THE TOUGH GUY (REMEMBERING GENE HACKMAN)
There's a story that during the making of 'The Royal Tennenbaums', Gene Hackman exploded with the quirky Texan director Wes Anderson, telling him "to pull up his pants and act like a man".
Fellow cast members afterwards described Hackman as a "hardass" during the making of the film.
But it was also clear they were in awe of him.
While Bill Murray was the only cast member on the set not to defer to him, there was a feeling among many of his co-stars that Hackman had earned the right to be a hardass after his stellar career.
Born and raised in San Bernardino, California but raised mostly in Danville, Illinois, the former Marine was very good at playing the hardass on and offscreen.
According to a plaque in San Bernardino’s municipal park, Hackman was a dog catcher for the local animal shelter.
The family, however, moved around the US finally settling in his maternal grandmother’s home in Danville in Illinois.
As a teenager, he knew Dick Van Dyke who was friendly with Hackman’s older brother Richard.
His parents split up in 1943 and Gene lived with his mother for a while in Storm Lake, Iowa
After High School, Hackman enlisted for the Marines and spent four and a half years as a field operator between 1946 and 1950 who assigned him initially to Shanghai but he moved after the Communist Revolution to posts in Japan and Hawaii.
Upon his discharge, he moved to New York but it took a few years to find his true calling..
Hackman eventually wound up in the Pasadena Playhouse in 1956 where he would meet Dustin Hoffman.
© Warner Bros
Fellow cast members afterwards described Hackman as a "hardass" during the making of the film.
But it was also clear they were in awe of him.
While Bill Murray was the only cast member on the set not to defer to him, there was a feeling among many of his co-stars that Hackman had earned the right to be a hardass after his stellar career.
Born and raised in San Bernardino, California but raised mostly in Danville, Illinois, the former Marine was very good at playing the hardass on and offscreen.
According to a plaque in San Bernardino’s municipal park, Hackman was a dog catcher for the local animal shelter.
@ Orion Pictures
As a teenager, he knew Dick Van Dyke who was friendly with Hackman’s older brother Richard.
His parents split up in 1943 and Gene lived with his mother for a while in Storm Lake, Iowa
After High School, Hackman enlisted for the Marines and spent four and a half years as a field operator between 1946 and 1950 who assigned him initially to Shanghai but he moved after the Communist Revolution to posts in Japan and Hawaii.
Upon his discharge, he moved to New York but it took a few years to find his true calling..
Hackman eventually wound up in the Pasadena Playhouse in 1956 where he would meet Dustin Hoffman.
© Warner BrosBoth were initially written off by their fellow struggling actors as the least likely to succeed but they made it to New York, where they famously shared apartments with another jobbing actor, Robert Duvall.
He performed in several off-Broadway shows and managed to get a bit part in the CBS TV series ‘Route 66’.
Hackman's break into the movies came courtesy of an acclaimed performance in an off Broadway show, 'Any Wednesday' and he would go on to carve a career that earned the highest respect from his peers over 81 films.
Robert Rossen cast him in the 1964 drama ‘Lilith’ with Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda which was set in a mental institution.
Three years later, there was a role in the ABC science fiction series ‘The Invaders’.
However 1967 also saw him land his first Academy Award nomination as Buck Barrow in Arthur Penn’s groundbreaking ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ with Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty and Gene Wilder.
© Warner Bros Pictures
He performed in several off-Broadway shows and managed to get a bit part in the CBS TV series ‘Route 66’.
Hackman's break into the movies came courtesy of an acclaimed performance in an off Broadway show, 'Any Wednesday' and he would go on to carve a career that earned the highest respect from his peers over 81 films.
Robert Rossen cast him in the 1964 drama ‘Lilith’ with Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda which was set in a mental institution.
Three years later, there was a role in the ABC science fiction series ‘The Invaders’.
However 1967 also saw him land his first Academy Award nomination as Buck Barrow in Arthur Penn’s groundbreaking ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ with Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty and Gene Wilder.
© Warner Bros PicturesThere was an appearance one year later in the popular NBC series ‘I Spy’ with Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.
Hackman earned more plaudits for his performance as a professional skiing coach opposite Robert Redford in Michael Ritchie’s acclaimed 1969 drama ‘Downhill Racer’.
