I guess everyone has heard that Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their home under what the police are calling “suspicious” circumstances. The 95-year-old retired actor and his 66-year-old wife were found in different parts of the house deceased and in reportedly advanced decomposition. The news sources hint it may have been a multiple suicide or some other unfortunate situation. Well, we’ll probably get the gruesome and sad details soon enough.
I guess I wish I had written a post on Hackman’s career under happier circumstances. But better late than never. I had a chance to review his career over at IMDB and made a list of the movies that I had seen and either liked or at least considered good.
| 1969 | Marooned |
| 1971 | The French Connection |
| 1974 | The Conversation |
| 1974 | Young Frankenstein |
| 1978 | Superman |
| 1886 | Hoosiers |
| 1992 | Unforgiven |
| 1994 | Wyatt Earp |
| 1995 | Get Shorty |
| 1998 | Enemy of the State |
| 2001 | The Royal Tenenbaums |
It’s a surprisingly broad cross-section of genres. He was equally skilled as a comic actor, an action/adventure star and even a few dramatic roles. What I would say about his talent as an actor was that he would use his considerable acting abilities to take whatever part he was given, no matter how threadbare and make it memorable. You could see this in Young Frankenstein and Get Shorty where he’s playing minor parts and yet he owns the movie while he’s on the screen.
My favorite of his films was “The French Connection.” I was a freshman in high school and my homeroom picked the movie as our class trip. We went into Manhattan and saw it on a big screen on Broadway and riding there on the subway it was surreal just how close to reality the scenes on the subway resembled reality. Graffiti and drunks passed out on the trains were the perfect intro for the movie. And Hackman was the perfect Popeye Doyle. Brutalizing his drug suspects, antagonizing his chain of command and chasing a runaway subway train in a muscle car down the wrong side of the street under the 86th St elevated subway line through my old neighborhood in Brooklyn. It didn’t get better than that. I used to walk past the housing project where Popeye supposedly lived. If he had, he would’ve been the only white man living there at the time. It was a very tough place.
I enjoyed Hackman’s Lex Luthor in the first Superman movie. It might have been the only discernible acting talent in the series but he managed to make it fun. He was good in Unforgiven. He was pretty over the top in the techno-thriller Enemy of the State alongside Will Smith but he gave it his all. I’ve been told by film aficionados that “The Royal Tenenbaums” is a very good movie. Well, I saw it but didn’t really “get it.” But I’m unsophisticated. That was the last movie I saw with Hackman.
Based on his versatility and skill I would say Hackman is one of the best acting talents I ever watched. Maybe Brando or Pacino played more dramatic parts. Robin Williams was a funnier clown. Maybe Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis blew up more stuff than Popeye Doyle. But on balance Gene Hackman was the consummate professional. He made the character real and he always stole the show for me.
Well done, Mr. Hackman.