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Outlook Mixtape: Daughters of an actor, a mime and a prince

Tom Hanks’ daughter on shuttling from Hollywood glamour to squalor; Marcel Marceau’s daughters reveal what he needed to say, and how Two Tone star Pauline embraced Blackness.

E.A. Hanks’ childhood was split between living with her troubled mum and her 'omni-famous' dad Tom Hanks. E.A. and her brother Colin spent most of their time living in Sacramento with their mum, while weekends and holidays were spent with their dad, often on glamorous film sets. Although their mum was now sober after an addiction to alcohol and drugs, she could be paranoid and abusive, and E.A. describes her life as either a dream or a nightmare.

Marcel Marceau is the grandee of mime artistry, perhaps the most famous mime in history and a global icon. Less known is the story of the secret manuscript that he left for his daughters on his deathbed. It was filled with passages about his emotional inner life when he was in the French Resistance during World War Two, drawing on mime techniques to help smuggle Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied France across the Swiss border to safety.

As lead singer of The Selecter, Pauline Black pushed music and racial boundaries but struggled with her own identity. The daughter of a Nigerian prince, she was adopted by a white family who taught her that black men were dangerous and to be avoided. Her childhood was confusing and complex and it would take Pauline decades to reclaim her identity and learn the truth about her birth parents.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Hetal Bapodra

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

(Photo: Cassette tape. Credit: Getty Images)

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41 minutes

Last on

Sat 27 Sep 2025 02:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Fri 26 Sep 2025 11:06GMT
  • Fri 26 Sep 2025 17:06GMT
  • Fri 26 Sep 2025 21:06GMT
  • Sat 27 Sep 2025 02:06GMT

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