Back-To-Back Rumors

Fresh from his “Philadelphia” Oscar triumph, “Forrest Gump” star Tom Hanks already is being touted as a contender for Best Actor at next year’s Oscars. Simple-minded but virtuous, eternally naive but blessed with infallible common sense, athletically gifted and dumb lucky to an astounding degree, Forrest is an endearing but deceptively tough job of technical acting. His personality is supposed to remain constant throughout a tumultuous series of wrenching events, and that isn’t easy for any actor to do.

On top of that, the academy loves the mentally challenged. (Cliff Robertson won Best Actor for “Charly” in 1968, as did Dustin Hoffman for “Rain Man” in 1988; Peter Sellers was nominated for “Being There” in 1979; and young Leonardo DiCaprio earned a nomination as a retarded boy in ‘93’s “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

But perhaps the best reason for giving Hanks another Oscar is that he will have to make another acceptance speech. As you may recall, Hanks stopped the awards show last March with an emotional, ethereal and sometimes incomprehensible plea for tolerance of gays, like the AIDS patient he had just been honored for portraying.