Forrest Gump (character) childhood friend Jennifer Curran, who eventually becomes his wife. Tom Hanks portrayed the character in the film and earned an Academy Award for his performance, while Michael Conner Humphreys portrayed Forrest as a child. In 2008, Forrest Gump was named the 20th greatest movie character of all time by "Empire" magazine. Forrest was born near the small town of Greenbow, Alabama, on June 6, 1944. His father was absent during his life, and his mother said he was "on vacation". His mother named Forrest after their ancestor Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Scotch-Irish American and a noted Confederate general in the
Forrest Gump (novel) of the University of Alabama after one semester. He and his friend Bubba join the Army. Bubba dies in the Vietnam War. He meets Lieutenant Dan, who has lost his legs, in the infirmary. He also plays in a Ping-Pong championship in China. He then works for NASA as an astronaut with a major and an orangutan, after he gets in trouble for participating in an anti-war protest in Washington. Forrest also has brief careers as a chess champion, a stunt man with a naked Raquel Welch in Hollywood, and as a professional wrestler called "The Dunce". At the end