Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen Hackman[2][3][4] (born January 30, 1930) is a retired American actor and novelist. In a career that spanned nearly five decades, Hackman was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning Best Actor in The French Connection and Best Supporting Actor in Unforgiven. He won four Golden Globes, one SAG Award and two BAFTAs.
He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, when he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His major subsequent films include: I Never Sang for My Father (1970), when he received his second Best Supporting Actor nomination; The French Connection (1971) and French Connection II (1975), when he played Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle; The Poseidon Adventure (1972); The Conversation (1974); Superman: The Movie (1978), when he played arch-villain Lex Luthor; Hoosiers (1986); and Mississippi Burning (1988), when he received his second Best Actor nomination.
His film roles during the 1990s featured: Unforgiven (1992); The Firm (1993); The Quick and the Dead; Crimson Tide (1995); Get Shorty (1995); The Birdcage(1996); and Enemy of the State (1998) Later roles included: Behind Enemy Lines(2001); and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Hackman's final film appearance to date was the romantic comedy film Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, co-starring comedian Ray Romano.
== Early life and education ==
Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Eugene Ezra Hackman and Anna Lyda Elizabeth (née Gray).[5][6] He has one brother, Richard. He has Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry; his mother was born in Lambton, Ontario.[7][8] His family moved frequently, finally settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of his English-born maternal grandmother, Beatrice.[7][9] Hackman's father operated the printing press for the Commercial-News, a local paper.[10] His parents divorced in 1943 and his father subsequently left the family.[9][10] Hackman decided that he wanted to become an actor when he was ten years old.[11]
Hackman lived briefly in Storm Lake, Iowa and spent his sophomore year at Storm Lake High School.[12] He left home at age 16 and lied about his age to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. He served four and a half years as a field radio operator.[13] He was stationed in China (Qingdao and later in Shanghai). When the Communist Revolution conquered the mainland in 1949, Hackman was assigned to Hawaii and Japan. Following his discharge in 1951,[1]he moved to New York and worked in several jobs.[13] His mother died in 1962 as a result of a fire she accidentally set while smoking.[14]
Acting was something I wanted to do since I was 10 and saw my first movie, I was so captured by the action guys. Jimmy Cagney was my favorite. Without realizing it, I could see he had tremendous timing and vitality.
== Career ==
=== 1960s ===
In 1956 he began pursuing an acting career; he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California.[13] It was there that he forged a friendship with another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman.[13]Already seen as outsiders by their classmates, they were later voted "The Least Likely To Succeed.".[13] Furthermore, Hackman got the all time lowest score at the Pasadena Playhouse at the time.[15] Determined to prove them wrong, Hackman moved to New York City. A 2004 article in Vanity Fair described how Hackman, Hoffman and Robert Duvall were all struggling California born actors and close friends, sharing apartments in various two-person combinations while living in New York City in the 1960s.[16][17] To support himself between acting jobs, he was working as a uniformed doorman at a Howard Johnson restaurant in New York[18] when, as bad luck would have it, he ran into a despised Pasadena Playhouse instructor who once told him he was not good enough to be an actor. Reinforcing "The Least Likely To Succeed" vote, the man said to him, "See, Hackman, I told you you wouldn't amount to anything."[19] From then on, Hackman was determined to become the finest actor he possibly could. The three former roommates have since earned 19 Academy Award nominations for acting, with five wins.
Hackman got various bit roles, for example on the TV series Route 66 in 1963, and began performing in several Off-Broadway plays. In 1964 he had an offer to co-star in the play Any Wednesday with actress Sandy Dennis. This opened the door to film work. His first role was in Lilith, with Warren Beatty in the leading role. In 1967 he appeared in an episode of the television series The Invadersentitled The Spores. Another supporting role, Buck Barrow in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde,[13] earned him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. In 1968 he appeared in an episode of I Spy, in the role of "Hunter", in the episode "Happy Birthday... Everybody". In 1968 he starred in the CBS Playhouse episode "My Father and My Mother" and the dystopian television film Shadow on the Land.[20] In 1969 he played a ski coach in Downhill Racer and an astronaut in Marooned. Also that year, he played a member of a barnstorming skydiving team that entertained mostly at county fairs, a movie which also inspired many to pursue skydiving and has a cult-like status amongst skydivers as a result: The Gypsy Moths. He nearly accepted the role of Mike Brady for the TV series, The Brady Bunch,[21] but was advised by his agent to decline in exchange for a more promising role, which he did.
