HACKMAN, GENE

born January 30, 1930, San Bernadino, Calif., U.S. in full Eugene Alden Hackman American motion picture actor known for his rugged appearance and his emotionally honest and natural performances. Hackman left home at age 16 and lied about his age in order to join the marines. After seeing action in Korea during his five-year stint, he enrolled at the University of Illinois to study journalism and television production. His developing interest in acting, however, caused him to leave college and enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he and fellow student Dustin Hoffman were reportedly voted least likely to succeed. Undaunted, Hackman returned to New York and found work in a number of summer stock and Off-Broadway plays, as well as a bit part as a cop in the film Mad Dog Coll (1961). He landed his first Broadway role in 1964 as a young suitor in Muriel Resnick's Any Wednesday. His performance attracted the attention of Hollywood agents, and Hackman was subsequently cast in the film Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty. By 1967 Hackman was finding steady work in such films as A Covenant with Death, Banning, and First to Fight. Beatty, who had been impressed by his work in Lilith, chose Hackman to play Buck Barrow, brother of Clyde Barrow, in director Arthur Penn's 1967 hit Bonnie and Clyde. For that film, Hackman was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actor. This success landed Hackman roles in such films as Downhill Racer (1969), opposite Robert Redford, and I Never Sang for My Father (1970; Oscar nomination for best supporting actor). It was also about this time that Hackman was the first choice to play Mike Brady on television's The Brady Bunch, but he turned the role down in order to concentrate on motion picture work. It was during this period that Hackman acquired a reputation as an actor whose considerable audience appeal was built on talent alone. He had neither the looks nor the inherent affable charm of traditional leading men, but his solid dependability in a wide variety of roles endeared him to the general public. In 1971 he was cast as maverick detective Popeye Doyle in William Friedkin's action drama The French Connection. The film was a tremendous hit with both audiences and critics, and it garnered Hackman the Oscar for best actor. He maintained a firm status as a popular leading actor throughout the 1970s in dramas such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Francis Ford Coppola's critically acclaimed The Conversation (1974), and Penn's revisionist private-eye thriller Night Moves (1975). Lighter filmssuch as Mel Brooks's satire Young Frankenstein (1974), in which Hackman plays a small role as a blind man in one hilarious sequence, and Superman (1978), in which he portrays comic-book villain Lex Luthorexemplified his versatility and his underutilized flair for comedy. Hackman's successful films of the 1980s include Reds (1981), Hoosiers (1986), and No Way Out (1987), and he was once again nominated for a best actor Oscar for his performance in Mississippi Burning (1988). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's revisionist western Unforgiven (1992). His other films of the 1990s include Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), Get Shorty (1995), The Quick and the Dead (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), and Twilight (1998).