Eugene Allen Hackman (January 30, 1930 – ) was an American actor. Considered one of the greatest actors of his generation and a paragon of the New Hollywood movement, Hackman's mainstream acting career spanned over four decades. He received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, one Silver Bear and four Golden Globe Awards.
Born in San Bernardino, California, Hackman developed an interest in acting from a very young age. He made his credited film debut in the drama Lilith (1964). He later won two Academy Awards; his first for Best Actor for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in William Friedkin's action thriller The French Connection, and his second for Best Supporting Actor for playing a cruel sheriff in Clint Eastwood's western Unforgiven. He was Oscar-nominated for playing Buck Barrow in the crime drama Bonnie and Clyde, and an FBI agent in the historical drama Mississippi Burning.
Hackman gained further fame for his portrayal of Lex Luthor in three of the Superman films. His other notable roles include The Conversation, Night Moves, Hoosiers, No Way Out, Crimson Tide, The Quick and the Dead, Get Shorty, Enemy of the State, and The Royal Tenenbaums. He retired from acting in 2004, writing novels and occasionally narrating television documentaries, up until 2017. Hackman's health declined in his final years. He was found dead, along with his wife, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His cause of death was deemed a combination of Alzheimer's disease, severe heart disease, and kidney disease.
Early life and military service
Eugene Allen Hackman was born on January 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California, to Anna Lyda Elizabeth () and Eugene Ezra Hackman. He also had a brother named Richard. Anna was an actress, painter, pianist, and waitress, from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Eugene Sr. operated the printing press for the local newspaper, the Commercial-News. The family moved frequently before eventually settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of Anna's English-born mother, Beatrice. Hackman later stated that he decided to become an actor at the age of 10. When Hackman was 13 years old, Eugene Sr. divorced Anna, and left the family.
Hackman spent his sophomore year at Storm Lake High School in Storm Lake, Iowa. He left home at the age of 16, lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, and served four and a half years as a field radio operator. Hackman was stationed in China (Qingdao and later in Shanghai) as part of Operation Beleaguer. He later stated that part of his role there was destroying Japanese military equipment so that Communist revolutionaries did not capture it. After the Communists conquered the mainland in 1949, he was reassigned to Hawaii and Japan. After his discharge in 1951, Hackman moved to New York City, where he worked at various jobs.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2001 He later began studying journalism and television production at the University of Illinois under the G.I. Bill, but left before graduating, and moved back to California. In 1962, Anna died in a fire she had accidentally started while smoking.
Career 1956–1969: Career beginnings
In 1956, Hackman began pursuing an acting career. He joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman. Seen as outsiders by their classmates, Hackman and Hoffman were voted "the least likely to succeed", and Hackman got the lowest score the Pasadena Playhouse had yet to give. Determined to prove them wrong, Hackman moved to New York City. A 2004 article in Vanity Fair described Hackman, Hoffman, and Robert Duvall as struggling California-born actors and close friends, sharing New York apartments in various two-person combinations in the 1960s.
To support himself between acting jobs, Hackman worked at Howard Johnson's., There, he was encountered by an instructor from the Pasadena Playhouse, who said that Hackman's job at the restaurant proved that he "wouldn't amount to anything." A Marine officer who saw him as a doorman said, "Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch."
Hackman's response was:
Hackman began performing in several off-Broadway plays, starting with Witness for the Prosecution in 1957 at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, New York, and Come to the Palace of Sin in 1963. He got various bit roles in the film Mad Dog Coll, and on multiple television series: Tallahassee 7000, The United States Steel Hour, Route 66, Naked City, The Defenders, The DuPont Show of the Week, East Side/West Side, and Brenner. In 1963, he made his Broadway debuts in the short-running Children From Their Games and A Rainy Day in Newark. However, Any Wednesday with actress Sandy Dennis was a huge Broadway success in 1964. This opened the door to film work. His first credited role was in Lilith, with Jean Seberg and Warren Beatty in the leading roles.
Hackman returned to Broadway in Poor Richard (1964–65) by Jean Kerr, which ran over a hundred performances. He continued to do television – The Trials of O'Brien, Hawk, and The F.B.I. – and had a small part as Dr. John Whipple in the epic film Hawaii. He had small roles in features like First to Fight (1967), A Covenant with Death (1967), and Banning (1967). Hackman was originally cast as Mr. Robinson in the 1967 Mike Nichols independent romantic comedy film The Graduate, but Nichols fired him three weeks into rehearsal for being "too young" for the role. He was replaced by Murray Hamilton. Also in 1967, he appeared in an episode of the television series The Invaders, titled "The Spores", and as Buck Barrow in 1967's biographical crime drama Bonnie and Clyde, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
A return to Broadway that same year in The Natural Look, ran for just one performance. Additionally, he performed off-Broadway in Fragments and the Basement. Hackman was in episodes of Iron Horse ("Leopards Try, But Leopards Can't") and Insight ("Confrontation"). In 1968, he appeared in an episode of I Spy, in the role of Hunter, in the episode "Happy Birthday... Everybody". That same year, he starred in the CBS Playhouse episode "My Father and My Mother" and the dystopian television film Shadow on the Land. In 1969, he played a ski coach in Downhill Racer and an astronaut in Marooned. Also that year, he played a member of a barnstorming skydiving team that entertained mostly at county fairs, a film which also inspired many to pursue skydiving and has a cult-like status amongst skydivers as a result: The Gypsy Moths. Hackman supported Jim Brown in two films, The Split (1968) and Riot (1969). Hackman nearly accepted the role of Mike Brady for the TV series The Brady Bunch, but his agent advised that he decline it in exchange for a more promising role, which he did, but this story is said to have been exaggerated.
