The shot that is life is wrapped. It is about everything.
"Gene Hackman, actor who dazzled in spectrum of Everyman roles, dies at 95/He twice won Oscars for bringing humanizing depth to corrupt lawmen, from the raging cop in 'The French Connection' to the ruthless sheriff in 'Unforgiven'" (WaPo)(free-access link).
Let's talk about the Gene Hackman movies you love. That clip is from one that I love, "Postcards From the Edge."
UPDATE: I wanted to close the door on the death scene, but now I am seeing: "Gene Hackman and wife’s death investigated as ‘suspicious’ after door was open, pills were found" (NY Post). I'm seeing that the wife was in one room with the dog and with "an open pill bottle and pills scattered around." Hackman was in another room.
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102 comments:
"We'll do it live!" - Bill O'Reilly
All I could think about watching that performance.
I keep thinking about "Enemy of the State." The tech that government might use to spy on us was somewhat new to me at the time, and it still seems prophetic. Like the earlier "War Games," and what computers can do. I think I see what people mean when they rave about Hackman in "The Conversation." I was about to say maybe he never gave a bad performance, but wasn't he in at least one of the Poseidon movies? My now-wife and I walked out on one, maybe Roman numeral II.
Could have been carbon monoxide.
“English Bob: Well, actually, what I heard was that you fell off your horse, drunk of course, and that you broke your bloody neck.
Little Bill Daggett: I heard that one myself, Bob. Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.”
The first time I heard the late Gene Hackman say that line, I laughed and laughed.
I've always liked Hoosiers. His character's interactions with the character played by Dennis Hopper always get to me.
Prof: “ I think we can respectfully turn away. You don't need more information.”
Respectfully, I have questions. His wife was 30 years younger than him. This is not a case of two very elderly spouses trying to check out together on their own terms. Plus killing the dog makes it deliberate in a very strange way. She could have given the dog away, saying that at 65 she can’t look after both Gene and the dog.
Most likely euthanasia/suicide, with a side of animal abuse, which as a Stoic who thinks about the Roman Empire every day, I don’t have a problem with (well, maybe the animal abuse part). Yet our society as a whole definitely does. These are hot issues being discussed in the public sphere. A celebrity apparently doing them should spark more discussion.
JSM
But I also really like Crimson Tide. Those are two very different movies and sides to Gene Hackman, Hoosiers and Crimson Tide.
Hoosiers
Enjoyed Gene in The Firm, French Connection, No Way Out, Unforgiven, Hoosiers. Sure there are many others I am forgetting. Never saw Mississippi Burning.
The Conversation
Superman. (And I agree, it was probably carbon monoxide poisoning. Does it get cold in New Mexico?)
Gene Hackman was one of the greats, foremost an actor but had no problem playing a lead role that needed star power, such as The French Connection. When you compare that with his role in The Conversation, it clear that he had a lot of range. For me the quintessentional Hackman roles were in The Unforgiven and The Royal Tennabaums.
I don't think it's disrespectful to talk about his death at this point. His wife of 63 and his dog were also found dead. Something seems amiss. Not enough information to make an informed guess, but it's human nature to wonder why.
Capt. Ramsey: Speaking of horses, did you ever see those Lipizzaner stallions?
Hunter: What?
Capt. Ramsey: From Portugal. The Lipizzaner stallions. The most highly trained horses in the world. They're all white?
Hunter: Yes, sir.
Capt. Ramsey: "Yes, sir" you're aware they're all white or "Yes, sir" you've seen them?
Hunter: Yes, sir I've seen them. Yes, sir I was aware that they are all white. They are not from Portugal; they're from Spain and at birth, they're not white; they're black. Sir.
Capt. Ramsey: I didn't know that. But they are from Portugal. Portugal
Oh yeah..The Conversation and Poseidon Adventure.
Superman - Funny villian.
Lots of great movies because he was in them.
