Gene Hackman, Oscar-Winning ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘French Connection’ Actor, Dead at 95
Gene Hackman, a two-time Oscar-winning actor whose compelling gravitas and simple humanity made him an onscreen fixture for 40 years, has died at 95.
The actor, his wife of 34 years, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wednesday, according to Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza. A cause of death was not immediately available, though authorities confirmed there was no indication of foul play.
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In a statement, Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies added that “the bodies of Mr. Hackman and his wife were located in separate rooms” and that a cause of death will be determined by the Office of the Medical Investigator. According to the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office, the couple’s deaths were ruled “suspicious,” but “the official results of the autopsy and toxicology reports are pending.”
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father, Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy,” Hackman’s family said in a statement. “He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but to us he was always just Dad and Grandpa. We will miss him sorely and are devastated by the loss.”
After a career in which he played everyone from conflicted cops to inspirational basketball coaches to failed fathers to Lex Luthor, Hackman quietly retired from acting after the 2004 comedy Welcome to Mooseport, devoting his energies to writing novels and painting. Coming of age at the same time as other influential American actors, like Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall, the former Marine delivered his performances with a minimum of fuss, creating characters who, whether they were comedic or dramatic, always exuded an air of lived-in realism. “I feel like when I’m actually doing the work, I know what I’m doing and I feel good about most of the stuff that I do,” Hackman said in 2000. “But when I see it on the screen, I have no idea if it’s good, bad, or indifferent. I can’t be objective. I leave it up to other people to tell me.”
Born on Jan. 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California, Eugene Allen Hackman moved to Danville, Illinois, as a boy, developing a love for James Cagney at a young age. “There was a kind of energy about him, and he was totally different from anyone I’d ever seen in my life,” Hackman recalled of his idol in 2011. “Having been brought up in the Midwest, I didn’t know those New York people. I thought he was terrific. Everything he did had a life to it. He was a bad guy in most of the films, and yet there was something lovable about him and creative.”
After serving in the Marines for four years, Hackman moved to New York, eventually traveling to Southern California to pursue acting. He met Hoffman at the Pasadena Playhouse, the two aspiring thespians bonding over what seemed to be a shared destiny of limited career possibilities. “We were constantly told by acting teachers and casting directors that we were ‘character’ actors,” Hackman told Film Comment. “The word ‘character’ denotes something less than attractive. This was drummed into us. I accepted the limitation, of always being the third or fourth guy down, and my goals were tiny. But I still wanted to be an actor.”
Undeterred, Hackman grabbed roles on television and in New York theater, gaining acclaim for his appearance in the 1964 Broadway comedy Any Wednesday. Soon, that success was parlayed into Hackman being cast in the film drama Lilith, where he caught the eye of the movie’s star, Warren Beatty. A few years later, Beatty brought Hackman aboard his daring counterculture crime classic Bonnie and Clyde, in which Hackman played Clyde’s older brother, Buck. The role landed the actor his first Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, and a film career soon followed.
Like many actors of his generation, Hackman helped put a stamp on Hollywood’s creative renaissance of the 1970s. But unlike peers such as Jack Nicholson, who embodied the era’s rebellious, searching spirit, Hackman often played men who tried to work within the system, discovering the futility of such a stance. He received his second Oscar nomination for 1970’s I Never Sang for My Father, about a college professor confronting his overbearing father, and the following year, in The French Connection, he played Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, a hard-nosed, bigoted New York detective who’s ruthlessly efficient at his job.
The French Connection won Best Picture, and Hackman walked away with the Best Actor trophy, even though during filming he despaired that he was wrong for the role and considered quitting. “I’m not that kind of guy,” Hackman told Roger Ebert shortly after The French Connection opened. “He was a physical man. No second thoughts. No introspection. We had to go back and reshoot the first two days of scenes because I hadn’t gotten into the character enough. I wasn’t physical enough.”
Hackman continued to essay iconic roles throughout the decade — including that of the doomed surveillance expert Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 paranoid thriller The Conversation — but this character actor also branched out into big studio productions like the celebrated disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure. As the 1970s came to a close, he portrayed the infamous Lex Luthor in Superman and Superman II, setting the template for sophisticated, haughty villains that have become commonplace in comic-book films.
Despite being a movie star, Hackman never fully shed the tireless work ethic of an actor who just wants to dive into the next piece of material. His career was made up of two parallel strands: On one side, he pursued engaging roles that fed his artistic temperament, such as in Reds (which was directed by his old friend Warren Beatty), Mississippi Burning, and Another Woman. On the other, he became a reliable presence in studio films, adding a touch of class to Tony Scott thrillers such as Crimson Tide and Enemy of the State.
At the same time, Hackman also demonstrated how art and commerce could mix, earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing the corrupt local sheriff Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 revisionist Western Unforgiven. But as with The French Connection, Hackman had his doubts about being right for the role. “I swore I would never be involved in a picture with this much violence in it,” he once said. “But the more I read it and the more I came to understand the purpose of the film, the more fascinated I became.”
Although he was an expert at conveying the darker side of humanity, he could also be counted on for a light touch. For many fans of inspirational sports movies, Hoosiers is an all-time great, with Hackman ably portraying the scrappy, tough-love coach Norman Dale, who guides his team of underdogs to the title. And his role as the frustratingly flaky patriarch of Wes Anderson’s 2001 comedy The Royal Tenenbaums introduced the respected “actor’s actor” to a new generation of filmgoers.
Hackman’s notorious perfectionism and no-bullshit demeanor were apparently fully on display during the filming of Tenenbaums — legend has it that the actor called Anderson a “c-nt” on set and instructed him to “pull up your pants and act like a man” — but the director remained awed by Hackman’s portrayal of the complicated Royal Tenenbaum. “He was one of the things that pulled everybody into this movie,” Anderson said in 2011 during a 10th-anniversary screening that Hackman did not attend. “Anytime we are together and talk about the movie, we always talk about him. He’s a huge force and I really enjoyed working with him. Even though he was very challenging with me, it was very exciting seeing him launch into these scenes.”
In his late seventies, Hackman retired from acting, explaining simply, “I feel comfortable with what I’ve done.” He pursued other interests, including writing historical fiction, saying in 2014, “In a sort of way, [writing] is liberating because you don’t have a director right there at your elbow giving you a little nudge now and then or telling you how he thinks you should pronounce a certain word or emphasize a certain phrase.” He later added, “I know that I’ll never be … as successful as I was as an actor, but in some ways it’s maybe more creative.”
He ended his acting career with five Oscar nominations, three Golden Globes (as well as a Cecil B. DeMille Award), and two BAFTA awards. When a GQ writer asked him in 2011 if he’d ever consider going back to film, Hackman responded, “I don’t know. If I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything and just one or two people.” But he sounded fully content with his new artistic endeavors and the body of film work he had left behind.
“You go through stages in your career that you feel very good about yourself,” he said. “Then you feel awful, like, ‘Why didn’t I choose something else?’ But overall, I’m pretty satisfied that I made the right choice when I decided to be an actor. I was lucky to find a few things that I could do well as an actor and that I could look at and say, ‘Yeah, that’s all right.’”
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