Gene Hackman: Five Undersung Roles Showcasing His “Threat and Heart”

Moviegoers lost Gene Hackman more than 20 years ago when he permanently and unequivocally stepped back from acting. He left behind a lifetime of work that never faded away, however. The esteemed actor and five-time Oscar nominee always had a workingman quality about him, and like most working men, one day he simply retired. In his mid-70s, Hackman stopped taking new roles and vanished from sight, leaving behind five decades of memorable performances.

His death at 95 on Thursday was not a surprise itself, given his advanced age, but the circumstances were startling and untimely just the same. His body was found in his Santa Fe, New Mexico, home alongside that of his wife of 34 years, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, who was 63, and their pet dog. Local police have said the couple was dead for a significant time and are investigating the cause as suspicious.

Fans of the actor began immediately highlighting Hackman’s lifetime of fiery, emotional and vulnerable performances, sharing images of his work from films that have become classics. The highlights are easy to see: There are the two roles that won him Academy Awards—the corrupt sheriff Little Bill Dagget in Clint Eastwood’s unsurpassable 1992 Western Unforgiven, and the hard-bitten New York narcotics cop Popeye Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1974 neo-noir masterpiece The French Connection.

Perhaps Hackman’s greatest performance—the haunted surveillance agent Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s anxiety-inducing thriller The Conversation—was not recognized by the Academy, even though the movie itself was nominated for best picture. Art Carney won lead actor that year for the old-timer-with-a-cat heartwarmer Harry and Tonto, beating out (deep breath) Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, Al Pacino in The Godfather: Part II, Dustin Hoffman in Lenny, and Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express. Few can reach the end of The Conversation and not be shattered by Hackman’s work, so it’s not just surprising but also appalling that there wasn’t room for him among those nominees. (Due respect to the late Carnery and Finney, but come on.) Hackman’s exclusion is proof that the Oscars sometimes make obvious mistakes.

Hackman was a crossover artist, who could do virtually everything. He was blisteringly funny in comedies like 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums and 1996’s The Birdcage, he was terrifying and cold-blooded in thrillers like 1993’s The Firm and the 1995’s Crimson Tide, and he could steal scenes with the best of them in popcorn blockbusters like the 1972 disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure, playing a self-sacrificing priest, and as a dastardly Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve Superman films.

Even when he was in a subpar project, Hackman was reliably compelling. Film critic Roger Ebert lambasted the 1983 Vietnam rescue thriller Uncommon Valor, but noted that its star Hackman “combines heart with threat as well as any actor in the movies.”

Here’s a look back at just some of Hackman’s indelible performances beyond the obvious frontrunners.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Hackman had done a number of small movie roles and TV appearances in the years prior to this, but this Depression Era crime saga from filmmaker Arthur Penn stands as his breakthrough. Hackman earned a supporting actor Oscar nomination as Buck Barrow, the doomed brother of Warren Beatty’s charismatic outlaw.

In a 1988 interview with Film Comment, Hackman noted that the director wanted his character’s death scene to emulate a bull—but the actor had a different animal in mind. “I had seen some bullfights. In my motel room, I worked on all fours, trying to emulate the movements of a bull that had been wounded in the back of the neck and is dying,” Hackman told journalist Beverly Walker. “I love animal images, but I’m so often cast as a working man, and when have we seen a working man who is, for example, a tiger?”

Downhill Racer (1969)

This sports drama stars Robert Redford as a competitive skier who is pathologically driven to compete, and Hackman turns up as his calculating and sometimes cutting coach. It’s clear that Redford’s central character would not be able to reach the heights he seeks without that extra push. Hackman’s Olympic expert strips away his protege’s arrogance, ego and overconfidence, sharpening his skills on the slopes.

It was the debut film for director Michael Ritchie, who directed Hackman again in 1972 in the pulpy midwestern shoot-’em-up Prime Cut. [In an interview](http://reelingback.com/articles/social_comment_a_plus){: target=”_blank”} with Walsh, Ritchie called Hackman “America’s best actor, period.” Hackman responded by describing himself in more modest terms: “I just do my job and try not to be a pain in the ass about it.”

I Never Sang For My Father (1970)

This is probably my personal favorite Hackman performance. It’s a semi-autobiographical family drama from screenwriter Robert Anderson, adapted from his own Broadway play, and directed by Gil Cates, who would later oversee many Oscar night telecasts. Hackman stars as an aspiring writer who is beaten down by the judgment and bravado of his overbearing father (Melvyn Douglas.) The two men love each other, but they can’t stand each other. As the old man diminishes with age, his son is conscripted to set aside his own family and professional aspirations to take care of him.

Hackman’s kind-hearted performance as the son clashes beautifully with the shrewd, manipulative father that Douglas creates. Douglas plays a man who is larger than life, but only gets that from diminishing others.

The role earned Hackman one of his five Oscar nods, but the actor himself didn’t consider it a favorite. “I was uncomfortable doing the part. In terms of drama, the movie was unrelenting. Every scene was a culmination scene, and we were always taking psychological last stands,” he told Roger Ebert in an interview when The French Connection debuted.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

This is not Hackman’s movie by any means, but the venerable actor turns up in a hilariously deadpan cameo as the blind man who welcomes Peter Boyle’s frightened monster into his home. The Mel Brooks film was spoofing a moment from the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein in which Boris Karloff’s undead behemoth finds kindness from a similar hermit.

Hackman delivers the same warmth. Unable to see the frightening face of the nonverbal creature, he extends basic decency to the needy traveler. But he undercuts the generosity with a devilish Mr. Magoo approach. Hackman’s old-timer means well, but he torments the monster inadvertently with a ladle of hot soup to the crotch—and ignites his thumb instead of lighting a cigar.

The movie’s star and co-screenwriter, Gene Wilder, later recalled how the Hackman’s unlikely appearance in the comedy came to be while in the midst of production. “I knew him from Bonnie and Clyde and he invited me to come to his house and he said, ‘Do you think I could get some tiny little part in Young Frankenstein? I’d love to work with Mel and you just a little little,” Wilder said in 2009. “I said, ‘I’ll talk to Mel.’ I couldn’t think of anything but the blind man. When I told Mel, he said: ‘Well, he could play the blind man [but] the blind man was not a tiny part.’ It’s a rather significant.”

Hackman was game anyway, but with one condition. “He did it, but he did it without credit,” Wilder said. “He didn’t want to add ‘and Gene Hackman.’ So that’s how he got the part. He asked…”

Hoosiers (1986)

Hackman starred in this inspirational sports drama as another coach, only this time it was his story. As a middle-aged, seemingly over-the-hill basketball enthusiast, Hackman’s Norman Dale brings together a championshop team against all odds and reason in a small Indiana high school. The stakes are never that high. These are not pros, no real money or power is on the line. Hoosiers is about whether a bunch of nobodies can pull together to do something great.

It’s the ultimate everyman role, and Hackman delivers all the warmth, strength, and, yes, “threat” (as Ebert noted.) Hackman’s Coach Dale is not just struggling to prove his worth, he’s yearning to atone for something he once did terribly wrong. Hoosiers is not just a victory story, it’s a redemption story.

While promoting the movie in a 1987 TV interview, Hackman said it was a story about living with the past, but not being stuck in it. “It’s about change. It’s about how we deal with it, how we learn to give up our ideas about who we are as people.”