My favorite Hackman moments are his scenes with Richard Harris in "Unforgiven."
"Hell, I even thought I was dead, till I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska."
David Manet’s Heist. Highly recommended.
""We'll do it live!" - Bill O'Reilly/All I could think about watching that performance."
It reminds me of that too, but the movie is from 1990 and O'Reilly had his famous freakout in 1993, so Hackman didn't copy. I don't think it was known until 2008, when it became a viral video on YouTube.
If they are similar enough, and you want to argue that O'Reilly copied Hackman, the idea would need to be that O'Reilly was kind of fooling around and doing his Gene Hackman imitation.
Frank Bailey: Get this straight, you corn-holin' fucker. You tell your queer-ass nigger bosses that they ain't never gonna find those civil rightsers down here! So you might as well pack up and go back up North where you came from and...
[Anderson grabs his crotch hard, Bailey screams in pain]
Anderson: [while grabbing Bailey by the balls] Now get *this* straight, Shit-kicker! Don't you go confusin' me with some whole other body. You must have your brains in your *dick* if you think we're gonna just walk away from this. We're gonna stay 'till this gets done.
[after opening his coat and exposing his gun he turns to Deputy Pell]
Anderson: How 'bout you, Deputy. That gun of yours just for show or do you get to shoot people once in a while?
Anderson: [Releases his grip on Bailey, then takes a swig of beer] Thanks for the beer.
"Could have been carbon monoxide."
Oh, it was carbon monoxide. Read the NY Post account. Gene, his 63-year-old wife and their dog were all in the car, with the garage door shut.
It does get cold in New Mexico, which has a big ski resort (Taos) that sits at about 7000 feet of elevation at its base. Hackman lived in Santa Fe, which has gotten near freezing overnight, so heat would definitely have been on. I agree that carbon monoxide seems a likely candidate, and would not jump on the homicide/suicide/dogicide bandwagon too quickly.
Well, I posted the above before I saw Ann's NYPost comment. My mistake.
Fran Moore: Cute plan, though.
Joe Moore: Cute as a Chinese baby.
Actually, looked at the Post article - seems that the family and dog were in the house (not in the car), but that there was a car in the garage that was still running and may have filled the house with carbon monoxide, so maybe accidental after all.
Coach Norman Dale: If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we're gonna be winners.
Arthur Penn described Hackman as being in a group of actors who shouldn't be movie stars but are. The others were Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, and James Cagney.
What strikes me as that Hackman always brought a certain energy to his roles that didn't necessarily feel authentically real-life, but that animated his characters in a way that they'd grab your attention and never let go. And it happened to be a very masculine kind of energy.
I'm a simple man, so I loved him in Poseidon Adventure. Took a basic role in a disaster movie and gave it some passion.
Ann Althouse said, "If they are similar enough, and you want to argue that O'Reilly copied Hackman, the idea would need to be that O'Reilly was kind of fooling around and doing his Gene Hackman imitation."
I don't think anybody copied anybody. I enjoy both (one a performance, one not) because they come from a deeply buried masculine place that shows itself far more seldomly than society pronounces - frustration manifested as public loss of composure. Gene's performance is far more articulate of course, but it resonates with me personally because, well....I been there.
Professionals in leadership positions are taught - nay trained - to chew people out as much as possible behind closed doors. Hackman even made light of this in Crimson Tide - "Listen, these boys are trained to do a terrible thing and the only thing that's going to give them the confidence to do it is their confidence in the chain of command, so if you have something to say to me, you say it in private."
But, every so often, this is impossible. There are times something witnessed is so pigheadedly stupid and so immediately damaging to mission priorities that you blow up, in public, and start laying f-bombs like a B-52 carpetbombing Khe Sanh. And sometimes nothing else will do. Nothing else will get the results needed.
My favorite line in Gene's performance in that scene, "And you? What's Your name? Cindy? That's perfect." Effing lol.
