Gene Hackman

In 1956 he began pursuing an acting career; he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California.[12] It was there that he forged a friendship with another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman.[12] Already seen as outsiders by their classmates, they were later voted "The Least Likely To Succeed".[12] Furthermore, Hackman got the all time lowest score at the Pasadena Playhouse at the time.[16] Determined to prove them wrong, Hackman moved to New York City. A 2004 article in Vanity Fair described how Hackman, Hoffman and Robert Duvall were all struggling California-born actors and close friends, sharing apartments in various two-person combinations while living in New York City in the 1960s.[17][18] To support himself between acting jobs, he was working as a uniformed doorman at a Howard Johnson restaurant in New York[19] when, as bad luck would have it, he ran into a despised Pasadena Playhouse instructor who once told him he was not good enough to be an actor. Reinforcing "The Least Likely To Succeed" vote, the man said to him, "See, Hackman, I told you you wouldn't amount to anything."[20] From then on, Hackman was determined to become the finest actor he possibly could. The three former roommates have since earned 19 Academy Award nominations for acting, with five wins.

Hackman got various bit roles, for example on the TV series Route 66 in 1963, and began performing in several Off-Broadway plays. In 1964 he had an offer to co-star in the play Any Wednesday with actress Sandy Dennis. This opened the door to film work. His first role was in Lilith, with Warren Beatty in the leading role. In 1967 he appeared in an episode of the television series The Invaders entitled The Spores. Another supporting role, Buck Barrow in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde,[12] earned him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. 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.[21] 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 movie which also inspired many to pursue skydiving and has a cult-like status amongst skydivers as a result: The Gypsy Moths. He nearly accepted the role of Mike Brady for the TV series, The Brady Bunch,[22] but was advised by his agent to decline in exchange for a more promising role, which he did.

Hackman in 1972

Hackman was nominated for a second Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as New York City Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971), marking his graduation to leading man status.[12]

He followed this with leading roles in the disaster film The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), which was nominated for several Oscars.[12] That same year, Hackman appeared in what became one of his most famous comedic roles as The Blindman in Young Frankenstein.[23]

He appeared as 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), and was part of an all-star cast in the war film A Bridge Too Far (1977), playing Polish General Stanisław Sosabowski. Hackman showed a talent for both comedy and the "slow burn" as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie (1978), a role he would reprise in its 1980 and 1987 sequels.

Hackman alternated between leading and supporting roles during the 1980s, with prominent roles in Reds (1981)—directed by and starring Warren Beatty—Under Fire (1983), Hoosiers (1986) (which an American Film Institute poll in 2008 voted the fourth-greatest film of all time in the sports genre),[25] No Way Out (1987) and Mississippi Burning (1988), where he was nominated for a second Best Actor Oscar.[26]

Hackman appeared with Anne Archer in Narrow Margin (1990), a remake of the 1952 film The Narrow Margin. In 1992, he played the sadistic sheriff "Little" Bill Daggett in the Western Unforgiven directed by Clint Eastwood and written by David Webb Peoples. Hackman had pledged to avoid violent roles, but Eastwood convinced him to take the part, which earned him a second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actor. The film also won Best Picture.[12]

In 1993 he appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend as Brigadier General George Crook, and co-starred with Tom Cruise as a corrupt lawyer in The Firm, a legal thriller based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. Hackman would appear in a second film based on a John Grisham novel, playing a convict on death row in The Chamber (1996).

Other notable films Hackman appeared in during the 1990s include Wyatt Earp (1994) (as Nicholas Porter Earp, Wyatt Earp's father), The Quick and the Dead (1995) opposite Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, and as submarine Captain Frank Ramsey alongside Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide (1995). Hackman played movie director Harry Zimm with John Travolta in the comedy-drama Get Shorty in 1995. He reunited with Clint Eastwood in Absolute Power (1997), and co-starred with Will Smith in Enemy of the State (1998), his character reminiscent of the one he had portrayed in The Conversation.

In 1996, he took a comedic turn as conservative Senator Kevin Keeley in The Birdcage[27] with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

Hackman co-starred with Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines (2001), and appeared in the David Mamet crime thriller Heist (2001),[28] as an aging professional thief of considerable skill who is forced into one final job. He also gained much critical acclaim playing against type as the head of an eccentric family in Wes Anderson's comedy film The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). He received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 2003, he also starred in another John Grisham legal drama, Runaway Jury at long last getting to make a picture with his long-time friend Dustin Hoffman. In 2004, Hackman appeared alongside Ray Romano in the comedy Welcome to Mooseport, his final film acting role to date.[29]

Hackman was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globe Awards for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field" in 2003.[30]

On July 7, 2004, Hackman gave a rare interview to Larry King, where he announced that he had no future film projects lined up and believed his acting career was over. In 2008, while promoting his third novel, he confirmed that he had retired from acting.[31] When asked during a GQ interview in 2011 if he would ever come out of retirement to do one more film, he said he might consider it "if I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything and just one or two people."[32] In 2016 he narrated the Smithsonian Channel documentary The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima.[33]

Hackman at a book signing in 2008

Together with undersea archaeologist Daniel Lenihan, Hackman has written three historical fiction novels: Wake of the Perdido Star (1999),[34] a sea adventure of the 19th century; Justice for None (2004),[35] a Depression-era tale of murder; and Escape from Andersonville (2008) about a prison escape during the American Civil War.[36] His first solo effort, a story of love and revenge set in the Old West titled Payback at Morning Peak, was released in 2011.[37] A police thriller, Pursuit, followed in 2013.

In 2011 he appeared on the Fox Sports Radio show The Loose Cannons, where he discussed his career and novels with Pat O'Brien, Steve Hartman, and Vic "The Brick" Jacobs.