The news of Luke Perry’s sudden death on Monday following a massive stroke continues to reverberate. Not only did he inspire an entire generation of young men to grow sideburns, but Perry was by all accounts a stand-up guy whose generosity never wavered. Colin Hanks — the son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson who recently opened up about navigating misconceptions on his life — has posted a tribute about Perry that makes it clear that there are no such misunderstandings about the 90210 and Riverdale star’s reputation.
On Instagram, Hanks described how he once encountered Perry during a nightmarish travel scenario familiar to many. That would be the plight of being surrounded by tantrum-ing young children on a long flight:
“I only met him once but the story is too good not tell given todays sad events. My wife and I are on a plane back from Mexico. Couple of rows ahead of us, these two brothers, young kids, are beating the hell out of eachother. Their poor parents are powerless to stop the crying, yelling and screaming. If you’re a parent you understand. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. It was like this for close to two hours.”
Suddenly, a mystery man emerged with a magical balloon:
“Then about 10 minutes before landing it starts to get real bad. Out of no where, a man comes from first class. Hat, beard, sunglasses, blowing up a balloon. He ties it off, hands it off like he’s holding out a sword to a king. Kneeling, Head down, arms up. Kids calm down in milliseconds. Plane damn near bursts into applause. 15 minutes longer and it probably would have started WWIII, but we landed before that could happen.”
Only later did Hanks and his wife realize that this peacemaker was Perry, who admitted that he always travels with balloons for the very purpose of soothing and distracting screaming children. Hanks described the iconic actor as “a true gent” who said “some kind words” about Hanks’ performance in FX’s first Fargo season. Although Hanks doesn’t specify when this encounter occurred, he’s now sufficiently inspired to start tucking away his own balloons for flights. What a great story, and you can read Hanks’ full Instagram post below.
