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
Ken Ralston films of Robert Zemeckis. Ralston has won five Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, including a Special Achievement Oscar for the visual effects in "Return of the Jedi" (1983), and regular awards for his work on "Cocoon" (1985), "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), "Death Becomes Her" (1992) and "Forrest Gump" (1994). He was nominated three more times for "Dragonslayer" (1981), "Back to the Future Part II" (1989) and "Alice in Wonderland" (2010). Ken Ralston Kenneth "Ken" Ralston (born 1954) is an American visual effects artist, currently the Visual Effect Supervisor and Creative Head at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Ralston began his