He would work again with Ritchie in the gritty 1972 Irish Mob drama ‘Prime Cut’ as a Kansas meat packer boss who Lee Marvin’s Chicago gangster confronts for not paying a debt - only to discover he is involved in a prostitution ring as well.
He also starred alongside Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna and David Janssen in John Sturgess’ astronaut drama ‘Marooned’ which was released four months after the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
1970 saw Hackman land his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as a son struggling with his dad in Gilbert Cates’ ‘I Never Sang For My Father’.
His co-star Melvyn Douglas was also nominated for Best Actor in the adaptation of Robert Anderson’s 1968 Broadway play.
© Columbia Pictures
It would be third time lucky for Hackman at the 1971 Academy Awards when he landed the Best Actor award for his defining role as Popeye Doyle in ‘The French Connection’ with Fernando Rey and Roy Scheider.
A gripping, gritty New York thriller from William Friedkin, it featured a pulsating chase sequence featuring a subway train and it gave Hackman a memorable catchphrase: “Did you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie”.
Incredibly, Hackman was not even first or fourth choice for the lead, with Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Peter Boyle, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Rod Taylor and even the New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin considered before him.
But when the role did come his way, Hackman made the most of it - scooping a BAFTA and Golden Globe as well and creating one of the most memorable screen cops of all time.
He would reprise the role five years later in John Frankenheimer’s gripping ‘The French Connection II’ which saw Popeye head from New York to Marseille to track down Rey’s Alain Charnier.
However his task is anything but simple as he is forced to battle resentful French cops, is kidnapped and plied with heroin and takes part in an eye popping pursuit of Charnier on foot.
His next role was as the Reverend Scott in Ronald Neame’s hugely successful 1972 cruise ship disaster movie ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ with Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Stella Stevens and Red Buttons.
In 1973, he appeared alongside Al Pacino in Jerry Schatzberg’s cult movie ‘Scarecrow’ in which his irascible ex-con sets off on a cross country trip from California to Pittsburgh with a naive sailor to set up a car wash business.
There was an early venture into comedy when Mel Brooks turned to Hackman as the blind man in his 1974 Mary Shelley spoof ‘Young Frankenstein’ with Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr and Marty Feldman.
Francis Coppola cast him as the surveillance expert Harry Caul in the 1974 twitchy mystery thriller ‘The Conversation’ with John Cazale, Cindy Williams, Frédéric Forest, Teri Garr, Robert Duvall and Harrison Ford.
It remains one of his finest performances and he would draw upon it 24 years later as the underground surveillance expert Brill in Tony Scott’s entertaining hi-tech thriller ‘Enemy of the State’ with Will Smith, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Regina King, Jason Robards, Ian Hart and Gabriel Byrne.
Amazingly, Hackman would not get a Best Actor Oscar nod for his performance as the reserved Caul in Coppola’s film but it may well be the best performance of an illustrious career.
There were mixed reviews for Richard Brook’s cross-country horse race drama ‘Bite the Bullet’ with James Coburn, Candice Bergen and Ian Bannen.
His decision to team up again with Arthur Penn in the 1975 noir drama ‘Night Moves’ with Susan Clark and Melanie Griffith, in which he starred as a former American Football player turned private eye investigating the case of a missing teenage girl, was well received and earned him another BAFTA nomination.
Veteran studio director Stanley Donen cast Hackman and Burt Reynolds opposite Liza Minnelli in the slight 1975 Prohibition set comedy ‘Lucky Lady’ which he made only because the studio offered him “an obscene amount of money”.
Richard Attenborough cast him as a Polish soldier in the star studded 1977 war drama ‘A Bridge Too Far’ which featured Robert Redford, Ryan O’Neal, Sean Connery, James Caan, Dirk Bogarde, Liv Ullmann, Laurence Olivier, Elliott Gould, Michael Caine, Maxmillian Schell and Anthony Hopkins.
In Stanley Kramer’s thriller ‘Domino Principle’ with Richard Widmark, Mickey Rooney, Eli Wallach and Candice Bergen, he played a prison escapee who is asked to work for a shady criminal organisation.
He would also play the definitive Lex Luthor in Richard Donner’s 1978 superheroes smash hit ‘Superman’ with Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Ned Beatty, Susannah York, Marlon Brando and Terence Stamp.
