Waking up to bad news is like a cold, angry slap in the face, as movie fans like myself were reminded this morning, February 27th, with the loss of two-time Oscar winner and one-of-a-kind actor Gene Hackman, who passed away at age 95; along with his wife Betsy Arakawa, 63, and even his dog in what appears to be (at the time of this writing) a possible home accident involving carbon monoxide poisoning. No foul play is suspected.

Update: The carbon monoxide theory behind the deaths in the Hackman home has been ruled out at this point. Gene Hackman’s own pacemaker apparently stopped on February 17th, indicating a probable date of death. Scattered pills were also found near the body of Arakawa. The investigation is ongoing.

With the cause of death still under investigation, the loss to the film industry is tremendous. Hackman made a career out of playing gritty, morally dubious types, as well as comedic roles in such groundbreaking films as “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), “The French Connection” (1971), “The Conversation” (1974), “Young Frankenstein” (1974), “Hoosiers” (1986), “No Way Out” (1987), “Mississippi Burning” (1988), “Unforgiven” (1992), “Crimson Tide” (1995), “The Birdcage” (1996) and sooo many more. Hackman won his two Oscars for playing NYC narcotics cop “Popeye” Doyle in “The French Connection” (one of my personal favorite crime-dramas) and for playing sadistic, corrupt Old West sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett in “Unforgiven” (one of my favorite westerns).

Some of these films I’ve seen theatrically in their original runs (a few more than once), and I have most of them in my DVD/Blu-Ray library today. In fact, my wife and I recently introduced our friend’s 13-year old son Joshua to “Superman: The Movie” (1978) in our ad hoc garage movie theater, and he loved it. Joshua certainly got a few giggles from Hackman’s campy performance as supervillain Lex Luthor.

A high school dropout and former US Marine who had to lie about his age to enlist, Hackman was a versatile, colorful artist who could play the oppressive cloud hovering over the darkest of dramas, or add much-needed buoyancy for hilarious comedies–often in the same year.

What is generally less known about Hackman were some of his earlier roles, a few of which were in science fiction–a genre not typically associated with the late actor, despite his roles in “Superman: The Movie,” “Superman II” (1980) and the otherwise abysmal “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” (1987), which could only be aided by Hackman’s presence. In that last film, Hackman played both supervillain Lex Luthor and supplied the voice of “Nuclear Man.”

Before his career in film exploded, Hackman did a few TV roles, back when there was a sharper divide between movies and television. One of those roles was on the Quinn Martin sci-fi series, “The Invaders” (1967-1968), in the second season episode called “The Spores,” where Hackman played an undercover ‘invader’ going by the name “Tom Jessup,” who is desperately seeking to recover stolen spores that would allow his dying alien species to propagate and dominate Earth.

I may be mistaken, given Hackman’s long and varied career, but his role in “The Invaders” might mark the only time in his career where Gene Hackman ever played an alien from outer space. Speaking of outer space…

Another underrated role of Hackman’s came in-between his roles in “The Invaders” and “The French Connection” in the 1969 space saga “Marooned,” which was an unnervingly prophetic forecasting of the real-life Apollo 13 near-disaster, which took place only a few months after this film was released. In the film, Hackman played the ill-fated astronaut “Buzz Lloyd” (possibly named after real-life Gemini/Apollo astronaut, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin). Buzz was part of the crew of “Ironman One,” an Apollo space capsule aborting its return to Earth from the fictional Ironman space station after its main engine malfunctions, leaving the crew stranded in space with a diminishing oxygen supply.

Buzz’s crew mates were astronauts “Jim Pruett” (the late Richard Crenna), and “Clayton Stone” (the late James Franciscus), while NASA head honcho “Charles Keith” (the late Oscar-winner Gregory Peck) and astronaut “Ted Dougherty” (David Janssen) worked out a rescue mission from the ground. Further drama was added to this stifling, claustrophobic story with the introduction of the astronauts’ wives; “Celia Pruett” (Lee Grant), “Teresa Stone” (Nancy Kovack) and “Betty Lloyd” (Mariette Hartley), who are allowed to speak with their endangered husbands from Mission Control in Houston.

Hackman gives the most dynamic and memorable performance of the three astronauts aboard Ironman One; particularly a scene where the contentious Buzz fully breaks down in front of his wife Teresa, as he speaks to her from the capsule. In a scene that is genuinely uncomfortable to watch, we see Buzz bitterly complaining and later sobbing as the last vestiges of his self-control are painfully obliterated. The paranoid Buzz becomes increasingly incoherent, after he angrily refuses to take his sedatives to conserve the capsule’s remaining oxygen.

The late Hackman’s performance is the single best element of this tense space odyssey, and while “Marooned” didn’t win any Academy Awards for its underrated performances, it did bring home the gold for its visual effects. Gene Hackman really classed up that joint.

Hackman’s role as Lex Luthor in three of the aforementioned “Superman” movies also yielded one of my favorite Gene Hackman stories, which spoke to his relationship with and loyalty to the late director Richard Donner (1930-2021). When offered the role of Luthor, Hackman initially refused to shave his mustache, despite Donner’s pleading. Out of options, Donner promised Hackman he’d shave his own mustache if Hackman shaved his. The next day, they met on the set as a clean-shaven Hackman was ready to shoot. Donner then playfully pulled off his mustache–which was fake–and the two became close friends afterward.

Hackman would later refuse to return to work during production of “Superman II” after Donner was fired mid-way through shooting by the infamous producers, Alexander Salkind and his son Ilya. Hackman’s scenes were finished by a double, with additional line recordings added in later by a Hackman impersonator. Hackman would later return to “Superman IV,” which was made under a different production team. Given the poor quality of the result, Hackman and company nevertheless did what they could, given the constraints of this much lower-budgeted sequel.

Though he retired from acting over 20 years ago, Hackman’s legacy is indelible. While not traditionally ‘movie star’ handsome, his gruff, grounded presence was both unique and utterly authentic. The shadow he casts over the last 60 years of film history have reshaped both the craft of acting and the art of filmmaking, as well. There will never be any other quite like him.

Gene Hackman, 1930-2025