Remembering Gene Hackman

An actor's actor

“Bonnie and Clyde” came out in 1967 when I was a freshman at Dartmouth. The movie made instant stars out of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

Around that time, the highly regarded actor Tony Randall came to speak at Dartmouth. “Bonnie and Clyde” had captivated everyone I knew at the college. One of us asked Randall what he thought of the performances.

Randall seemed underwhelmed by Beatty and Dunaway. However, he had nothing but the highest praise for Gene Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde’s brother.

Only after re-watching the film did I understand why. Beatty and Dunaway are good, but seem to be trying just a little bit too hard. Hackman’s performance seemed effortlessly perfect. Indeed, I never sensed I was watching a performance — just a real guy with an annoying wife having fun with his outlaw brother.

Others in the business must have shared Randall’s view. Hackman was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actor. (Walter Matthau won the award for “Fortune Cookie.”)

After that, Hackman went from strength to strength. In 1971, he was again nominated for best supporting actor for his role in “I Never Sang For My Father,” which I know is a personal favorite of Bill Otis. (John Mills, “Ryan’s Daughter,” won the award.)

A year later, Hackman won best actor for playing Popeye Doyle in “The French Connection.” And a decade later, he finally won best supporting actor for his pitch- perfect portrayal of Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett in “Unforgiven.” (In real life, Hackman and his wife built several of their homes. Clearly, he was a better architect than Little Bill.)

I was surprised to see that Hackman was only nominated five times. (The other nomination came for best actor in “Mississippi Burning.” Hackman’s friend Dustin Hoffman beat him out for his performance in “Rain Man.”) How, for example, did the Academy overlook his performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation”?

If Hackman ever gave a less than stellar performance, I missed that film. However, it was one of his lesser works, maybe “Company Business,” that gave me the occasion to have dinner just a table away from him at an Afghan restaurant outside of Washington, D.C.

Hackman was seated with a group, not saying much but politely listening and laughing along with the others at some of the banter. But when my father and I started discussing sports, his attention shifted. It was clear he was listening to our conversation — a deep dive into the Washington Redskins, along with my theory about why the NFL players’ union was so weak compared to its baseball counterpart.

I couldn’t have imagined that Hackman would be sitting almost next to us at a random restaurant in Maryland. So after a while, like an idiot, I blurted out, “the guy at the next table looks exactly like Gene Hackman.”

From that moment on, he reengaged fully with his group and never looked our way again.

Only later did I learn that (1) Hackman had been doing some filming in the D.C. area and (2) he was a big sports fan (of the Dallas Cowboys, sadly).

The New York Times’ obituary calls Hackman “Hollywood’s consummate everyman.” I think that’s accurate when he played roles that called for him to be “everyman.” If the role called for something different, he delivered whatever that was. Effortlessly, or so it seemed.

RIP.