Demonstrating his deft comic touch, Hackman would reprise his role in Richard Lester’s 1980 sequel ‘Superman II’ and for the same director in 1987’s ‘Superman IV: Quest for Peace’.
The 1980s saw Hackman again shine in a variety or roles, with Warren Beatty persuading him to appear in his acclaimed star studded 1981 movie ‘Reds’ which also featured Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton and Edward Herrmann.
Hackman later revealed he felt he had let down Beatty, who was starring and directing, during the making of the three hour epic about the American Communist Party by struggling to get to grips with his character because they had to do so many takes.
Beatty, however, was shocked to later hear this, revealing not only had Hackman nailed the part but had flown from London battling a raging temperature to do the scene.
After a strong appearance opposite Barbra Streisand and Dennis Quaid in Jean-Claude Tramint’s forgettable 1981 romantic comedy ‘All Night Long’, there was a searing performance as a prospector turned tycoon in Nic Roeg’s 1983 drama ‘Eureka’.
That year he also starred alongside Nick Nolte and Joanna Cassidy as a TV news anchorman covering the Nicaraguan revolution in Roger Spottiswoode’s gripping journalism drama ‘Under Fire’.
Ted Kotcheff cast him as a tough as nails Marine Colonel determined to track down his Missing in Action son in the Vietnam action movie ‘Uncommon Valour’ with Fred Ward and Patrick Swayze.
Five years later, Hackman played a US Air Force Colonel whose plane is shot down in south Vietnam in the final days of the war in Peter Markle’s ‘Bat*21’ with Danny Glover.
In Bud Yorkin’s well received 1985 movie ‘Twice in a Lifetime’ with Ellen Burstyn and Ally Sheedy, Hackman played a married steelworker wrestling with a mid-life crisis when he is attracted to Ann Margret’s barmaid.
Arthur Penn would direct him again that year in the mystery thriller ‘Target’ opposite Matt Dillon in which he played a lumber business owner whose wife goes missing in Paris. However the film failed to set the box office alight.
A year later, Sidney Lumet cast him alongside Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Denzel Washington, Kate Capshaw and JT Walsh in the poorly received political corruption drama ‘Power’.
Hackman was back on track in David Anspaugh’s inspiring high school basketball drama ‘Hoosiers’ in which he played a coach whose tactics infuriated locals. The film, which also starred Barbara Hershey, was also notable for Dennis Hopper’s turn as an alcoholic who is recruited onto the coaching team.
In Roger Donaldson’s taut 1987 Cold War thriller ‘No Way Out’, he played a US Secretary of Defence who murders his mistress, played by Sean Young, who has also been dating Kevin Costner’s Naval Lieutenant Commander.
There would be a similar story arc ten years later in Clint Eastwood’s cynical thriller ‘Absolute Power’ with Laura Linney, Scott Glenn, Judy Davis and Ed Harris, when Eastwood playing a jewel thief who witnesses Hackman’s US President sexually assault a billionaire’s wife only to have her gunned down by the Secret Service.
Woody Allen cast him in a "what might have been" role in the sombre 1988 Bergmanesque drama ‘Another Woman’ with Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow and Ian Holm in which Rowland’s character realises he was the love of her life.
However it was his performance as an FBI agent in Alan Parker’s incendiary Civil Rights racial drama ‘Mississippi Burning’ with Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif and Michael Rooker, that was to be his finest of the decade.
A kind of good ole boy version of Popeye Doyle, he schools Willem Dafoe’s stiff shirt boss in Southern ways while confronting and humiliating bigots. It deservedly earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination and a Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival.
Berlin would provide the setting for Andrew Davis’ 1989 Cold War thriller ‘The Package’ with Joanna Cassidy, John Heard and Dennis Franz in which he played a Special Forces Master Sergeant accompanying Tommy Lee Jones’ deserter prisoner who he has to track down when he escapes.
1990 saw him begin the decade with another thriller, Peter Hyams’ decent remake of the 1952 film noir ‘Narrow Margin,’ with Anne Archer and him evading and battling the Mob on a high speed train rolling through the Canadian Wilderness.
There was a supporting role as a director in Mike Nichols’ acclaimed adaptation of Carrie Fisher’s ‘Postcards from the Edge’ with Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Dennis Quaid, Annette Bening and Richard Dreyfuss.
