Forrest Gump (born June 6, 1944 in Greenbow, Alabama) is a fictional character who first appears in the 1986 eponymous novel by Winston Groom. Forrest Gump also appeared on screen in the 1994 film of the same name directed by Robert Zemeckis. Gump was portrayed as a child by Michael Conner Humphreys and portrayed as an adult by Tom Hanks, who won an Academy Award for the role.

The portrayal of Forrest in the original novel is notably different from the portrayal in the film. He later reappears in the 1995 novel Gump and Co. Gump was born near the fictional small town of Greenbow, Alabama, on June 6, 1944.

His father was absent during his life, his mother saying he was "on vacation". His mother named him after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a noted Confederate general in the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who is supposedly related to Gump. She intended his name to be a reminder that "sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense." Forrest was born with strong legs but a crooked spine.

He was forced to wear leg braces which made walking difficult and running near impossible. He also had a relatively low I.Q. of 75 which nearly prevented him from being accepted into public school (his mother managed to get the principal to reconsider by having sex with him). Despite his physical and mental challenges, Forrest's mother told him not to let anyone tell him he was different, telling him "stupid is as stupid does".

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