Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is a retired American actor and novelist.
In a career spanning five decades, Hackman has been nominated for five Academy Awards,
winning two, including best actor in The French Connection.
In addition Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs.
He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde.
His major subsequent films include The French Connection, in which he played Jimmy "Popeye"
Doyle; The Poseidon Adventure; The Conversation; Superman, in which he played arch-villain
Lex Luthor; Hoosiers; Mississippi Burning; Unforgiven; The Firm; Crimson Tide; Get Shorty;
The Birdcage; Enemy of the State; and The Royal Tenenbaums.
Early life Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California,
the son of Lyda and Eugene Ezra Hackman.
He has a brother, Richard.
He has Pennsylvania Dutch, English, and Scottish ancestry, and his mother was born in Canada.
According to a plaque in a city park, he worked for a time as a dog catcher for the local
animal shelter.
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.
Hackman's parents divorced in 1943 and his father subsequently left the family.
Gene lived briefly in Storm Lake, Iowa and spent his sophomore year at Storm Lake High
School.
At the age of sixteen, Hackman left home to join the United States Marine Corps, where
he served four-and-a-half years as a field radio operator.
After his discharge, he moved to New York, working in several minor jobs.
His mother died in 1962 as a result of a fire she accidentally set while smoking.
Career 1960s
In 1956, Hackman began pursuing an acting career; he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in
California.
It was there that he forged a friendship with another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman.
Already seen as outsiders by their classmates, Hackman and Hoffman were later voted "The
Least Likely To Succeed."
Determined to prove them wrong, Hackman hopped on a bus bound for 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.
Hackman was working as a doorman when he ran into an instructor whom he had despised at
the Pasadena Playhouse.
Reinforcing "The Least Likely To Succeed" vote, the man had said, "See, Hackman, I told
you you wouldn't amount to anything."
The three former roommates have since earned eighteen Academy Award nominations, with five
wins.
Hackman 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, Hackman appeared in an episode of the television series The Invaders entitled
The Spores.
Another supporting role, Buck Barrow in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, 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".
In 1969, he played a ski coach in Downhill Racer and an astronaut in Marooned.
Also in that year, he played the role of a member of a barnstorming skydiving team that
entertained mostly at county fairs: The Gypsy Moths.
He nearly accepted the role of Mike Brady for the upcoming TV series, The Brady Bunch,
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.
He followed this with leading roles in the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure and Francis
Ford Coppola's The Conversation, which was nominated for several Oscars.
That same year, Hackman appeared in what became one of his most famous comedic roles as the
blind hermit in Young Frankenstein.
He later appeared as one of Teddy Roosevelt's former Rough Riders in the Western horse-race
saga Bite the Bullet, as well as in that year's sequel French Connection II.
In 1975 he also appeared in the highly regarded—but little viewed—film Night Moves, receiving
a BAFTA nomination for lead actor.
He appeared in the star-studded war film A Bridge Too Far, as Polish General Stanislaw
Sosabowski.
Hackman showed a talent for both comedy and the "slow burn" as criminal mastermind Lex
Luthor in Superman: The Movie, as he would in its 1980 and 1987 sequels.
1980s By the end of the 1980s, Hackman alternated
between leading and supporting roles, earning another Best Actor nomination for Mississippi
Burning.
He had a memorable part as a Secretary of Defense trying to cover up a homicide in 1987's
No Way Out opposite Kevin Costner.
During this decade Hackman also could be seen 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.
1990s In 1990, the actor underwent an angioplasty,
which kept him from work for a while, although he found time for Narrow Margin—a remake
of The Narrow Margin.
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.
In 1993 he appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend as Brigadier General George Crook.
Hackman co-starred with Tom Cruise as a corrupt lawyer in The Firm and appeared in a second
John Grisham story in 1996, playing a convict on death row in The Chamber.
In 1995, Hackman played an inept Hollywood producer 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 ultra-conservative Senator Kevin Keeley in The Birdcage 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 President of the United States 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, 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, a comedy with Ray Romano, in which
Hackman 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."
Other work and retirement
Together with undersea archaeologist Daniel Lenihan, Hackman has written three historical
fiction novels: Wake of the Perdido Star, a sea adventure of the 19th century, Justice
for None, a Depression-era tale of murder, and Escape from Andersonville about a prison
escape during the Civil War.
Payback at Morning Peak is his first solo effort, a story of love and revenge set in
the Old West.
On July 7, 2004, Hackman gave a rare interview to Larry King, in which Hackman announced
that he had no future film projects lined up and believed his acting career was over.
In 2008, while promoting his third novel, Hackman confirmed that he had retired from
acting.
When asked during a GQ interview in 2011 if he would ever come out of retirement to do
one more film, Hackman 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".
In 2011, Hackman 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 wife was Faye Maltese.
They had three children, Christopher Allen, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne.
The couple divorced in 1986 after three decades of marriage.
In 1991, Hackman married Betsy Arakawa.
They live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Betsy is co-owner of an upscale retail home furnishings store in Santa Fe called Pandora's,
Inc.
Hackman competed in Sports Car Club of America races driving an open wheeled Formula Ford
in the late seventies.
In 1983, Hackman 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 an avid fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars and regularly attended Jaguars games
as a guest of then-head coach Jack Del Rio.
He is friends with Del Rio from Del Rio's playing days at the University of Southern
California.
On January 13, 2012, Gene Hackman was struck by a car while riding a bicycle in Islamorada,
Florida.
He sustained minor injuries and was transported to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, Florida.
On October 30, 2012, Hackman slapped a homeless man he knew in downtown Santa Fe.
Hackman told police that the homeless man became angry when he was refused money, called
him a name and moved in close in a "threatening manner".
The actor told officers that's when he was forced to slap the man, to fend him off.
No charges were filed as it was determined by police that Hackman acted in self-defense.
Filmography Awards and nominations
See also References
External links Gene Hackman at the Internet Movie Database
Gene Hackman at AllMovie Gene Hackman at the TCM Movie Database
Gene Hackman at the Internet Broadway Database Gene Hackman at the Internet Off-Broadway
Database