In Michael Apted’s well received 1991 legal drama ‘Class Action’, Hackman played an attorney involved in an automobile industry lawsuit who discovers his estranged daughter played by Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio is his opposition in the courtroom.
There was a nicely judged turn as the sleazy senior partner in a dodgy Boston law firm in Sydney Pollack’s 1993 adaptation of John Grishma’s thriller ‘The Firm’ with Tom Cruise, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Jeanne Tripplehorn, David Strathairn and Hal Holbrook.
Ten years later, in one of his last screen appearances, Hackman played a wily jury consultant in Gary Fleder’s positively received legal thriller ‘Runaway Jury’ with John Cusack, Rachel Weisz and Dustin Hoffman.
His second Oscar came for his role as the brutal yet jaded Sherriff Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s wonderfully contradictory, dark 1992 Western ‘Unforgiven’ with Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.
Hackman took Best Supporting Actor as Eastwood’s elegiac Western swept up four Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Picture.
This triggered a rash of appearances in Westerns, ranging from the good (Lawrence’s Kasdan’s 1994 ‘Wyatt Earp’ with Kevin Costner), the not so bad (Walter Hill’s 1993 ‘Geronimo: An American Legend’ with Wes Studi and Robert Duvall) and the downright ugly (Sam Raimi’s 1995 ‘The Quick and the Dead’ with Sharon Stone, Leonardo di Caprio and Russell Crowe).
Tony Scott’s 1995 taut Cold War submarine mutiny drama ‘Crimson Tide’ saw him go head to head with Denzel Washington with a cast that included James Gandolfini and Viggo Mortensen.
There was an amusing buffoonish performance as a B Movie producer in Barry Sonnenfeld’s hit 1995 adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s ‘Get Shorty’ with John Travolta, Rene Russo, Danny de Vito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo and James Gandolfini.
Hackman played an uptight Republican Senator in Mike Nichols’ farce ‘The Birdcage’ with Nathan Lane, Robin Williams, Diane Wiest and Hank Azaria - a remake of the 1978 French-Italian Drag Queen farce ‘La Cage aux Folles’.
He was an unethical neurosurgeon opposite Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker in Michael Apted’s 1996 medical thriller ‘Extreme Measures’.
Hackman played a wronged husband in Robert Benton’s 1998 thriller ‘Twilight’ alongside Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Stockard Channing and Giancarlo Esposito.
© MGM/United Artists
Hackman earned more plaudits for his performance as a professional skiing coach opposite Robert Redford in Michael Ritchie’s acclaimed 1969 drama ‘Downhill Racer’.
He would work again with Ritchie in the gritty 1972 Irish Mob drama ‘Prime Cut’ as a Kansas meat packer boss who Lee Marvin’s Chicago gangster confronts for not paying a debt - only to discover he is involved in a prostitution ring as well.
He also starred alongside Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna and David Janssen in John Sturgess’ astronaut drama ‘Marooned’ which was released four months after the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
1970 saw Hackman land his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as a son struggling with his dad in Gilbert Cates’ ‘I Never Sang For My Father’.
His co-star Melvyn Douglas was also nominated for Best Actor in the adaptation of Robert Anderson’s 1968 Broadway play.
© Columbia PicturesA gripping, gritty New York thriller from William Friedkin, it featured a pulsating chase sequence featuring a subway train and it gave Hackman a memorable catchphrase: “Did you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie”.
Incredibly, Hackman was not even first or fourth choice for the lead, with Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Peter Boyle, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Rod Taylor and even the New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin considered before him.
But when the role did come his way, Hackman made the most of it - scooping a BAFTA and Golden Globe as well and creating one of the most memorable screen cops of all time.
He would reprise the role five years later in John Frankenheimer’s gripping ‘The French Connection II’ which saw Popeye head from New York to Marseille to track down Rey’s Alain Charnier.
However his task is anything but simple as he is forced to battle resentful French cops, is kidnapped and plied with heroin and takes part in an eye popping pursuit of Charnier on foot.
© 20th Century Fox
In 1973, he appeared alongside Al Pacino in Jerry Schatzberg’s cult movie ‘Scarecrow’ in which his irascible ex-con sets off on a cross country trip from California to Pittsburgh with a naive sailor to set up a car wash business.
There was an early venture into comedy when Mel Brooks turned to Hackman as the blind man in his 1974 Mary Shelley spoof ‘Young Frankenstein’ with Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr and Marty Feldman.