1970–1979: Breakthrough and stardom
Hackman was nominated for a second Oscar for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the drama film I Never Sang for My Father (1970), directed by Gilbert Cates. Hackman acted opposite Melvyn Douglas, where they played father and son who are unable to communicate. Roger Ebert wrote of his performance, "Much of the film is just between the two of them and the characters seem to work so well because Douglas and Hackman respond to each other in every shot; the effect is not of acting, but as if the story were happening right now while we see it." He starred in the drama Doctors' Wives (1971) and the western film The Hunting Party (1971). He won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as New York City Police Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the crime drama The French Connection (1971), directed by William Friedkin. This film marked his graduation to stardom. Robert B. Frederick of Variety praised the performances of Hackman and Roy Scheider, writing, "They are very believable as two hard-nosed narcotics officers" who are also "overworked, tired and mean".
After The French Connection, Hackman starred in ten films (not including his cameo as a blind man in the Mel Brooks-directed satirical horror comedy film Young Frankenstein in 1974) over the next three years, making him the most prolific actor in Hollywood during that time frame. He followed The French Connection with leading roles in the drama Cisco Pike (1972), the action crime thriller Prime Cut (1972), and the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure (1972). He also starred in the road comedy-drama Scarecrow (1973) alongside Al Pacino, which was Hackman's favorite role of his career and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The following year, he starred as a surveillance expert in the neo-noir mystery thriller The Conversation (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which was nominated for several Oscars and also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. That same year, Hackman appeared in what would become one of his most famous comedic roles, as Harold the Blind Man in Young Frankenstein. Hackman also appeared in the western Zandy's Bride (1974) and the neo-noir film Night Moves (1975) for director Arthur Penn.
Hackman played one of Teddy Roosevelt's former Rough Riders in the Western horse-race saga Bite the Bullet (1975). He reprised his Oscar-winning role as Doyle in the sequel French Connection II (1975), for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. He co-starred with Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli in the musical Lucky Lady (1975), directed by Stanley Donen, a notorious flop. After making the neo-noir thriller The Domino Principle (1977) for Stanley Kramer, Hackman was part of an all-star cast in the war film A Bridge Too Far (1977), playing Polish General Stanisław Sosabowski, and was an officer in the French Foreign Legion in March or Die (1977). Hackman was required to shave his head and shave off his mustache to play the character, but he refused to do either. So Richard Donner, who had a mustache but had shaved it off, put on a fake mustache and challenged Hackman to shave off both of their mustaches. Hackman agreed and shaved his off, so Donner calmly removed the fake mustache and Hackman went into a full-blown rage in the makeup room, followed by a fit of laughter at Donner's wit. Hackman showed a talent for both comedy and the "slow burn" as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor opposite Christopher Reeve in the leading role in the superhero film Superman: The Movie (1978). Ron Pennington of The Hollywood Reporter wrote of his performance, "Hackman plays Lex Luthor, 'the greatest criminal mind of our time,' with an effective light touch, making him humorous but not out-and-out comical." He reprised the role for two of its sequels, Superman II (1980) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987).
1980–1999: Established career and acclaim
Hackman alternated between leading and supporting roles during the 1980s. He appeared opposite Barbra Streisand in All Night Long (1981) and supported Warren Beatty in Reds (1981). He played the lead in Eureka (1983) and a supporting role in Under Fire (1983). Hackman provided the voice of God in Two of a Kind (1983) and starred in Uncommon Valor (1983), Misunderstood (1984), Twice in a Lifetime (1985), Target (1985) for Arthur Penn, and Power (1986). Between 1985 and 1988, he starred in nine films, making him the busiest actor, alongside Steve Guttenberg. Hackman played a high school basketball coach in Hoosiers (1986), which a 2008 American Film Institute poll named the fourth-greatest sports film of all time. After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), he also voiced Nuclear Man (who was portrayed by Mark Pillow) and was in No Way Out (1987), Split Decisions (1988), Bat*21 (1988), and Full Moon in Blue Water (1988).