Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen Hackman (January 30, 1930 – c. February 18, 2025) 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, and four Golden Globe Awards.

Hackman 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 (1971) and his second for Best Supporting Actor for playing a villainous sheriff in Clint Eastwood's Western Unforgiven (1992). He was Oscar-nominated for playing Buck Barrow in the crime drama Bonnie and Clyde (1967), a college professor in the drama I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and an FBI agent in the historical drama Mississippi Burning (1988).

Hackman gained further fame for his portrayal of Lex Luthor in three of the Superman films from 1978 to 1987. He also acted in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Scarecrow (1973), The Conversation (1974), Night Moves (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Under Fire (1983), Hoosiers (1986), The Firm (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), Crimson Tide (1995), The Quick and the Dead (1995), Get Shorty (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Absolute Power (1997), Antz (1998), Enemy of the State (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and Runaway Jury (2003). He retired from acting after starring in Welcome to Mooseport (2004), venturing into writing novels and occasionally providing narration for television documentaries until 2017.

Eugene Allen Hackman was born on January 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California, to Anna Lyda Elizabeth (née Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman. He had a brother named Richard. Anna, an actress, painter, and pianist who worked as a waitress, was born in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. The family moved frequently before eventually settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of Anna's English-born mother, Beatrice. Eugene Sr. operated the printing press for the Commercial-News, a local newspaper. 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. In 1962, Anna died in a fire she had accidentally started while smoking. Hackman began a study of journalism and television production at the University of Illinois under the G.I. Bill but left without graduating and moved back to California.

Acting was something I wanted to do since I was 10 and saw my first movie, I was so captured by the action guys. Jimmy Cagney was my favorite. Without realizing it, I could see he had tremendous timing and vitality.

In 1956, Hackman began pursuing an acting career. He joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman. Already 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 given. 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 was working at a Howard Johnson's restaurant when he encountered an instructor from the Pasadena Playhouse, who said that his job proved that Hackman "wouldn't amount to anything." A Marine officer who saw him as a doorman said, "Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch." Rejection motivated Hackman, who said: