One of Hollywood’s finest actors, two-time Academy Award-winner Gene Hackman died this past week at age 95. And while circumstances surrounding his death (along with his wife, Betsy Arakawa) remain very much a mystery, his legacy is in a class all its own.
Hackman won Oscars playing a police detective who breaks the rules in “The French Connection,” and a villainous sheriff who makes the rules in “Unforgiven.”
Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle in “The French Connection”:
And in “Young Frankenstein,” Hackman won laughs as a blind hermit.
“I think he definitely showed that, don’t get pigeon-holed, don’t get typecast, don’t be just the tough guy – be everything else as well,” said David Rooney, chief film critic for the Hollywood Reporter.
What set Hackman apart? “He was definitely part of a crop of interesting young Hollywood actors that kind of reinvented the mold,” Rooney said. “They were getting away from the traditional movie star, into something more approaching real people. He wasn’t sort of a matinee idol-look, but it was at the point when people were looking beyond that to try and find some other kind of realism in movies.”
In “Mississippi Burning,” Brad Dourif’s racist deputy received a close shave from Hackman’s FBI agent. “I made sure that the razor was actually not sharp!” Dourif said.
Gene Hackman and Brad Dourif in “Mississippi Burning”:
I asked, “Do you think he raised your game in those scenes?”
“Absolutely,” Dourif replied. “How could he not? I mean, the better you are, the better he is; the better he is, the better you are. And you’re both aware of that.”
Dourif wasn’t just a costar of Hackman’s; he was an unabashed fan. “I never really got over the fact that that was Gene Hackman, you know?” he laughed. “Oh my God, this is Gene Hackman! It’s so sad that he’s gone. But he was a treasure beyond belief.”
Rooney said, “He had a reputation for being very tough on sets, very difficult, very impatient with actors who came unprepared. But I think that sometimes difficult is just another way of saying perfectionist.”
Hackman has been lauded as the consummate Everyman, such as his coach Norman Dale in “Hoosiers”:
But not every man could make a splash in the underwater disaster “The Poseidon Adventure.” “He’s in a big cheeseball movie, but he’s bringing integrity to it,” said Rooney. “There’s so much in that film that’s heartbreaking, and I think that’s him.”
Gene Hackman as wiretapper Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation”:
Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Emanuele Secci.
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