Actor: Hollywood’s hard guy – Gene Hackman is 95

His last big appearance on a Hollywood stage was a long time ago. At the 60th Golden Globe Awards in 2003, Gene Hackman was celebrated with the honorary award for his life’s work. “I never wanted to be anything other than an actor,” he said visibly touched in front of the star audience. Even as a young boy, he sat with a bag of popcorn in the cinema and had Johnny Weissmuller, John Wayne, Errol Flynn and his favorite actor James Cagney put himself in other worlds.

Hackman, who made over 80 films in his long career, won two Oscars and three Golden Globes, will be 95 years old on January 30th. They knew nothing of possible plans for their birthday, the actor’s speaker team said at the request of the dpa. The star of films such as “The French Connection”, “Merciless” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” has long since withdrawn from the public. He lives away from Hollywood in Santa Fe (US state of New Mexico), with his second wife Betsy Arakawa, who is more than 30 years younger. The couple is rarely photographed by photographers.

Breakthrough with “The French Connection”

Hackman is even less common in interviews, such as in 2021, when the thriller “The French Connection” (German title “Festival Brooklyn”) celebrated its 50th anniversary. With this film, the actor made his big breakthrough in 1971. At that time, Hackman came to Oscar and Golden Globe Honor as a tough drug investigator in New York- directed by William Friedkin.

“Of course, this film helped my career and I am grateful for that,” said Hackman in 2021 of the “New York Post”. But he had no plans to look at the thriller on the occasion of the round anniversary. He only saw the film in a tiny demonstration room shortly after completion.

As the son of a printer and a waitress, Hackman grew up in a small town in the US state of Illinois. The father left the family when the young teenager was. At the age of 16 he came to the US Navy, a few years later he followed his passion for film and took acting lessons at the “Pasadena Playhouse” in California, where a young Dustin Hoffman also studied. At that time, both were classified in the class as a student with the slightest chances of success.

Together they moved to New York at the end of the 1950s, shared an apartment with Robert Duvall there, hit themselves with handlong jobs and learned their acting crafts.

Hackman played his first major role in 1964 in the “Lilith” strip with Warren Beatty, who hired him three years later for “Bonnie and Clyde”. As Clydes Gangster brother, Hackman received his first Oscar nomination as the best supporting actor.

After his breakthrough as an Oscar-winning main actor with “French Connection” (1971), the career quickly went uphill. In “Scarecrow” he plays a leaner, in “The Conversation” (“The Dialog”) a paranoid listening specialist. He made it to Hollywood’s A list with cash crowds such as the John Grisham film adaptation “The company” and “Crimson Tide”.

In the travesty classic “The Birdcage”, Hackman slipped into women’s clothes. In 1989 he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival as a FBI agent in the racism drama “The Root of Hass”. With Dustin Hoffman he was seen in the strip “Runaway jury”.

In 1993 he celebrated a further double success in the Globes and Oscars as the best supporting actor in the western “merciless”. Under the direction of Clint Eastwood, he played a sadistic sheriff. Hackman won his third Golden Globe as the best comedy actor in the family satire “Die Royal Tenenbaums” (2001).

Most recently, in 2004 he shone in the political satire “Welcome to Mooseport” as an arrogant ex-president who moved from Washington to the province. At that time he trusted US Talkmaster Larry King that he wanted to get out of the film business. The star complained that too many have to make compromises. He held his word and has not stepped in front of the camera since then. However, he continued as an author. He wrote books, such as the civil war novel “Escape from Andersonville” (2008) and the police thriller “Pursuit” (2013).

In 2011, Hackman was asked in one of his rare interviews from the magazine “GQ” whether he would not make a film. “I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. “If I could do it in my house, maybe without being messed up, and only with one or two people”.

At that time he also took stock of his career choice. He was quite satisfied with his decision to become an actor, he said in the “GQ” interview. “I was lucky to find a few things that I did well as an actor and who I could look at and say:” Yes, that’s okay “.”