=== 1970s ===
In 1971 he was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award again, this time for 1970's I Never Sang for My Father, working alongside Melvyn Douglas and Estelle Parsons. The next year, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as New York City Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection, marking his graduation to leading man status.[13]
He followed this with leading roles in the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure(1972) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), which was nominated for several Oscars.[13] That same year, Hackman appeared in what became one of his most famous comedic roles as The Blindman in Young Frankenstein.[22]
He later appeared as one of Teddy Roosevelt's former Rough Riders in the Western horse-race saga Bite the Bullet (1975), as well as in that year's sequel French Connection II. In 1975 he also appeared in Night Moves, receiving a BAFTA nomination for lead actor. He appeared in the star-studded war film A Bridge Too Far (1977), as Polish General Stanisław Sosabowski. Hackman showed a talent for both comedy and the "slow burn" as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie (1978), as he would in its 1980 and 1987 sequels.
=== 1980s ===
Gene is someone who is a very intuitive and instinctive actor...The brilliance of Gene Hackman is that he can look at a scene and he can cut through to what is necessary, and he does it with extraordinary economy—he's the quintessential movie actor. He's never showy ever, but he's always right on.
By the end of the 1980s, he alternated between leading and supporting roles, earning another Best Actornomination for Mississippi Burning.[24] He had a memorable part as a Secretary of Defense trying to cover up a homicide in 1987's No Way Outopposite Kevin Costner.
During this decade, he also was in Reds, Under Fire, Hoosiers, Power, Uncommon Valor and Bat*21. A 2008 American Film Institute poll voted Hoosiers the fourth-greatest film of all time in the sports genre.[25]
=== 1990s ===
In 1990 the actor underwent an angioplasty,[26] which kept him from work for a while, although he found time for Narrow Margin—a remake of The Narrow Margin (1952). In 1992 he played the sadistic sheriff "Little" Bill Daggett in the western Unforgiven directed by Clint Eastwood and written by David Webb Peoples which earned him a second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actor. The film won Best Picture.[13] In 1993 he appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend as Brigadier General George Crook. He co-starred with Tom Cruise as a corrupt lawyer in The Firm (1993) and appeared in a second John Grisham story in 1996, playing a convict on death row in The Chamber.
In 1995 he played an inept Hollywood producer-director named Harry Zimm in Get Shorty and the villainous fast-draw champion John Herrod in The Quick and the Dead opposite Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, as well as submarine Captain Frank Ramsey in the film Crimson Tide with Denzel Washington.
In 1996 he took a comedic turn as conservative Senator Kevin Keeley in The Birdcage[27] with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. He also co-starred with Will Smith in the 1998 film Enemy of the State, where his character was reminiscent of the one from The Conversation.
He played a U.S. president who is responsible for a killing in 1997's Absolute Power, re-teaming with director-star Clint Eastwood.
=== 2000s ===
Hackman starred in the David Mamet crime film Heist,[28] as an aging professional thief of considerable skill who is forced into one final job and the comedy Heartbreakers alongside Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta and Jennifer Love Hewitt. He had a small part as Arnold Margolese in Gore Verbinski's The Mexican. He also had a leading role as the head of an eccentric family in the ensemble cast film The Royal Tenenbaums and in yet another Grisham legal drama, Runaway Jury, at long last getting to make a picture with his longtime friend Dustin Hoffman. Hackman's final film to date was Welcome to Mooseport[29] (2004), a comedy with Ray Romano, when he portrayed a former President of the United States.
In 2003 at the Golden Globes, Hackman was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field."[30]
=== Retirement from acting ===
On July 7, 2004, Hackman gave a rare interview to Larry King, where he announced that he had no future film projects lined up and believed his acting career was over. In 2008, while promoting his third novel, he confirmed that he had retired from acting.[31] When asked during a GQ interview in 2011 if he would ever come out of retirement to do one more film, he said he might consider it "if I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything and just one or two people."[32] In 2016 he narrated the Smithsonian Channel documentary The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima.[33]
=== Career as a novelist ===
Together with undersea archaeologist Daniel Lenihan, Hackman has written three historical fiction novels: Wake of the Perdido Star (1999),[34] a sea adventure of the 19th century; Justice for None (2004),[35] a Depression-era tale of murder; and Escape from Andersonville (2008) about a prison escape during the American Civil War.[36] His first solo effort, a story of love and revenge set in the Old West titled Payback at Morning Peak, was released in 2011.[37] A police thriller, Pursuit, followed in 2013.