Francis Coppola cast him as the surveillance expert Harry Caul in the 1974 twitchy mystery thriller ‘The Conversation’ with John Cazale, Cindy Williams, Frédéric Forest, Teri Garr, Robert Duvall and Harrison Ford.
It remains one of his finest performances and he would draw upon it 24 years later as the underground surveillance expert Brill in Tony Scott’s entertaining hi-tech thriller ‘Enemy of the State’ with Will Smith, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Regina King, Jason Robards, Ian Hart and Gabriel Byrne.
Amazingly, Hackman would not get a Best Actor Oscar nod for his performance as the reserved Caul in Coppola’s film but it may well be the best performance of an illustrious career.
© Paramount Pictures
His decision to team up again with Arthur Penn in the 1975 noir drama ‘Night Moves’ with Susan Clark and Melanie Griffith, in which he starred as a former American Football player turned private eye investigating the case of a missing teenage girl, was well received and earned him another BAFTA nomination.
Veteran studio director Stanley Donen cast Hackman and Burt Reynolds opposite Liza Minnelli in the slight 1975 Prohibition set comedy ‘Lucky Lady’ which he made only because the studio offered him “an obscene amount of money”.
Richard Attenborough cast him as a Polish soldier in the star studded 1977 war drama ‘A Bridge Too Far’ which featured Robert Redford, Ryan O’Neal, Sean Connery, James Caan, Dirk Bogarde, Liv Ullmann, Laurence Olivier, Elliott Gould, Michael Caine, Maxmillian Schell and Anthony Hopkins.
In Stanley Kramer’s thriller ‘Domino Principle’ with Richard Widmark, Mickey Rooney, Eli Wallach and Candice Bergen, he played a prison escapee who is asked to work for a shady criminal organisation.
He would also play the definitive Lex Luthor in Richard Donner’s 1978 superheroes smash hit ‘Superman’ with Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Ned Beatty, Susannah York, Marlon Brando and Terence Stamp.
© Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors
The 1980s saw Hackman again shine in a variety or roles, with Warren Beatty persuading him to appear in his acclaimed star studded 1981 movie ‘Reds’ which also featured Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton and Edward Herrmann.
Hackman later revealed he felt he had let down Beatty, who was starring and directing, during the making of the three hour epic about the American Communist Party by struggling to get to grips with his character because they had to do so many takes.
Beatty, however, was shocked to later hear this, revealing not only had Hackman nailed the part but had flown from London battling a raging temperature to do the scene.
After a strong appearance opposite Barbra Streisand and Dennis Quaid in Jean-Claude Tramint’s forgettable 1981 romantic comedy ‘All Night Long’, there was a searing performance as a prospector turned tycoon in Nic Roeg’s 1983 drama ‘Eureka’.
That year he also starred alongside Nick Nolte and Joanna Cassidy as a TV news anchorman covering the Nicaraguan revolution in Roger Spottiswoode’s gripping journalism drama ‘Under Fire’.
© Orion Pictures
Five years later, Hackman played a US Air Force Colonel whose plane is shot down in south Vietnam in the final days of the war in Peter Markle’s ‘Bat*21’ with Danny Glover.
In Bud Yorkin’s well received 1985 movie ‘Twice in a Lifetime’ with Ellen Burstyn and Ally Sheedy, Hackman played a married steelworker wrestling with a mid-life crisis when he is attracted to Ann Margret’s barmaid.
Arthur Penn would direct him again that year in the mystery thriller ‘Target’ opposite Matt Dillon in which he played a lumber business owner whose wife goes missing in Paris. However the film failed to set the box office alight.
A year later, Sidney Lumet cast him alongside Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Denzel Washington, Kate Capshaw and JT Walsh in the poorly received political corruption drama ‘Power’.
Hackman was back on track in David Anspaugh’s inspiring high school basketball drama ‘Hoosiers’ in which he played a coach whose tactics infuriated locals. The film, which also starred Barbara Hershey, was also notable for Dennis Hopper’s turn as an alcoholic who is recruited onto the coaching team.
In Roger Donaldson’s taut 1987 Cold War thriller ‘No Way Out’, he played a US Secretary of Defence who murders his mistress, played by Sean Young, who has also been dating Kevin Costner’s Naval Lieutenant Commander.