Oh, I forgot about the Royal Tannenbaums. Loved him that. More than Superman. He was such a good actor that I forget what roles were him. "Royal Tannenbaum. He died saving his family from a sinking ship." Best tombstone epitaph I have ever seen.
There was a gem of a movie made by John Frankenheimer entitled, THE GYPSY MOTHS. Three skydivers travel the country putting on spectacular exhibitions featuring the death defying "cape jump". Burt Lancaster, Gene Hackman, Scott Wilson are the jumpers. Deborah Kerr and William Windom play Scott's uncle and aunt who host the skydivers over the Fourth of July weekend in the small town where the GYPSY MOTHS are to perform their exciting stunts. There is an unexpected romantic encounter between Kerr and Lancaster and lots of conflict between Hackman and Scott. The FOURTH OF JULY exhibition provides more than fireworks. I rewatched this film last week. Although all the actors are wonderful, It's Gene Hackman who holds the picture together with his outstanding performance.
Of course, Gene has made scores of movies that I loved. This was just one of the obscure ones many are not aware of and should give it a look.
"Coach stays, I stay. Coach goes, I go". Loved Hoosiers. I was a 16 year bballer at my peak.
Mississippi Burning
Great movie actor. Sorta of a more subdued George C. Scott. Favorite roles:
1. Superman (Love his Lex Luther)
2. Posidien (sic) Adventure (silly movie, fun performance)
3. French Connection (great performance, meh on the movie)
4. Unforgiven (movie B+ - Hackman was A+)
5. Hoosiers (great AA winning peformance)
6. Night Moves (carries the movie)
7. Enemy of the State
8. The Conversation (another A+ performance in a B+ movie)
9. Reds
10. Royal Tennanbaums
Often Hackman was the best thing in the movie.
It's unforgivable things that define forgiveness. Anybody can forgive forgivable things.
I dont remember hackman in Gypsy Moths, he must have had a small role. Mississippi Burning was liberal-fascism. Hey, lets spy and torture suspects cause - racism. Hackman was great in the movie though.
Hackman was one of guys, similar to G.C. Scott or Spencer Tracy, who had great range, and could do it all supporting or lead, or "Best Friend". He had less charisma than either of those two guys, but he could do roles with comedy better.
Pork Pie hat of The French Connection. He wore it well, RIP!
Amazing how many of these Hollywood stars are now living to 100 or 95. Guess we'll have to put up with Jane Fonda till 2037.
Mr. Beauchamp: "It's a book. I'm a Writer."
Little Bill: "Of what? Letters and such?"
Mr. Beauchamp: "It's a book about English Bob"
Little Bill: " 'The Duck of Death' "
Mr. Beauchamp: "Um...Duke. The 'Duke of Death'"
Little Bill: "Duck I says..."
Absolute hoss.
A rite of passage, The French Connection should have been be my first R-rated movie. We piled in the third row my friend's father's Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon (white with exterior wood panels, natch) and headed to the drive-in theater.
Just like the MAD Magazine parody, I was surprised to hear Popeye Doyle say, "Ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?" I'm still not exactly sure what that means.
Except the opening feature was The Seven Minutes, a low-budget Russ Meyers flick, also originally rated R. Boring and inscrutable to a pre-teen, and even harder to follow because it was still light out. But Lilian Munster was in the cast!
The Seven Minutes is a steamy book written in 1969. To help with an upcoming election, a bookstore clerk is indicted for selling obscene material and most of the film centers about the trial. The defense attorneys need to find the mystery of the original publication of the book.
My favorite actor.
Sorry to hear. Yes, Tennenbaums and Hoosiers and Unforgiven…I’d add Set Shorty and the Birdcage. One of those actors what could have selective but apparently liked to work…
Gene Hackman was great -- Hoosiers, Unforgiven, French Connection, Crimson Tide, Mississippi Burning (though movie was meh), Superman, Royal Tennenbaums, The Conversation.
