Gene Hackman

At 94 years old, Gene Hackman has this physical status:

Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is a retired American actor and novelist.

In a career that spanned more than six decades, Hackman won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and two BAFTAs. Nominated for five Academy Awards, Hackman won Best Actor for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the critically acclaimed thriller The French Connection (1971), and Best Supporting Actor as "Little" Bill Daggett in the Clint Eastwood Western Unforgiven (1992).

His other nominations for Best Supporting Actor came with the films Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and I Never Sang for My Father (1970), with a second Best Actor nomination for Mississippi Burning (1988). Hackman's other major film roles included The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Conversation (1974), French Connection II (1975), Superman: The Movie (1978) — as arch-villain Lex Luthor — Hoosiers (1986), The Firm (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Behind Enemy Lines (2001) and Welcome to Mooseport (2004).

Early life and education

Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Eugene Ezra Hackman and Anna Lyda Elizabeth (née Gray). He has one brother, Richard. He has Pennsylvania Dutch, English, and Scottish ancestry; his mother was Canadian, and was born in Lambton, Ontario. His family moved frequently, finally settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of his English-born maternal grandmother, Beatrice. Hackman's father operated the printing press for the Commercial-News, a local paper. His parents divorced when he was 13 and his father subsequently left the family. Hackman decided that he wanted to become an actor when he was ten years old.

Hackman lived briefly in Storm Lake, Iowa, and spent his sophomore year at Storm Lake High School. 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. 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, he moved to New York City and had several jobs. His mother died in 1962 as a result of a fire she accidentally started while smoking. He began a study of journalism and television production at the University of Illinois under the G.I. Bill, but left and moved back to California.

Personal life

Hackman has been married twice. He has three children from his first marriage.

In 1956 Hackman married Faye Maltese (b.1929 - d.2017) with whom he had one son and two daughters: Christopher Allen, Elizabeth Jean, and Leslie Anne Hackman. He was often out on location making films while their children were growing up. The couple divorced in 1986 after three decades of marriage.

In 1991 he married classical pianist Betsy Arakawa (b. Hawaii 1961). They share a Santa Fe, New Mexico home which Architectural Digest featured in 1990. At the time, the home blended Southwestern styles and crested a twelve acre hilltop, with a 360-degree view that stretched to the Colorado mountains. The couple is active, and at age 92 Hackman continues to attend Santa Fe cultural events.

Hackman is a supporter of the Democratic Party, and was "proud" to be included on Nixon's Enemies List. However, he has spoken fondly of Republican president Ronald Reagan.

In the late 1970s, Hackman competed in Sports Car Club of America races, driving an open-wheeled Formula Ford. In 1983, he drove a Dan Gurney Team Toyota in the 24 Hours of Daytona Endurance Race. He also won the Long Beach Grand Prix Celebrity Race.

Hackman is a fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars and regularly attended Jaguars games as a guest of then head coach Jack Del Rio. Their friendship goes back to Del Rio's playing days at the University of Southern California.

Architecture and design are another of Hackman’s interests. As of 1990 he had created ten homes, two of which were featured in Architectural Digest. After a period of time, he moves onto another house restoration. “I don't know what's wrong with me,” he remarked, “I guess I like the process, and when it's over, it's over.”

Hackman is an active cyclist as of 2018 when he was 88-years old. This is after a 2012 accident, when the then 81-year old Hackman, bicycling in the Florida Keys, was struck by a pickup truck. He made a full recovery.

Hackman underwent an angioplasty in 1990.

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Career

Hackman, a 1956 graduate, began pursuing an acting career. Dustin Hoffman, a teen actor, was hired by the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended another young actor. Hackman and Hoffman were both voted "The Least Likely To Succeed," and Hackman was given the lowest score at the Pasadena Playhouse, with Hackman and Hoffman being voted the least Likely to succeed. Hackman, adamant to prove them wrong, migrated to New York City. Hackman, Hoffman, and Robert Duvall, according to a 2004 article in Vanity Fair, were struggling California-born actors and close friends, sharing NYC apartments in various two-person combinations in the 1960s. Hackman was working at a Howard Johnson's restaurant when he ran into an instructor who said that Hackman "wouldn't mean anything." "You're a sorry son of a bitch," a Marine officer who saw him as a doorman said.

Rejection motivated Hackman, who said,

Hackman appeared on television show Route 66 in 1963, for example, and appeared in several Off-Broadway plays. Sandy Dennis, a 1964 actor, had the opportunity to co-star in the play Any Wednesday. This opened the way to filmmaking. He appeared in Lilith for the first time, with Jean Seberg and Warren Beatty in the leading roles. In 1966, he appeared in the epic film Hawaii as Dr. John Whipple. He appeared in an episode of the television show "The Spores" in 1967. Buck Barrow, a 1967 Bonnie and Clyde actor, was named as the Best Supporting Actor in Academy Award Nomination. In the episode "Happy Birthday... Everybody," he appeared in an episode of I Spy as "Hunter." He appeared in "My Father and My Mother" and the dystopian television film Shadow on the Land in the same year. He was a ski coach in Downhill Racer and an explorer in Marooned in 1969. He was a member of a barnstorming skydiving group that performed mainly at county fairs, a film that prompted others to try skydiving and has a cult-like reputation amongst skydivers as a result: the Gypsy Moths. Mike Brady for the television series The Brady Bunch was almost accepted, but his handler advised him not to do it in exchange for a more interesting role, which he did.