© Orion Pictures
Woody Allen cast him in a "what might have been" role in the sombre 1988 Bergmanesque drama ‘Another Woman’ with Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow and Ian Holm in which Rowland’s character realises he was the love of her life.
However it was his performance as an FBI agent in Alan Parker’s incendiary Civil Rights racial drama ‘Mississippi Burning’ with Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif and Michael Rooker, that was to be his finest of the decade.
A kind of good ole boy version of Popeye Doyle, he schools Willem Dafoe’s stiff shirt boss in Southern ways while confronting and humiliating bigots. It deservedly earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination and a Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival.
Berlin would provide the setting for Andrew Davis’ 1989 Cold War thriller ‘The Package’ with Joanna Cassidy, John Heard and Dennis Franz in which he played a Special Forces Master Sergeant accompanying Tommy Lee Jones’ deserter prisoner who he has to track down when he escapes.
1990 saw him begin the decade with another thriller, Peter Hyams’ decent remake of the 1952 film noir ‘Narrow Margin,’ with Anne Archer and him evading and battling the Mob on a high speed train rolling through the Canadian Wilderness.
© Columbia Pictures
In Michael Apted’s well received 1991 legal drama ‘Class Action’, Hackman played an attorney involved in an automobile industry lawsuit who discovers his estranged daughter played by Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio is his opposition in the courtroom.
There was a nicely judged turn as the sleazy senior partner in a dodgy Boston law firm in Sydney Pollack’s 1993 adaptation of John Grishma’s thriller ‘The Firm’ with Tom Cruise, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Jeanne Tripplehorn, David Strathairn and Hal Holbrook.
Ten years later, in one of his last screen appearances, Hackman played a wily jury consultant in Gary Fleder’s positively received legal thriller ‘Runaway Jury’ with John Cusack, Rachel Weisz and Dustin Hoffman.
His second Oscar came for his role as the brutal yet jaded Sherriff Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s wonderfully contradictory, dark 1992 Western ‘Unforgiven’ with Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.
Hackman took Best Supporting Actor as Eastwood’s elegiac Western swept up four Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Picture.
Tony Scott’s 1995 taut Cold War submarine mutiny drama ‘Crimson Tide’ saw him go head to head with Denzel Washington with a cast that included James Gandolfini and Viggo Mortensen.
There was an amusing buffoonish performance as a B Movie producer in Barry Sonnenfeld’s hit 1995 adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s ‘Get Shorty’ with John Travolta, Rene Russo, Danny de Vito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo and James Gandolfini.
Hackman played an uptight Republican Senator in Mike Nichols’ farce ‘The Birdcage’ with Nathan Lane, Robin Williams, Diane Wiest and Hank Azaria - a remake of the 1978 French-Italian Drag Queen farce ‘La Cage aux Folles’.
He was an unethical neurosurgeon opposite Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker in Michael Apted’s 1996 medical thriller ‘Extreme Measures’.
Hackman played a wronged husband in Robert Benton’s 1998 thriller ‘Twilight’ alongside Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Stockard Channing and Giancarlo Esposito.
© MGM/United ArtistsIn Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson’s enjoyable 1998 Dreamworks Studio animation ‘Antz’, Hackman voiced he role of the dictatorial ant General Mandible opposite Woody Allen’s worker Z, Sharon Stone’s Princess Bala and an impressive cast that also included Sylvester Stallone, Dan Aykroyd, Jennifer Lopez, Anne Bancroft, Christopher Walken, Danny Glover and John Mahoney.
The 2000s were to be his last as an actor and he began it by appearing as a tax collector suspected of murder alongside Morgan Freeman and Monica Bellucci in Stephen Hopkins’ 2000 thriller ‘Under Suspicion’.
In Howard Deutsch’s sports comedy ‘The Replacements’ with Keanu Reeves, Jack Warden, Jon Favreau and Rhys Ifans, Hackman played an American Football coach asked to steward a team of replacement players.
Gore Verbinski’s 2001 so so comedy adventure ‘The Mexican’ with Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and James Gandolfini saw Hackman take on the role of a Mobster who forces Pitt’s character to go on errands as a punishment for a car crash that resulted in him going to jail.