In 2011 he appeared on the Fox Sports Radio show The Loose Cannons, where he discussed his career and novels with Pat O'Brien, Steve Hartman, and Vic "The Brick" Jacobs.
== Personal life ==
Hackman's first marriage was to Faye Maltese.[38] They had three children: Christopher Allen, Elizabeth Jean, and Leslie Anne Hackman.[39] The couple divorced in 1986 after three decades of marriage.[40] In 1991 he married Betsy Arakawa.[41][42] They have a home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[43]
Hackman competed in Sports Car Club of America races driving an open wheeled Formula Ford in the late seventies.[44][45] In 1983 he drove a Dan GurneyTeam Toyota in the 24 Hours of Daytona Endurance Race.[46] He also won the Long Beach Grand Prix Celebrity Race.[47]
Hackman is an avid fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars and regularly attended Jaguars games as a guest of then-head coach Jack Del Rio.[48][49] He is friends with Del Rio from Del Rio's playing days at the University of Southern California.[50]
In January 2012 the then 81-year-old actor was riding a bicycle in the Florida Keys when he was struck by a car.[51] Although it was at first reported that he had suffered head trauma, he sustained only minor injuries.[52]
== Theatre credits ==
* Children From Their Games by Irwin Shaw at the Morosco Theatre (April 1963)
* A Rainy Day in Newark by Howard Teichmann at the Belasco Theatre (October 1963)
* Come to the Palace of Sin by Michael Shurtleff at the Lucille Lortel Theatre(1963)
* Any Wednesday by Muriel Resnik at the Music Box Theatre and the George Abbott Theatre (1964–1966)
* Poor Richard by Jean Kerr with Alan Bates and Shirley Knight at the Helen Hayes Theatre (1964–1965)[53]
* The Natural Look by Leonora Thuna at the Longacre Theatre (1967)
* Fragments and The Basement by Murray Schisgal at the Cherry Lane Theatre(1967)
* Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman with Glenn Close and Richard Dreyfuss, directed by Mike Nichols, at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (1992)
Rio from Del Rio's playing days at the University of Southern California.[50]
In January 2012 the then 81-year-old actor was riding a bicycle in the Florida Keys when he was struck by a car.[51] Although it was at first reported that he had suffered head trauma, he sustained only minor injuries.
== Filmography ==
Film
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1961	Mad Dog Coll 	Policeman 	
1961	Tallahassee 7000 	Joe Lawson 	Television series, episode "The Fugitive"
1963	Route 66 	Motorist 	Television series, episode "Who Will Cheer My Bonny Bride?"
1964	Lilith 	Norman 	
1966	Hawaii 	Dr. John Whipple 	
1967	Banning 	Tommy Del Gaddo 	
1967	Community Shelter Planning 	Donald Ross—Regional Civil Defense Officer	
1967	A Covenant with Death 	Harmsworth 	
1967	First to Fight 	Sgt. Tweed 	
1967	Bonnie and Clyde 	Buck Barrow 	Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1968	Shadow on the Land 	Reverend Thomas Davis 	
1968	The Split 	Detective Lt. Walter Brill 	
1969	Riot 	Red Fraker 	
1969	The Gypsy Moths 	Joe Browdy 	
1969	Downhill Racer 	Eugene Claire 	
1969	Marooned 	Buzz Lloyd 	
1970	I Never Sang for My Father 	Gene Garrison 	Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1971	Doctors' Wives 	Dr. Dave Randolph 	
1971	The Hunting Party 	Brandt Ruger 	
1971	The French Connection 	NYPD Det. Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle 	Academy Award for Best Actor
BAFTA Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1972	Prime Cut 	Mary Ann 	
1972	The Poseidon Adventure 	Reverend Frank Scott 	
1972	Cisco Pike 	Sergeant Leo Holland 	
1973	Scarecrow 	Max Millan 	
1974	The Conversation 	Harry Caul 	National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
2nd Place – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1974	Young Frankenstein 	Harold, The Blind Man 	
1974	Zandy's Bride 	Zandy Allan 	
1975	French Connection II 	NYPD Det. Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle 	
1975	Lucky Lady 	Kibby Womack 	
1975	Night Moves 	Harry Moseby 	
1975	Bite the Bullet 	Sam Clayton 	
1977	The Domino Principle 	Roy Tucker 	
1977	A Bridge Too Far 	Maj Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski 	
1977	March or Die 	Maj. William Sherman Foster 	
1978	Superman: The Movie 	Lex Luthor 	
1980	Superman II 	Lex Luthor 	
