Gene Hackman never chased million-dollar roles, but his performances were priceless
Gene Hackman was the actor’s actor, that rare creature who lived uncomfortably in the spotlight but who somehow found his way from the back suburbs of Los Angeles to the apex of its entertainment industry.
When he retired two decades ago, he walked away with no regrets. It was clean cut, dispassionate and done with precision. Lesser actors would have dealt with separation from Hollywood differently. Hackman left it with such ease that you almost wondered why he chased it in the first place.
Gene Hackman in 1992.Credit: Roadshow
“I miss the actual acting part of it, as it’s what I did for almost 60 years, and I really loved that,” he said at the time.
“But the business for me is very stressful. The compromises that you have to make in films are just part of the beast, and it had gotten to a point where I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do it any more.”
What he left then, and what he leaves behind now, is a complex tapestry of human emotions, woven through illuminating performances which stunned us, made us cry, and, far more often than Hackman’s serious demeanour might suggest, left us weeping with laughter.
Great actors are always an amalgam of dark brilliance and whimsy. Hackman is the guy whose success was built on robust classic such as the thriller The French Connection and the war movie A Bridge Too Far. He’s also the guy whose turn as a blind man in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein was one of the film’s most hilarious touches, and who gave Christopher Reeve’s Superman a nemesis in supervillain Lex Luthor who was his equal.
Hackman after winning an Oscar for The French Connection with William Friedkin (right), Jane Fonda (second from right) and Philip D’Antoni (left).Credit: AP
It’s a lot for an actor who, in the 1950s, joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California and was, along with Dustin Hoffman, seen as the class dunces. Neither was expected to do very much. Between them, they netted four Oscars and nine Golden Globes. A couple of dunces indeed.
Hackman’s brilliance was that he could turn very little into something extraordinary. In Young Frankenstein, his blind man, whose short-sighted enthusiasm turned Peter Boyle’s monster into a sobbing mess, had less than a few minutes of screen time. To this day, fans treasure the performance.