BTW, Lex Luthor's best line: "Otisville!!!??"
2 movies where Gene was better than the overall movie...The Package (1989) and Uncommon Valor (1983). Loved those as a teen.
Forgot he was in Bonnie & Clyde (1967).
He took risks where some other actors of his age wouldn't. (I am thinking of Birdcage. 😃). My favorite was Hoosiers. It may have been about small town Indiana basketball but translated well to my experience with small town Ohio football. The adult love story woven through Hoosiers was something not often seen. Two wounded people taking a chance on love despite the craziness around them.
“You pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?”
Damn it, Wince! You beat me to it, lol.
As Lex Luthor in Superman he's pleading with Superman for mercy. The line goes something like, "Come on Superman, give me another chance, that's all I need is another chance. There's a lot of good left in me Superman, I know there is. I haven't used any of it yet." I laughed so hard I slithered off the couch onto the floor. I thought I might need revival. Perhaps to reference Begley above, I was headed for Nebraska. RIP
My favorite Hackman movie was "The Conversation."
Norman Dale. Hackman was perfect.
Coach: All right, listen up! Listen up. Here's what we're gonna do. Jimmy, they're gonna be expecting you to take the last shot. We're gonna use you as a decoy. Buddy, you get the ball,
give it to Merle on the picket fence. He's gonna take the last shot. All right, let's go.
.....
What's the matter with you guys?
What's the matter with you?
Jimmy: I'll make it.
Coach: All right. Buddy, get the ball to Jimmy at the top of the key.
[They're finally a true team - a complete team.]
"Actually, looked at the Post article - seems that the family and dog were in the house (not in the car), but that there was a car in the garage that was still running and may have filled the house with carbon monoxide, so maybe accidental after all."
I'm seeing that they were "in their home." I think the garage is part of the home, and the wording was chosen to be kind and to draw the curtain over a private scene that you don't need to think about. I don't think it's possible to drive your car into the garage, close the garage door, and get out the car and walk away from it with the car still running by accident. I guess it could happen. I know a modern luxury car can be turned on by remote control without even getting up off your sofa.
Hard to do that by accident though!
Definitely in contention for GOAT. Master of comedy as well. Greatest bit part ever playing, the blind man in Young Frankenstein.
Hoosiers.
RIP
. . . "my team is on the floor" is the only time I ever cried at a movie.
Hackman said that he was a 13 year old kid playing with friends out in the street when he watched his father back his car out of the driveway, turn to look at him and gave him a casual wave goodbye. Hackman said that somehow he knew his father was leaving for good. He was right about that. He said he thought that one moment helped to make him an actor.
Hard to do that by accident though!
We actually had a car that, when you hit the "off" button, it would shut down but then sputter back to life for an indeterminate period of time, so it could happen. They also might have remote-started the car to warm it up without realizing that the garage door was shut, and then gotten distracted long enough for CO to build to levels high enough to disorient them.
I would guess that all will eventually be revealed.
I dunno about how easy or hard it is to leave the car running in the garage. Modern luxury cars are pretty quiet. Someone may have started the car, gone back for something and got distracted (don't ask me how I know).
Hackman was 95 and presumably wasn't driving (although my FIL is 94 and isn't giving up the keys!).
Tommyesq--I forgot about the remote start. If it was very cold you would do that, even if the car was in the garage. Easy to forget if you get distracted.
Crimson Tide is oft forgotten but with Denzel and Hackman facing against each other it's two of the most powerful actors of our generation. Feels like Musk (Denzel) VS the bureaucracy of today.
Similarly, Unforgiven. Eastwood isn't the same powerful actor but he has an astounding presence and skill for his parts. He and Hackman facing off in a moral bending Western was worth every Oscar it won. And is key in seeing Eastwood's narrative journey through his films.