He played a tobacco baron and widower chosen as the victim of a romance scam in David Mirkin’s 2001 romantic caper ‘Heartbreakers’ with Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Ray Liotta and Anne Bancroft.
There was a lead role in the acclaimed playwright and film director David Mamet’s 2001 crime thriller ‘Heist’ with Danny de Vito, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sam Rockwell and Delroy Lindo.
© Warners Bros Pictures
The 2000s were to be his last as an actor and he began it by appearing as a tax collector suspected of murder alongside Morgan Freeman and Monica Bellucci in Stephen Hopkins’ 2000 thriller ‘Under Suspicion’.
In Howard Deutsch’s sports comedy ‘The Replacements’ with Keanu Reeves, Jack Warden, Jon Favreau and Rhys Ifans, Hackman played an American Football coach asked to steward a team of replacement players.
Gore Verbinski’s 2001 so so comedy adventure ‘The Mexican’ with Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and James Gandolfini saw Hackman take on the role of a Mobster who forces Pitt’s character to go on errands as a punishment for a car crash that resulted in him going to jail.
He played a tobacco baron and widower chosen as the victim of a romance scam in David Mirkin’s 2001 romantic caper ‘Heartbreakers’ with Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Ray Liotta and Anne Bancroft.
There was a lead role in the acclaimed playwright and film director David Mamet’s 2001 crime thriller ‘Heist’ with Danny de Vito, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sam Rockwell and Delroy Lindo.
© Warners Bros PicturesIrish director John Moore helmed the poorly received Balkans War thriller ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ in which Hackman played Owen Wilson’s Naval Commander.
However that year saw his delightful performance as the patriarch in Wes Anderson’s quirky comedy ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ with Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Glover and Luke Wilson.
His final screen role was as a former US President in Donald Petrie’s critically lambasted comedy ‘Welcome to Mooseport’ with Ray Romano, Maura Tierney and Marcia Gay Harden.
Hackman would stay largely out of the public eye, writing novels and doing the occasional interview.
But he was missed on the big screen, thanks to his ability to make the flimsiest of film scripts watchable.
.
When he appeared in mediocre movies, Hackman elevated them with his natural screen presence and his undeniable charm could woo audiences.
© Warner Bros Pictures
However that year saw his delightful performance as the patriarch in Wes Anderson’s quirky comedy ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ with Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Glover and Luke Wilson.
His final screen role was as a former US President in Donald Petrie’s critically lambasted comedy ‘Welcome to Mooseport’ with Ray Romano, Maura Tierney and Marcia Gay Harden.
Hackman would stay largely out of the public eye, writing novels and doing the occasional interview.
But he was missed on the big screen, thanks to his ability to make the flimsiest of film scripts watchable.
.
When he appeared in mediocre movies, Hackman elevated them with his natural screen presence and his undeniable charm could woo audiences.
© Warner Bros PicturesNo matter how nasty his characters were, audiences often had a sneaky regard for them - thanks to the twinkle in Hackman's eye.
Few actors could steal a scene opposite Hackman who was regarded as a go to Hollywood everyman just like his screen hero Jimmy Cagney or Spencer Tracy.
Not one for the celebrity circuit, he gave a rare interview to GQ magazine in 2011 marking his retirement from acting.
Hackman came across as a modest man who preferred to enthuse about his hero, Jimmy Cagney than talk about his own career.
In his retirement years, he devoted time to his painting and to writing novels.
Few actors could steal a scene opposite Hackman who was regarded as a go to Hollywood everyman just like his screen hero Jimmy Cagney or Spencer Tracy.
Not one for the celebrity circuit, he gave a rare interview to GQ magazine in 2011 marking his retirement from acting.
Hackman came across as a modest man who preferred to enthuse about his hero, Jimmy Cagney than talk about his own career.
In his retirement years, he devoted time to his painting and to writing novels.
The strange circumstances of his death alongside his wife Betsy (albeit in separate rooms) and their dog in their Santa Fe home came as a shock to many, with early reports of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Coming so close to this year's Oscars, it will cast a shadow over Hollywood's big night on Sunday, with many collaborators struggling to make sense of both their deaths.
But regardless of what may emerge about the deaths, there is no doubt Hackman has left behind him a treasure trove of magnetic screen performances for future generations to enjoy.
What a treasure trove that really is.
(Gene Hackman passed away at the age of 95 and his death was announced on February 27, 2025)
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