Gene Hackman is a character actor. We say that sometimes and it doesn’t seem to mean much. It’s code for they could never play lead, or they weren’t attractive enough to become movie stars. But in Gene Hackman’s case it means he could play anything. He could be tough and cruel. He could be evil. He could be funny. He could be tender and sweet. Never has an actor done so much with what one might describe ordinary looks. I never felt that way. I always had a crush on Gene Hackman. All it took was just one look in Woody Allen’s Another Woman and I’ve been in love with him much of my adult life.
Why Gene Hackman, people have always asked me. I don’t know why. He has what the Talking Heads would call a face with a view. He contains multitudes.
Of course, Another Woman and Gene Hackman in it always felt like my secret that no one else shared. And now that Hollywood has unpersoned Woody Allen, there was no chance this movie would ever get the appreciation it deserved, mostly because of the performances of Gena Rowlands and Gene Hackman.
I also would be lying if I said the guy in the movie No Way Out I liked better wasn’t Kevin Costner, though he was in his prime. No, it was Gene Hackman as the corrupt politician just because he’s such a fascinating screen presence. How did he do it that many times? I don’t know.
Here is Kevin Costner talking about Hackman:
Gene Hackman won Best Actor for his absolutely thrilling, unforgettable performance in The French Connection, which also won Best Picture. That Hollywood feels like it’s a part of our past we’ll never get back. No one will ever make movies like that, with characters like that, with actors like that. It’s too much real life for today’s audiences.
Gene Hackman joined the Marines as a teenager, and maybe that did something to him, toughening him up in a way that actors today will never attempt. But it also gave him a glimpse of one possible future but he knew he had more to give. Still, I can’t help but think that the pathways to human emotion were carved out early and deeply in the young Gene.
We spend so much of our time hating each other in this country. It all feels so stupid and almost imaginary. Why do these play these dumb games that make everything seem so serious. The finality of death puts things in proper perspective.
No tribute would be complete without this banger of a scene, Gene Hackman kicking the shit out of a racist cop in Mississippi Burning:
I could go on all day about Gene Hackman. It feels like a cheat to lose him as a person and an actor. It feels like, as with David Lynch, we’ve lost something essential we’ll never get back. Here we are, headed into Oscar’s 97th year and we’re so very far away from the industry that made actors like Hackman and the films he starred in. But more than that, it’s a good moment to measure what our lives amount to, especially if we live as long as Gene Hackman did. He was 95. How do we choose to spend our time? How will be remembered? Life is so precious. But more than that, it’s too short. Gene Hackman leaves behind a universe of performances. His gift to all of us has been profound for decades.
He will be missed. Rest in peace to Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa (63), a classical pianist. And their dog. I did find this in the Mirror, a photo with Hackman and his wife, along with the dogs. He was an animal lover, because of course he was. All the best people are.