French Connection
The Firm
Crimson Tide
A Bridge Too Far
My favorite Hackman movie moment was when he kicked the crap out of English Bob for insulting America on the Fourth of July.
Arthur Koestler's suicide in the Eighties. The writer was 77 and ill. His wife was 22 years younger and healthy and also died. Much controversy about whether he bullied her joining him in suicide and "if he didn't bully her into it, why didn't he bully her out of it." Koestler is still more controversial because of the allegations of sexual harassment and rape.
I love the movie Scarecrow with Hackman and Pacino
I also said that if I ever built myself a home to live in as an old man, it would look just like the one he built for himself in that movie. It was the same design as my grandmother's house.
It's hard to know when my car is off. The music doesn't turn off until you walk away, for one thing. You have to read a small message in plain text on the dash to know for sure. It is also kept in a garage attached to my house. Hmmm....
“I don’t wanna be the only girl not dancing.”
A gem.
He didn't deserve to die like this. . . . He was building a house.
I'll mention him in Young Frankenstein, one of my very favorite movies, and he added to it.
TwinsLawyer said, "He didn't deserve to die like this. . . . He was building a house."
I just spewed coffee on my keyboard. You owe me a new keyboard you goofy bastard.
No one's mentioned "Heartbreakers", a comedy with Sigourney Weaver running a scam to marry Hackman's tobacco tycoon, a man constantly smoking. He is so funny.
Never saw that Postcard from the Edge.
Gene Hackman was from my hometown, Danville, Il. I knew people who went to school with him.
He came back in 1998, along with other Danville natives Dick and Jerry Van Dyke, Donald O'Connor and Bobby Short for a charitable benefit for a local theater.
Legend.
Coppola's masterpiece, The Conversation, is still relevant today as it was in 1974.
It's hard to know when my car is off. The music doesn't turn off until you walk away, for one thing.
True - plus many (most?) cars now have the auto-start-stop feature where, when you pull into the garage and come to a complete stop, the engine shuts off without the car actually turning off - it normally doesn't restart the engine until the brake is released, but it will restart if there is something draining the battery (AC being a typical one). I have exited my car on many occasions only to have it beep at me that the car is still "running," and might have not noticed if the radio was loud or I was distracted or the like.
I liked Gene Hackman a lot, would really like this to be just an accident.
tony scott, made enemy of the state, a bookend to the Conversation,
of course the resolution to Mississippi burning was more murky, a Mob drone, Gregory Scarpa provided the tip to the assailants, years later he was involved in matters related to the first WTC plot
The Replacements
Jimmy McGinty: [stopping Danny before he runs on the field] Danny, I need the ball.
Daniel Bateman: You need the ball.
Jimmy McGinty: I need you to get me the ball.
Daniel Bateman: I'm going to get you the ball.
Jimmy McGinty: [starts shouting repeatedly to rev Danny up] Are you gonna get me the ball!
Daniel Bateman: [shouting back repeatedly] I wanna get you the ball!
[then runs on the field]
Jimmy McGinty: I hope he doesn't kill someone.
Enemy of the State and Crimson Tide. He wasn’t the star in those but he matched and in some scenes outshone the stars.
He was always typecast as Death Wish for me.
Well I am buying a carbon monoxide detector and putting it near the door to the garage. Now that I know the risk, as the man, if an "accident" happens, it's my fault. I do reserve to take the battery out if I am home *alone* and 95 years old, though, but that's decades away, and who knows what being 95 will be like then.
If I wanted to suggest a picture to watch, In a Day with Lorraine Pilkington. Forget Hackmann. There's about a half dozen that I return to, that's one.
Considering the number of times I’ve accidentally locked my car doors, unlocked the trunk, or even triggered the car alarm while the keys were in my pocket, this sounds like a good reason not to buy a car with remote starter. Or an electric car.
