Eugene Allen Hackman: January 30, 1930–February 17, 2025 

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✪ Eugene Allen Hackman was an American actor. In a career that spanned over four decades, he received two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.

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Hackman’s two Academy Award wins were for Best Actor for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s action thriller The French Connection (1971) and for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a villainous sheriff in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven (1992). He was also Oscar-nominated for three other roles: that of Buck Barrow in the crime drama Bonnie and Clyde (1967), a college professor in the drama I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and an FBI agent in the historical drama Mississippi Burning (1988).

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Eugene Allen Hackman was born on January 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California, to Anna Lyda Elizabeth (née Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman. The family moved frequently, finally settling in Danville, Illinois, where they lived in the house of Anna’s English-born mother, Beatrice.

Hackman said he had decided at age ten that he wanted to become an actor. His parents divorced when he was 13 and his father later left the family.

Hackman spent his sophomore year at Storm Lake High School. He left home at age 16, lied about his age to enlist in the United States Marine Corps and served four and a half years as a field-radio operator. Hackman was stationed in China (Qingdao and later in Shanghai). When Communist revolutionaries conquered the mainland in 1949, he was reassigned to Hawaii and Japan.

Hackman in the Marines in 1947

After his discharge in 1951, Hackman moved to New York City, where he worked at various odd jobs. In 1962, his mother died in a fire she had accidentally started while smoking. He began a study of journalism and television production at the University of Illinois under the G.I. Bill, but left without graduating and moved back to California.

In 1956, Hackman began pursuing an acting career. He joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman. Already seen as outsiders by their classmates, Hackman and Hoffman were voted “the least likely to succeed.” Hackman received the lowest score the Pasadena Playhouse had yet given at the time.

To support himself between acting jobs, Hackman was working at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant when he encountered a former instructor from the Pasadena Playhouse, who said that his job proved that Hackman “would never amount to anything.”  A Marine officer who once saw him as a doorman walked up and said “Hackman, you’re a sorry son of a bitch.” However, rejection motivated Hackman, who later said:

“It was more psychological warfare, because I wasn’t going to let those fuckers get me down. I insisted with myself that I would continue to do whatever it took to get a job. It was like me against them, and in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way. But I think if you’re really interested in acting there is a part of you that relishes the struggle. It’s a narcotic in the way that you are trained to do this work and nobody will let you do it, so you’re a little bit nuts. You lie to people, you cheat, you do whatever it takes to get an audition, get a job.”

Hackman slowly began to get various bit roles. For example in the film Mad Dog Coll and on multiple television series. He began to perform in several Off-Broadway plays. In 1963 he made his official Broadway debut in Children From Their Games which had only a short run, as did A Rainy Day in Newark. However in 1964,  Any Wednesday with actress Sandy Dennis was a huge Broadway success. This opened the door to film work. His first credited film role was in Lilith.

Hackman was originally cast as Mr. Robinson in the 1967 Mike Nichols film The Graduate, but Nichols fired him three weeks into rehearsal for being “too young” for the role; he was replaced by Murray Hamilton.

In 1967 he appeared in an episode of the television series The Invaders entitled “The Spores;” and as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Hackman almost accepted the role of Mike Brady for the TV series The Brady Bunch, but his agent advised him to decline it in exchange for a more promising role, which he did.

Hackman was nominated for a second Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in I Never Sang for My Father (1970), then won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as New York City Detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection (1971), marking his graduation to stardom.

After The French Connection, Hackman would star in ten films (not including his cameo in Young Frankenstein) over the next three years, making him the most prolific actor in Hollywood during that time.

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Hackman showed a flexible talent for both comedy and the “slow burn” as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie (1978), a role he would reprise in its 1980 and 1987 sequels.

Hackman returned to Broadway starring in the 1992 Ariel Dorfman play Death and the Maiden acting opposite Glenn Close and Richard Dreyfus. In 1993, he appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend as Brigadier General George Crook, and co-starred with Tom Cruise as a corrupt lawyer in The Firm, a legal thriller based on the John Grisham novel of the same name.

Other notable films Hackman appeared in during the 1990s include Wyatt Earp (1994) (as Nicholas Porter Earp, Wyatt Earp‘s father), The Quick and the Dead (1995) opposite Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe; and, as submarine Captain Frank Ramsey alongside Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide (1995).

In 2008, while promoting his third novel, he confirmed he had retired from acting. That same year, Hackman made his last televised appearance in Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives when Guy Fieri went to film in a Santa Fe diner where Hackman was eating lunch.

Speaking on his retirement in 2009, Hackman said, “The straw that broke the camel’s back was actually a stress test that I took in New York. The doctor advised me that my heart wasn’t in the kind of shape that I should be putting it under any stress.” 

When asked during a GQ Magazine interview in 2011 if he would ever come out of retirement to do one more film, he said he might consider it “if I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything and just one or two people.” He briefly came out of retirement to narrate two documentaries related to the United States Marine Corps: The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima (2016) and We, the Marines (2017).

Hackman was also a successful, published author who wrote three historical fiction novels: Wake of the Perdido Star (1999), a sea adventure of the 19th Century, Justice for None (2004), a Depression-era tale of murder based on a real-life crime in his boyhood town of Danville; and Escape from Andersonville (2008), about a prison escape during the American Civil War.

In 1956, Gene Hackman married Faye Maltese (1928–2017), with whom he had one son and two daughters: Christopher Allen, Elizabeth Jean, and Leslie Anne Hackman. He was often absent and out on location making films while his children were growing up. The couple divorced in 1986 after three decades of marriage.

On December 1, 1991, Hackman married classical pianist Betsy Arakawa (1959–2025), after dating for seven years. They shared a Santa Fe, New Mexico, home, which Architectural Digest featured in 1990. At the time, the home blended Southwestern styles and sat on the crest of a twelve-acre hilltop, with a 360-degree view that stretched to the Jemez, Sangre de Cristo and Sandia mountains.  As of 2022, Hackman continued to attend local Santa Fe cultural events.

Hackman & Reagan at the White House in 1987

Hackman was a registered Democrat and said he was “proud” to be included on Nixon’s Enemies List. However, he was also a close friend and supporter of Republican president Ronald Reagan.

In the late 1970s, Hackman frequently competed in Sports Car Club of America races, driving an open-wheeled Formula Ford. In 1980, he won the Long Beach Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race. He also drove a Dan Gurney Team Toyota in the 24 Hours of Daytona Endurance Race in 1983.

Hackman was interested in architecture and design. As of 1990, he had designed and created ten homes; two of which were featured in Architectural Digest. After a certain period of time, he would move on to another house restoration project. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he remarked, “I guess I like the process, and when it’s over, it’s over.”

In 1990, Hackman underwent an angioplasty. In 2012, the 82-year-old Hackman was struck by a pickup truck while he was cycling in the Florida Keys. It was initially reported that he had suffered serious head trauma; however, his publicist later stated that his injuries were nothing more than “bumps and bruises” As of 2018, Hackman remained an active cyclist.

On February 26, 2025, Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and one of their three dogs were found dead at their residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Their bodies were discovered during a wellness check, after a maintenance worker grew concerned when the couple did not answer the door and called for help from local security.

Numerous members of the film industry paid tribute to Hackman following his death. Clint Eastwood wrote in a statement, “There was no finer actor than Gene. Intense and instinctive. Never a false note. He was also a dear friend whom I will miss very much.” ✪