High school student Hanks admits he is ‘not built like a Greek God’ but says he hopes to one day call Robert Redford ‘Bob’ in 1974 letter to George Roy Hill

A 1974 letter from a pre-fame, teenage Tom Hanks asking the Oscar-winning director of The Sting, George Roy Hill, to “discover” him has been unveiled by Hollywood archivists. In it, the high school student describes a number of scenarios via which he can achieve stardom, despite admitting that his “looks are not stunning” and he “cannot even grow a mustache”.

Two-time Oscar-winner Hanks wrote the letter as an 18-year-old at Skyline high school in Oakland, California. Hill, whose 1973 con artist caper starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman won seven Oscars, kept the letter and it was recently unveiled by the Margaret Herrick Library of the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills.

Hanks, who describes himself as “a hometown American boy” admits he is a “nobody” and that “no one outside of Skyline High School has heard of me”, but says he dreams of one day being able to call Robert Redford “Bob”. It is not clear if Hill, who died in 2002, ever replied to the letter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest He’s hit the big time … Tom Hanks in Big (1988). Photograph: Moviestore Collection/REX

Five years after sending the letter Hanks moved to New York, later featuring in low-budget slasher flick He Knows You’re Not Alone (1980) and a number of now-forgotten television shows, as well as a hit off-Broadway production of Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Mandrake, before making his way to Hollywood. He was in fact “discovered” by the actor-turned-director Ron Howard, who spotted him in a guest role in the popular sitcom Happy Days (in which Howard starred as Richie Cunningham) and cast him in the well-received 1984 romantic comedy Splash about a young man who falls in love with a mermaid (Daryl Hannah).

Hanks later won back-to-back best actor Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump in 1993 and 1994. The full text of the letter to Hill is below.