithal! In New York City, I would be a part of the grand community of Players, learning as much from the pulse of the city as from any performance I’d ever given! With the luck of serendipity, I’d audition for off-off-Broadway and off-Broadway and Broadway! And movies and TV and commercials and industrials! For cruise ships, for dinner theaters! For every professional theater in America! I would sell my car to bankroll the move to the City That Never Sleeps!

OK! That’s what I did! MichaelJohn and I drove east on I-80 together, from the Cuyahoga to the Hudson, delivering a transported car to the docks of Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. I slept on his couch for too many weeks, in the apartment he shared with a playwright and actor who didn’t know me from Adam but made me laugh all day. MichaelJohn typed up my résumé on his battleship of a Royal typewriter (which he has since given me). When I finally found a horridly dark and busted-up fourth-floor walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen, he cosigned the lease for me — a moment of risky generosity I will never, ever forget. The New York City winter was new to me, so cold that a walk outside made my jaw hurt. I did not have winter clothes. George gave me a jacket. He also came by with milk to go with the Entenmann’s blackout cakes that MichaelJohn would bring by. George gave me his old portable black-and-white TV (with coat hanger antenna), a pair of chairs with broken cane seats, and a kitchen-size table that was nuts to have in a fourth-floor walk-up. MichaelJohn showed me the ropes of the Actors’ Equity lounge, with its casting board and credit union. In the depths of February, the three of us met at George’s ground-floor studio apartment, just off Central Park West, the walls covered with the 8-by-10s of so many of his actor friends, and we did our taxes as a snowstorm howled outside. I had never done my taxes before. When these two pros showed me how to file my return so I’d get a refund from the IRS for nearly $600, the first moment of solvency in my adult life, I thought I had won the lottery.

And I had. They were, and are, my friends. You would not be reading these words otherwise.

What Does a True Bond Look Like?

We asked three pairs of pals to tell their stories.

Paulette Dalpes, 56, Denver, Colorado, and Berenecea Eanes, 53, Jamaica, New York

Marc Royce

A Leap of Faith

They were casual work buddies until one defining moment turned them into friends: At a conference luncheon, Dalpes and her wife asked to sit with Eanes and her whole family, including two kids, husband, mom, sister, even an aunt. Dalpes had some trepidation over whether the group would welcome the lesbian pair, but “Berenecea and her family were incredibly embracing,” she remembers. From there, the two college executives became closer, connecting daily (sometimes hourly) over life’s challenges. Their grounding value is honesty, Eanes says. “That’s my definition of friendship: someone you can have honest communication with about everything. Paulette doesn’t mind telling me the truth, even if I don’t want to hear it, and to me, that’s priceless.” 

Talking Things Through

Sarah Stegner Nambiar, 55, Wilmette, Illinois, and Tracey Vowell, 53, Kankakee, Illinois

BRIAN SORG

Although they first met in Chicago as young chefs, their friendship really took off after Vowell moved downstate to start a farm — a difficult and isolating enterprise. “Sarah understood how exhausted I was,” Vowell says. “By then, she was running her own restaurant and was exhausted, too.”

The two started getting together for weekly hikes, exploring nearby trails and talking about everything under the sun. “I always end up feeling refreshed, peaceful and ready to get back to work,” Vowell adds. “The value of knowing someone is always ready to share, listen, help, celebrate, encourage, support, discuss, gently persuade, actually be present, is not measurable.” 

Greg Smith, 59, Waynesville, Ohio, and Kouhyar Mostashfi, 46, Springboro, Ohio

Billy Delfs

Across the Divide

After the election of 2016, Mostashfi, a Democrat, sought to understand why so many people had voted for President Trump. Through a local group called Better Angels, he met Smith, a Republican. “When Greg learned that I’m originally from Iran, he asked me about ISIS,” Mostashfi recalls. “I said, ‘Well, we have our lunatics and we also have our good people, just like you.’ ” Smith suggested a lunch, which led to an ongoing bond. “We talk about everything,” Mostashfi points out. “I’m less self-righteous now.” Smith, an evangelical Christian, says the friendship has changed him, too. Once anti-Muslim, he now believes that each person of faith has their own relationship with God. “We’re all trying to be better people,” he notes. 

— Sarah Mahoney