Photo: AFP
Most people woke up Thursday and were stunned to hear the news that legendary actor Gene Hackman had died along with his wife in their New Mexico home at the age of 95. Authorities are investigating the cause of their deaths. Hackman had voluntarily retired from acting and retreated from the limelight twenty years ago, yet at the mention of his passing, even casual movie goers could rattle off a list of movies that barely scratches the surface of the two-time Oscar winner’s greatness: The French Connection, The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, Superman, Hoosiers, The Firm, Unforgiven- just to name a few.
With the Academy Awards being handed out Sunday, Hackman’s passing will surely cast a shadow over the ceremony. WOR Movie Minute host Joe Neumaier appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to pay tribute to Hackman. Neumaier told host Larry Mendte, “He always reminded my friend of his favorite uncle, and that’s sort of the thing. Everybody sort of had this familiarity with Gene Hackman; he was known as sort of like an everyman character actor, but people could relate to him in that way. All those great actors that started in the 60’s but kind of really hit in the 70’s- people like Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino- they all came up, but Hackman had something different. He wasn’t good-looking like Beatty and Redford, and he wasn’t sort of odd-looking or could disappear into a role, like De Niro or Pacino. He was like the guy who you went, oh, he was like my dad, he was like my uncle.”
Neumaier broke down arguably the most famous scene of Hackman’s career to illustrate why he was so dominant at his craft: “During that great car chase in The French Connection, he’s doing something really difficult. He’s doing some great action, like, silent action movie acting as he’s driving the car, as he’s chasing the guy in the subway, the subway goes into Brooklyn and he’s driving the car under the elevated train. He’s doing some really great acting there. There’s no dialogue, but he’s intense and he’s angry and he’s reacting, and that’s very hard to do, and that’s something that Hackman did so well.”
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