Gene Hackman: the star of every scene he was in
From The Conversation to The Royal Tenenbaums, the actor rode America’s new wave to become the gold standard for characterful acting with heft
• Gene Hackman found dead with his wife – news
• Gene Hackman: a life in pictures
As the movie ends, our point of view pans slowly, relentlessly, back and forth like a security camera across the trashed apartment. It has been ripped apart floorboard by floorboard in a doomed attempt to find the bugging device spying on the guy who lives there. With every sweep, the man is seen in the corner, playing the sax. Fatalistic, but not exactly despairing; realistic but not precisely disillusioned – the craftsman who is an artist at heart, nonchalant, magnificent. Gene Hackman’s performance as surveillance expert Harry Caul in Francis Coppola’s paranoid conspiracy drama The Conversation (1974) was a jewel in his career. Caul is a pro eavesdropper who becomes obsessed with a conversation he records for a mysterious client that, to his horror, reveals a murder plot – unlocking his own private agonies of guilt and loneliness. The film turns on some variants of intonation and pitch that Harry doesn’t understand until it’s too late.
The death of Gene Hackman marks the end of one of the greatest periods of US cinema: the American new wave. Hackman was the gold standard for this era, ever since Warren Beatty gave him his big break with the role of Buck Barrow in Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967). He was the character actor who was really a star; in fact the star of every scene he was in – that tough, wised-up, intelligent but unhandsome face perpetually on the verge of coolly unconcerned derision, or creased in a heartbreakingly fatherly, pained smile. He wasn’t gorgeous like Redford or dangerously sexy like Nicholson, or even puckish like Hoffman; Hackman was normal, but his normality was steroidally supercharged. His hair was of its age: frizzy, with evident male-pattern baldness. You really don’t get star haircuts like that any more.
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Gene Hackman, Oscar-winning star of 'Hoosiers' and 'Unforgiven,' dies at 95
Gene Hackman has died at 95 after he and his wife were found dead in their home Wednesday afternoon.ABC News - 4h -
Gene Hackman, Oscar-winning star of 'The French Connection,' found dead alongside wife and dog
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Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman dead at 95
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman died at the age of 95 at his Santa Fe, New Mexico, home. Hackman was found dead along with his wife and dog, but officials say they do not suspect foul play.NBC News - 4h -
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Gene Hackman, Hollywood’s Consummate Everyman, Dies at 95
The winner of two Oscars, he was hailed for his nuanced performances in films like “The French Connection,” “Unforgiven” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”The New York Times - 1h -
Investigation launched after Gene Hackman and his wife found dead
An investigation is underway into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of legendary actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.NBC News - 3h -
Gene Hackman and pianist wife Betsy Arakawa found dead at home with their dog
The Oscar-winning star of The French Connection, The Conversation, Superman and The Poseidon Adventure has died, along with his classical musician wife. • Gene Hackman: the star of every scene ...The Guardian - 5h -
Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa found dead at their home
Local police said they didn't believe any foul play was involved in the death of the couple, found alongside their dog.BBC News - 1h
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Gene Hackman and pianist wife Betsy Arakawa found dead at home with their dog
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