Hackman was nominated for his second Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in 1970's "I Never Sang for My Father." In The French Connection (1971), he received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as New York City Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, bringing him to leading-man status.

Hackman appeared in ten films (not including his cameo in Young Frankenstein) over the next three years, making him the most prolific actor in Hollywood during this period. He followed The French Connection (1972) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), which was nominated for several Oscars and received the Palme d'Or in Cannes and was one of the leading roles in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Conversation (1974), which was nominated for several Oscars and landed the Palme d'Or in Cannes. Hackman appeared in what would be one of his most well-known comedic roles as Harold the Blind Man in Young Frankenstein in the same year.

In the Western horse-race saga Bite the Bullet (1975), he appeared as one of Teddy Roosevelt's former Rough Riders. He reprised his Oscar-winning role in the sequel French Connection II (1975) and appeared in an all-star cast in A Bridge Too Far (1977), portraying Polish General Stanis Sosabowski. In Superman: The Movie (1978), the hackman demonstrated a natural command of comedy and the "slow burn" as a criminal mastermind Lex Luthor, a role he would reprise in 1980 and 1987 sequels.

During the 1980s, hackman changed between leading and supporting roles, with prominent roles in Reds (1983), Hoosiers (1986) (which an American Film Institute survey in 2008 named him the fourth best film of all time in the sports genre) and Mississippi Burning (1988), where he was nominated for his second Best Actor Academy award in 2008. He appeared in nine films between 1985 and 1988, making him the busiest actor alongside Steve Guttenberg.

In Narrow Margin (1990), a recreation of the 1952 film The Narrow Margin, a hackman appeared with Anne Archer. In the Western Unforgiven directed by Clint Eastwood and written by David Webb Peoples in 1992, he played sadistic sheriff "Little" Bill Daggett. Hackman had promised to refrain from violent roles, but Eastwood persuaded him to participate in his second film award, this time for Best Supporting Actor. The film also received the Best Picture award.

He appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend as Brigadier General George Crook and co-starred in The Firm, a legal thriller based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. Hackman will appear in two other films based on John Grisham's novels, including convicted Sam Cayhall on death row in The Chamber (1996) and jury consultant Rankin Fitch in Runaway Jury (2003).

Wyatt Earp (1994) (as Nicholas Porter Earp, Wyatt Earp's father), The Quick and the Dead (1995), and as submarine Captain Frank Ramsey in Crimson Tide (1995). In the comedy-drama Get Shorty (1995), Hackman starred Harry Zimm with John Travolta. He reunited with Clint Eastwood in Absolute Power (1997) and co-starred Will Smith in Enemy of the State (1998), his character resembles that of the one in The Conversation.

In 1996, Kevin Keeley, a liberal senator from The Birdcage, with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, took a comedic turn.

Hackman co-starred with Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines (2001), and appeared in the David Mamet crime thriller Heist (2001), as an elderly professional thief of considerable ability forced into one last position. In Wes Anderson's comedy film The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), he earned the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, he received acclaim for playing against type as the head of an eccentric family. Dustin Hoffman, a long-time friend, appeared in another John Grisham court drama called Runaway Jury in 2003, at long last getting to photograph with his long-time buddy Dustin Hoffman. Hackman appeared alongside Ray Romano in the comedy Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, his last film acting role to date.

In 2003, Hackman received the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globe Awards for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment industry."

Hackman appeared in Larry King's rare interview on July 7, 2004, where he revealed that he had no forthcoming film projects lined up and felt his acting career was over. He revealed that he had quit acting in 2008 when promoting his third book. "If I could do it in my own house, maybe without them disturbing anything and just one or two people," he said during a GQ interview in 2011. He came out of retirement to narrate two Marine Corps documentaries: The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima (2016) and We, The Marines (2017).

Hackman's three historical fiction books include Wake of the Perpetual (1996), a 19th-century tale of violence; Justice for None (2004), a Holocaust-era tale of murder; and Escape from Andersonville (2008) about a prison escape during the American Civil War. Payback at Morning Peak, his first solo effort, a tale of passion and revenge set in the Old West, was released in 2011. Pursuit, a police thriller, was followed by a police drama in 2013.

With Pat O'Brien, Steve Hartman, and Vic "The Brick" Jacobs, he appeared on Fox Sports Radio show The Loose Cannons, where he discussed his work and his books.

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