Tom Hanks sends typewriter to bullied Australian boy named Corona

[April 24, 2020]  MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Tom Hanks has sent a letter and a Corona brand typewriter to an Australian boy who wrote to him about being bullied over his name, Corona, Australian television networks reported on Thursday.

Corona De Vries, an eight-year-old from the Gold Coast in Queensland state wrote to the Hollywood star after he and his wife, Rita, had spent more than two weeks in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 in the Australian beach resort.

The boy had written to Hanks saying: "I heard on the news you and your wife had caught the coronavirus," Channel 7 News reported. "Are you ok?"

He said he loved his name but people at school called him the coronavirus, which made him "sad and angry".

"Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful!" Hanks replied in a letter typed on a Corona typewriter which he had taken to the Gold Coast.

"You know, you are the only person I've ever known to have the name Corona -- like the ring around the sun, a crown," the double Oscar winner wrote to the boy.

"I thought this typewriter would suit you," an image of the letter aired by Channel 7 News showed. "Ask a grown up how it works. And use it to write me back."

Hanks handwrote at the end: "P.S. You got a friend in ME!"

(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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