Tom Hanks Tears
Hanks struggled to hold back tears as he got a standing ovation for playing the late New York Post and Daily News columnist Mike McAlary at the Broadhurst Theatre on Monday night...reporter...nypost.
Of the emotional curtain call, Hanks told us, “That was a tough moment. We were going to do this, and Nora and [show director] George C. Wolfe were going to walk out onstage. I miss her. What more can you say?”
Ephron died in Manhattan last year at 71 after a battle with leukemia. Hanks continued, “Nora was just a magnificent hang . . . You could be working, and you could be talking about personal things, you could be on vacation and talking about cultural history, you could be having a very lazy breakfast and you would be talking about Saddam Hussein. Nora was . . . fascinated by everything. She was always doing things that were so interesting. She told me, ‘Never turn down a front-row seat for human folly.’ ”
Hanks said playing mustachioed McAlary helped him appreciate the newspaper business: “I kinda get it now . . . There was a time when if you were on Page Six, your life was hell for an easy week and a half, but now if you are on Page Six, it might embarrass you a little bit . . . but I am not one of the Kardashians, so I am not getting in your way . . . Now I get it as an art form. I get it as a job that really does somehow serve the pulse in the city.”
Hanks performed to an audience that included Barbara Walters, Brian Williams, Barry Diller, Sting and Trudie Styler, Lorne Michaels and Meg Ryan, who told us, “I feel like there is a wonderful spirit in this room tonight.”
Hanks’ wife, Rita Wilson, said, “I think Nora would be happy to know this was actually happening. I have this strange sort of excitement seeing my husband onstage. Nothing weird, but something about that mustache reminds me of Tom Selleck.
