Word: hackman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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That encounter 18 years ago was the end of Hackman's slipping and sliding. Although he had never thought of acting before, he joined the Premise, an off-Broadway theater-not so much in quest of stardom as simply to get some meaning into his life. By last week, when he stood onstage in the Chandler Pavilion clutching his statuette, he had found both. He has become one of the best-liked of Hollywood professionals, a shambling, shirtsleeves type who actually uses words like "golly" and "gee" and is still married to his first wife after 14 years...
Borrowed Tricks. Hackman is a sort of blue-collar actor, slightly embarrassed about art but avid about craft. For his Oscar-winning role as the obsessive, foul-mouthed Popeye Doyle, he served an apprenticeship in Harlem with Eddie Egan, the real-life detective on whose exploits The French Connection was based. "It was scary as hell," Hackman says. "We'd burst into a crowded bar, and Egan would put on a drill instructor's voice, flat and unemotional, and yet authoritative. If anyone talked back, his voice would go a pitch higher. He always won." In the film...
...reach the subtly modulated power of his Popeye characterization, Hackman had a long climb. His work at the Premise led to a string of plays on Broadway, culminating in a leading role opposite Sandy Dennis in Any Wednesday in 1964. Meanwhile, he had edged into movies with a small part in Lilith. Recalls Warren Beatty, the picture's star: "It was only a two-minute scene, but the best thing about Lilith was Gene Hackman." When Beatty was casting Bonnie and Clyde three years later, he thought of Hackman for the role of Clyde's brother Buck. Hackman...
...admission, Hackman grabbed unselectively at too many of them and bogged down in a mire of forgettable films (The Split, Marooned). "You have to recognize," he says, "that there's a monster out there called unemployment." Finally one of the offers turned out to be for the part of the long-suffering son in I Never Sang for My Father. Hackman's engaging, sensitive portrayal won him a second Oscar nomination last year for Best Supporting Actor. Largely on the strength of that, he made his connection with Popeye (others who were considered for the role: Jimmy Breslin...
Stunt Driving. Which is the real Gene Hackman? The decent, gentle fellow in Father or the raw, aggressive one in Connection? Answer: A little of both. Hackman retains much of the flavor of his small-town upbringing in Danville, Ill. Away from the set he spends most of his time lazing with his family in his Tudor-style home in the San Fernando Valley. At the same time, he has "an affinity for certain dangers." These used to include motorcycle and auto racing (he did about half of his own stunt driving in Connection), but now are limited mostly...