1981	All Night Long 	George Dupler 	2nd Place – National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
1981	Reds 	Pete Van Wherry 	
1983	Under Fire 	Alex Grazier 	
1983	Two of a Kind 	God 	uncredited voice role
1983	Uncommon Valor 	Col. Jason Rhodes, USMC (ret) 	
1983	Eureka 	Jack McCann 	
1984	Misunderstood 	Ned Rawley 	
1985	Twice in a Lifetime 	Harry MacKenzie 	
1985	Target 	Walter Lloyd / Duncan (Duke) Potter 	
1986	Power 	Wilfred Buckley 	
1986	Hoosiers 	Coach Norman Dale 	
1987	No Way Out 	Defense Secretary David Brice 	
1987	Superman IV: The Quest for Peace 	Lex Luthor / voice of Nuclear Man 	
1988	Bat*21 	Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton, USAF 	
1988	Split Decisions 	Dan McGuinn 	
1988	Another Woman 	Larry Lewis 	
1988	Full Moon in Blue Water 	Floyd 	
1988	Mississippi Burning 	FBI Special Agent Rupert Anderson 	National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated – Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated – New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1989	The Package 	Sgt. Johnny Gallagher 	
1990	Loose Cannons 	MacArthur Stern 	
1990	Postcards from the Edge 	Lowell Kolchek 	
1990	Narrow Margin 	Robert Caulfield 	
1991	Class Action 	Jedediah Tucker Ward 	
1991	Company Business 	Sam Boyd 	
1992	Unforgiven 	Little Bill Daggett 	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated – Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
1993	The Firm 	Avery Tolar 	
1993	Geronimo: An American Legend 	Brig. Gen. George Crook 	
1994	Wyatt Earp 	Nicholas Earp 	
1995	The Quick and the Dead 	John Herod 	
1995	Crimson Tide 	Capt. Frank Ramsey 	
1995	Get Shorty 	Harry Zimm 	
1996	The Birdcage 	Senator Kevin Keeley 	
1996	Extreme Measures 	Dr. Lawrence Myrick 	
1996	The Chamber 	Sam Cayhall 	
1997	Absolute Power 	President Allen Richmond 	
1998	Twilight 	Jack Ames 	
1998	Antz 	General Mandible 	Voice only
1998	Enemy of the State 	Edward 'Brill' Lyle 	
2000	Under Suspicion 	Henry Hearst 	Also executive producer
2000	The Replacements 	Jimmy McGinty 	
2001	The Mexican 	Arnold Margolese 	
2001	Heartbreakers 	William B. Tensy 	
2001	Heist 	Joe Moore 	
2001	Behind Enemy Lines 	Admiral Leslie Reigart 	
2001	The Royal Tenenbaums 	Royal Tenenbaum 	Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Nominated – Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
3rd Place – Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
2003	Runaway Jury 	Rankin Fitch 	
2004	Welcome to Mooseport 	Monroe "Eagle" Cole 	
2016	The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima	Narrator 	TV documentary
2017	We, the Marines 	Narrator 	TV documentary
== Accolades ==
Category:1930 births
Category:Voice actors
Category:20th-century American male actors
Category:20th-century American novelists
Category:21st-century American male actors
Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:Male actors from California
Category:American male film actors
Category:American male voice actors
Category:American male novelists
Category:American male stage actors
Category:American people of Canadian descent
Category:American people of English descent
Category:American people of Pennsylvania Dutch descent
Category:American people of German descent
Category:American people of Scottish descent
Category:Art Students League of New York alumni
Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners
Category:Best Actor BAFTA Award winners
Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners
Category:Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award winners
Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Category:Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners
Category:Living people
Category:Male Western (genre) film actors
Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners
Category:People from Danville, Illinois
Category:Actors from San Bernardino, California
Category:Male actors from Santa Fe, New Mexico
Category:People from Storm Lake, Iowa
Category:Military personnel from Iowa
Category:Silver Bear for Best Actor winners
Category:Writers from Santa Fe, New Mexico
Category:United States Marines
Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Media alumni
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:Novelists from California
Category:Novelists from New York (state)
Category:California Democrats
Category:New Mexico Democrats