A child of a broken home, Gene Hackman left home at 16 for a three-year hitch with the Marines. Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playho ...
show all A child of a broken home, Gene Hackman left home at 16 for a three-year hitch with the Marines. Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse in California (legend says that Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were voted "least likely to succeed"). Hackman next moved back to New York, where he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway. In 1964 he was cast as the young suitor in the Broadway stage play "Any Wednesday." This role would lead to him being cast in the small role of Norman in "The Lilith (1964)", starring Warren Beatty. When Beatty was casting for "Bonnie and Clyde (1967)", he cast Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde's brother. That role earned Hackman a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award for which he would again be nominated in "I Never Sang for My Father (1970)". In 1972 he won the Oscar for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in "French Connection (1971)". At 40 years old, Hackman was a Hollywood star whose work would rise to the heights with "The Night Moves (1975)" and "Bite the Bullet (1975)" or fall to the depths with "Poseidon Adventure (1972)" and "The Eureka (1984)". Hackman is a versatile actor who can play comedy (the blind man in "Young Frankenstein (1974)") or villainy t(he evil Lex Luthor in "Superman (1978)"). He is the doctor who puts his work above people in "Extreme Measures (1996)" and the captain on the edge of nuclear destruction in "Crimson Tide (1995)". After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven (1992)", Hackman finally accepted it as a different slant on the western that interested him. For his performance he won the Oscar and Golden Globe and decided that he wasn't tired of westerns after all. He has since appeared in "Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)", "Wyatt Earp (1994)" and "Quick and the Dead (1995)".
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