Tom Hanks Remembers Bosom Buddies Co-Star Peter Scolari

Tom Hanks had kind words for his Bosom Buddies co-star Peter Scolari, following his recent death from cancer at age 66. The pair appeared together in the '80s sitcom, in which they had to dress like women in order to get an apartment. The series only ran for two seasons, but given that Hanks has become a global superstar, it's well-remembered by TV fans. The chemistry between the two leads quickly became the key attraction, and the cross-dressing premise was largely forgotten in a series that instead centered on character-driven comedy from Hanks and Scolari.

In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Hanks shared his thoughts on his friend's passing. Fittingly, he started with a joke, saying that when Scolari was first introduced to him, he had just appeared in two TV shows that were very good, but cancelled, and producers thought Bosom Buddies could be a third.

You can see the video below (it starts around 10:45):

"I don't know how many people truly do change your lives when you cross paths with them, but he and I met, we picked up scripts and we started screwing around, and I actually thought 'Oh! This is it! This is how this work, this is like a hand inside a glove. In two years at Paramount Studios, on unlucky Stage 25, we cut it up. We were the only two guys on the show....So the women had their dressing rooms on the other side of the stage, and me and Peter would be in our pantyhose and our lip gross, and our hair nets...so these two guys would be leaning in the doors of each other's dressing rooms saying, 'You think you're gonna have more kids?' 'Well, yeah, I've got two, I'd like to have another...I'm beginning to think of where we're going to settle down.' We were molecularly connected in a way that we started speaking the same language." 

Hanks had clear admiration for Scolari, not just as a friend but as a collaborator, recalling the ways that he and Scolari would frustrate the production staff by coming up with new material on the fly. 

"Our show was not on film, it was on video in order to save money, so much like this, we had cameras with these tally lights," Hanks said. "Our Thursday rehearsals were dress rehearsals and camera blocking, which really were like 14 hours. We had to stay on the set, and say every line over and over and over again. So we started screwing around, monkeying around with the script and playing around with props and whatnot. And the directors were up in the booth doing a line cut...so they're trying to do this upstairs in the booth and we have no idea where they are or what we're doing there, were just screwing around. We're making up new lines, we're playing things around."

Then, he said, producers or directors would come over the radio and ask if they were really planning on using their improv. When Hanks and Scolari would say they might, if it works, the directors would have to figure out how to accommodate the change, but in the time it took them to figure it out, Hanks said the duo would continue playing, find more, and completely reset the process. At one point, one of the directors was so exasperated that he told them that if they wouldn't stop, they should come up and direct the show themselves. Scolari, Hanks said, simply replied with "I'm on my way," and Hanks had to convince him it wasn't a good idea.

"We had two years of doing this in which you shoot for three weeks and have one week off. And every week was some sort of new, cuckoo adventures," Hanks said After showing a clip form the series, with his voice cracking, he added, "Peter has a lovely family, his wife Tracy, he's got great kids, too, and we lost him to the emperor of all maladies."