Gene Hackman was a road digger voted ‘least likely to succeed’ at school… my interview revealed what made him a megastar
Gene Hackman was the real deal.
He was as tough and as grizzly as he looked. He lied about his age to join the army at just 16 and developed a brutal approach to an acting career.
“It was me against them,” he told me. “I took the view that I would do anything to get a part and to prove myself in it. I had no time for Hollywood, parties and pretending to love everyone I worked with.”
Hackman took a similar approach to the blunt announcement that he was retiring from acting at 74 on health grounds.
It obviously paid off, because he lived for another 21 years and turned to writing novels, painting and fishing at his isolated ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico before he died at the age of 95.
He was found dead along with his second wife Betsy Arakawa, 32 years his junior and their dog at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Although their cause of death has not been revealed, cops have said that foul play is not suspected.
He is survived by his three children from his first marriage to wife Faye, Christopher (born February,1960), Elizabeth (born August, 1962) and Leslie (born October, 1966).
He became one of the world’s biggest film stars without the good looks and style of his contemporaries.
“I try to become the guy I am playing,” he said simply. “I’m not a personality actor.”
It brought him huge success, with a best actor Oscar for playing the obsessive and intolerant detective Jimmy ‘PopEye’ Doyle in the thrilling 1971 film The French Connection.
He also won another Oscar as best supporting actor for his role as the ominously smiling ‘Little’ Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s gritty Western film Unforgiven in 1992.
Yet his emergence to star status is one of Hollywood’s unlikeliest of success stories. He was nearly 30 before he became an actor and suffered from crippling shyness on stage.
He was born in San Bernardino, California on January 30, 1930 to a printer father, Eugene, and Canadian mother Anna.
They moved several times before settling in the house owned by his mum’s English-born mother in the small town of Danville, Illinois, where his father worked as a printer on the local newspaper.
His parents were divorced when he was 13 and he and his brother Richard were brought up by his mother and grandmother. “I wasn’t a happy kid so ran away to join the Marines,” he told me.
“I wanted to be an actor even at 12 and loved the genuine tough guys on screen like James Cagney or action men like Errol Flynn. But I hadn’t got it in me to follow my dreams.”
Police statement on legend's death
Local police in New Mexico have confirmed that actor Gene Hackman has died aged 95.
In a statement, they said: “
On February 26, 2025 at approximately 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, 95 and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64 and a dog were found deceased.
“Foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time however exact cause of death has not been determined.
“This is an active and ongoing investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.”
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza added: “All I can say is that we’re in the middle of a preliminary death investigation, waiting on approval of a search warrant.”
After he left the army, he used his money from what was called the G.I. Bill – payment made to help former soldiers – to enrol on a course of television production at Illinois University.
It led to an acting course at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
His career was nearly over before it began, having received the lowest-ever recorded set of results for his ability. He was voted “least likely to succeed” along with another student, Dustin Hoffman.
“I don’t know why we deserved that or what they didn’t see in us,” he told me. “But we moved in to rooms together in New York with the attitude ‘f*** ‘em.’
“I then set out to prove them wrong, but all I could get were dead-end part-time jobs in bars or doing menial work. I did everything from digging up roads to being a doorman.
“I was waiting tables on one occasion and met one of the instructors from Pasadena. He looked me up and down and said ‘we were right about you.’
“I could have hit him, but just had to keep on smiling. I thought ‘I am going to prove you wrong, but I don’t know when.’
“Maybe all those put-downs made me more determined. But it could have been so much easier with a little help. It just seemed to take so long to make anything of myself.”
‘True star’
What was he like? He looked older than his years, with early receding hairline, not always at ease on television interviews and wary about talking about his personal life.
But Hackman’s films – and there were more than 90 of them – were mostly an event. They read like a tribute to some of the most exciting American movies.
They included Bonnie and Clyde (1967), playing Warren Beatty’s brother, which won his first Oscar nomination and announced himself to Hollywood. He was an old-looking 37.
He was never out of work again. There were lead roles in the box office disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie (1978).
His hits include Hoosiers (1986), No Way Out (1987), the action thriller Narrow Margin (1990), the legal drama A Class Action (1991), The Firm (1993) playing a corrupt lawyer opposite Tom Cruise and the comedy Get Shorty (1995).
He was also Oscar-nominated for playing an FBI agent in the 1988 film Mississippi Burning, the true story of the murder and cover-up of black civil rights workers during the 1960’s.
He was rarely forthcoming in conversation and some actors thought him aloof. He also looked more than capable of swinging a right hook if he didn’t like a question.
The only time I saw his mask slip was talking about his errant father when I referred to his moving 1970 film – and another Oscar nomination – called I Never Sang for My Father.
“I remember the day he left us as if it was yesterday,” he said frankly. “I knew my dad and mom were divorcing and had not come to terms with what it meant.
“I was 13 at the time and playing with some friends in the street and saw my dad drive by very slowly. He looked at me, not smiling, and gave a wave of his hand.
“I somehow knew that he was going for ever. How did I feel? Numb. Ask any young kid whose parents break up. You try and bury it in your mind.”
His own three children were in their twenties when his first marriage ended in 1986 after 30 years. “We married in 1956, when I was really struggling with life and trying to get a job in acting,” he said.
I was 13 at the time and playing with some friends in the street and saw my dad drive by very slowly. He looked at me, not smiling, and gave a wave of his hand. I somehow knew that he was going for ever
Gene Hackman
“And when fame finally came? I was just like everyone else. I was swept up with the money, the recognition and the praise. Doors opened and I wanted to walk through them all.
“I was ready to go on film sets for three or four months at a time, one after the other, just to make it – to show those who never gave me a chance that they were wrong.
“I wanted to shove it down their throats and family life began to suffer. Was I selfish? Yes. You have to be to get anywhere in film acting. The demands are too great.
“I was in love with acting and trying to bring a character to life. I was also in love with myself, to the detriment of my children.
“As fast as I finished one film, I was wanted for another. If you know what it’s like to suffer when no-one wants you, then it’s just too tempting to accept other roles.”
He wed classical pianist Betsy in 1991, after the pair met in a gym in California.
He first suffered heart trouble in 1990, at the age of 60. But he kept it quiet and would have regular check-ups.
When told in 2004 that he was suffering from stress, he decided to call it a day. It came, ironically, after a rare box office flop, the political satire Welcome to Mooseport.
He walked away without regret and happily in to his new life. He had more than settled his revenge on those who never rated him or gave him a chance.
He always delivered realism to the roles he played, particularly the action, and was honest about his attitude. His tough upbringing and army training gave him credibility among stuntmen who knew he could look after himself.
But he could also serve up both comedy and sensitivity and was handed the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award in the year before he retired, with the words: “He’s a true star.”
Although we never met after his official retirement, he gave an interview in 2011 in which he was asked if he would ever return to filming.
“If I could do it in my own house,” he said. “Otherwise, no. Hollywood has moved on and so have I.”