Tom Hanks in Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy

Two-time Oscar winner Hanks will play the tabloid newspaper columnist Mike McAlary in Lucky Guy, a new play by Sleepless in Seattle writer Nora Ephron. Scheduled for a limited run at the Shubert Theatre from January 2013, the play charts McAlary’s controversial career as a journalist.

Mike McAlary (Hanks) as he investigates the scandal and graffiti-ridden New York of the 1980s. McAlary reported on New York’s major police corruption and his coverage of the Abner Louima case earned him a Pulitzer Prize before his untimely death in 1998 of colon cancer aged 41

Mike McAlary

In 1988, McAlary wrote a book, Buddy Boys, about corrupt police in New York’s 77th Precinct. He also had a hand in writing the script for the movie Copland, starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro. In the film The Paper directed by Ron Howard, a columnist character called McDougal played by Randy Quaid was said to be based on McAlary. He had a cameo appearance in the movie.

In 1990 McAlary wrote a piece referring to a gang leader named Lefty. Four years later he interviewed Lefty anew. By then the former gang leader was a decorated soldier, family man, and college student. He attributed his about face to McAlary’s 1990 article. McAlary ended his 1994 piece by saying, “I am humbled by his talent. Sure, as a columnist, you can get people indicted and even free the wrongly accused. That is what you do. But from now on, I know, at least once, I wrote a story that mattered.”

McAlary won a Pulitzer Prize for an exposé of the New York police torture of Abner Louima in Brooklyn in 1997.

His idols were New York journalists Jimmy Breslin, Murray Kempton and Pete Hamill. During his reporting of the Louima case, McAlary was diagnosed with colon cancer, from which he died on Christmas Day 1998. McAlary was a resident of Bellport, New York, at the time of his death.

“The Wood,”playwright Dan Klores’s drama based on McAlary’s life, premiered at Manhattan’s Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in August, 2011.

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey “Tom” Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks is known for his roles in Apollo 13, Big, That Thing You Do!, The Green Mile, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, Charlie Wilson’s War, Catch Me If You Can, Forrest Gump, Cast Away, A League of Their Own, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, as well as animated films like the Toy Story film series, The Polar Express, and The Simpsons Movie.

He has earned and been nominated for numerous awards during his career, including winning a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia and a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a People’s Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in Forrest Gump, and earning the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the BAFTAs in 2004.

Hanks is also known for his collaboration with film director Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan and the mini-series Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks also as a successful director, producer and writer.

As of 2012, Hanks’ films have grossed over $4.2 billion at the United States box office alone, and over $8.5 billion worldwide making him the highest all-time box office star.

Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron (May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, director, and blogger.

Ephron is best known for her romantic comedies and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay): for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally…, and Sleepless in Seattle. She won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally…. She sometimes wrote with her sister Delia Ephron. Her last film was Julie & Julia. She also co-authored the Drama Desk Award-winning theatrical production Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

On June 26, 2012 Ephron died from pneumonia, a complication resulting from acute myeloid leukemia, a condition with which she was diagnosed in 2006. In her final book, I Remember Nothing (2010), Ephron left clues that something was wrong with her or that she was ill, particularly in a list at the end of the book citing “things I won’t miss/things I’ll miss.” There was widespread and somewhat shocked reaction to her death (as she had kept her illness secret from most people), with celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Albert Brooks, and Ron Howard commenting on her brilliance, warmth, generosity, and wit.