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 (character) purchase a boat. When someone pointed out it was bad luck to have a boat without a name, Forrest names his boat after Jenny, which he calls, "The most beautiful name in the whole wide world." Unbeknownst to Forrest, Jenny had descended into a life of drugs, burglary and sexual promiscuity at this point, but an event in which she nearly slips and falls off a balcony as she "contemplates" suicide while high on drugs in a Los Angeles apartment shakes her to her core. Later Forrest was visited by Lieutenant Dan who, just as he said he would do