But why doesn’t Santa Fe have a law mandating carbon monoxide detectors in the home? I have one, along with a smoke detector, just inside the door to the garage. I also a CO detector upstairs in the bedroom hallway over the garage, one above the door to our bedroom, and one more downstairs by the gas furnaces and gas hot water heater. They’re there because of the county building code, though I’d have three of them installed even if they weren’t mandated. You’d think a lefty city in a blue state would have a comparable code. And that someone as wealthy as I presume Hackman to be would install CO detectors even if they weren’t mandated.
this sounds like a good reason not to buy a car with remote starter. Or an electric car.
Can you get carbon monixide poisening with an electric car?
Lovable rogue in Tenenbaums. Just so perfect.
I remember that Mad Magazine “article”!
I hate to use this phrase again, but he was one of the all-time greats. One of those actors who filled up the screen every time he appeared in a scene.
I love the clip you posted. But my favorite Gene Hackman movies have to be The Conversation, The French Connection, and Unforgiven. Honorable mentions for I Never Sang for my Father, Bonnie & Clyde, Mississippi Burning, and The Royal Tenenbaums. But really, anything he was in, he was good to great.
The Heist has so many good lines I can’t pick just one. So I’m not gonna pick any.
In the end everyone wants to be Richard Farnsworth.
Remote start cars usually shut off after about 20 minutes if they've been turned on for warming up. I read somewhere a long time ago that Hackman decided to give up acting when he started having memory problems, in his mid-70s.
Prime Cut - now, there was the perfect drive-in movie, Lee Marvin playing a Chicago Irish mob fixer and Hackman playing Mary Ann, a mid-western livestock trader & processor, including women. Sissy Spacek, in her first movie role. An unforgettable opening scene with Weenie, making some sausage, and a great scene near the end where a combine harvester eats a Cadillac.
You knew Hackman was a great actor, like Spenser Tracy, because none of the professional comedians could imitate him.
Great clip.
As for the news story - tmi.
First R rated movie I went to was The French Connection, followed by Scarecrow, followed by The Conversation, Young Frankenstein and Night Moves. Up until 1981, Hackman was in movies that I can remember the when, where and with whom I saw them ("Reds" - Cooper Theater, Minneapolis).
All the Hackman movies I've seen and rewatched, many of them multiple times:
The French Connection
The Conversation
Night Moves - A great neo-noir, worthy of multiple rewatches
Bite The Bullet
A Bridge Too Far - Filled with movie stars and Hackman's better than any of them, except Connery (except Connery is playing Connery. Hackman's disappearing into his role as a Pole).
Under Fire
Unforgiven
Geronimo: An American Legend - a beautifully shot, great western that has both Hackman and Duvall
Wyatt Earp
Get Shorty
Heist - Mamet. It's puzzling to me that this isn't better known.
The Royal Tenenbaums
I was kind of surprised at the length of this list, so I compared it to the other actors that were a part of my movie going youth, and whose movies I rewatch:
De Niro: 11
Nicholson: 5
Jeff Bridges: 13
Duvall: 15
Royal Tenenbaum was such a great character.
Maybe he fell and died, or died and fell. And then she, heartbroken or worried she would be held to account for elder neglect, or both, killed herself. And then the dog ate a couple of stray pills and also died?
JSM
Great actor. I like that he decided it was time and left Hollywood for a quiet retirement.
The deaths are now being reported as “suspicious”.
Hackman was in Woody’s “Another Woman” (1988)
The headline is Rust-adjacent. Hopefully, their deaths were for less virtuous causes and without coercion.
Hoosiers was my favorite movie of his, but that’s already been mentioned enough.
How about the Replacements? That movies was corny but eminently rewatchable, and Hackman was so great in it!
And The Firm, he had a small but standout role that I enjoyed.
Poseidon Adventure, Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine yelling at each other underwater.
Crimson Tide with Denzel Washington. Also underwater, but with nuclear weapons!
Hackman seemed to really enjoy his Royal Tenenbaums character.
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