Tom Hanks becomes pen pals with boy bullied because his name is Corona

Tom Hanks has sent a typewriter to a boy who has been bullied because he’s called Corona and urged them to become pen pals.

We are not worthy.

The Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood actor penned a moving letter to eight-year-old Corona De Vries after the young Australian wrote to him when he and wife Rita Wilson fell ill with coronavirus last month.

In his letter, Corona wrote: ‘I heard on the news you and your wife had caught the coronavirus. Are you OK?

‘I love my name but at school people call me “the coronavirus.” I get very sad and angry when people call me this.’

Tom, 63 – who spent several weeks quarantining in Australia, where he was working on Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic when he fell ill – sent a letter replying to his new friend.

The Castaway star also included a Corona-brand typewriter, which he’d used while recovering Down Under.

He wrote: ‘Dear Friend Corona, Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful! Thank you for being such a good friend – friends make friends feel good when they are down.

‘You are the only person I’ve ever known to have the name Corona – like the ring around the sun, a crown.

‘I saw you on TV, even though I was back in the USA already – and all healthy.

‘Even though I was no longer sick, getting your letter made me feel even better.

‘I thought this typewriter would suit you. I had taken it to the Gold Coast, and now, it is back – with you.’

Tom – who famously has a huge collection of typewriters – urged Corona to continue their correspondence with the device.

He said: ‘Ask a grown up how it works. And use it to write me back.’

And the actor ended the letter with a reference to the theme to his movie Toy Story, signing off: ‘PS! You got a friend in ME!’

We were not ready for these tears today!

Tom – who hosted Saturday Night Live just weeks after his coronavirus battle – recently detailed his and Rita’s horrific symptoms.

He told The National Defense Radio Show: ‘Rita went through a tougher time than I did. She had a much higher fever.

‘She had lost her sense of taste and sense of smell. She got absolutely no joy from food for a better part of three weeks.’

He added that Rita, also 63, ‘was so nauseous, she had to crawl on the floor from the bed to the facilities’.

Discussing his own symptoms, the Forrest Gump star said he was completely ‘wiped out’.

He said: ‘Whoever it was, a doctor or nurse, would come into our air pressurised, isolation rooms. She said, “How are you feeling?” and I said, “I just had the weirdest thing. I just tried to do basic stretches and exercises on the floor and I couldn’t even get halfway through”.

‘And she looked at me through her glasses like she was talking to the dumbest human being. And she said, “You have Covid-19”.’

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