Well this is nice: A little known film and television actor named Tom Hanks is going to be making his Broadway debut this spring in a new play by the late, great Nora Ephron. Watch this space because we're telling you, this kid is gonna be big!
The obscure Hanks, who has appeared in such small independent films as Apollo 13, Ephron's own Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail and once starred in a television sitcom called Bosom Buddies, will be playing the lead role in Lucky Guy when the George C. Wolfe-directed show opens in March at the Broadhurst Theater (now vacant with the death of Rebecca). Before her death Ephron had been working on Guy—about the New York tabloid columnist Mike McAlary—for some time, first as a movie and then as a play.
And Hanks has actually been circling the project for some time now. The real life columnist McAlary died of colon cancer at the age of 41 in 1998, and the play will tackle a major high and low point from his career: his Pulitzer-winning coverage of the 1997 Abner Louima attack, and a libel suit against him after he accused a woman of making up a rape charge to promote a feminist rally.
Get ready to buy tickets quick though, the show is only going to be running through May 19.
