Gene Hackman^†

He and Dustin Hoffman were classmates at the Pasadena Playhouse in the late 1950s, voted "Least Likely to Succeed." That prediction almost held. Hackman spent years doing supporting work before Bonnie and Clyde earned him his first Oscar nomination in 1967. The French Connection was the real pivot. Director William Friedkin didn't want him (Jackie Gleason was his first choice, Paul Newman his second), and Hackman nearly quit mid-production because he hated playing a character who "beat on people for four months." Friedkin refused to let him go. He won Best Actor at the 1972 Oscars, and Hollywood had a new standard for what gritty leading men could look like.

He walked away from Hollywood in 2004 after Welcome to Mooseport and never came back. His doctor told him his heart couldn't handle production schedules. A pacemaker followed in 2019. By 2025, he was living in Santa Fe with advanced Alzheimer's, two Oscars, and no interest in being a legacy act. When he died in February 2025, Morgan Freeman delivered a tribute at the 97th Academy Awards. Tom Hanks said "there has never been a 'Gene Hackman Type,'" which is the kind of line you earn by refusing to be one.

Mike Nichols fired him from The Graduate three weeks into rehearsal (too young, he said), and Murray Hamilton got his part. He turned down Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His personal favorite performance was in Scarecrow with Al Pacino, a film almost nobody saw. After retiring, he co-wrote historical fiction novels with an undersea archaeologist and painted seriously enough to show in galleries. His actual final screen appearance wasn't in a film. It was on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Both Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead at their Santa Fe home on February 26, 2025, by a maintenance worker who noticed the door ajar. The April 2025 autopsy confirmed heart disease as the primary cause, with advanced Alzheimer's and prolonged fasting as contributing factors. Arakawa had died roughly a week earlier from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Morgan Freeman delivered a tribute at the 97th Academy Awards. No foul play was found.