When Tom Hanks was cast in a 1982 guest role on the popular television series “Happy Days,” he probably didn’t foresee the fortuitous encounter that would launch his career to next-level success. In fact, even visionary icon Ron Howard, who starred in “Happy Days,” didn’t have much faith in Hanks landing the lead role in question.
Per USA Today, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who wrote “Splash,” (a 1984 film about a man who meets a mermaid), were also consulting on “Happy Days” at the time Hanks was filming his guest role. Though Hanks was playing a bully, they thought he’d be great as the “every man” character Allen Bauer for their new movie. Howard, who was directing the film, recalled to Us Weekly, “Hanks had no chance in hell.” Howard felt the studio execs wouldn’t give him the green light. But according to Mandel, “Tom came in and blew the doors off the joint. He was tremendously funny.”
Of course, “Splash” was a hit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Hanks was propelled onto a string of leading roles, like “The Man With One Red Shoe,” “Big,” “Turner & Hooch,” and “Joe Versus the Volcano,” in which he plays an unassuming man put in a seemingly impossible situation.
