MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Actor Gene Hackman has died at his home in New Mexico. The Santa Fe sheriff's office said this morning that the two-time Oscar winner was found dead yesterday afternoon, along with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog. They're still investigating, but they said they don't suspect foul play. Hackman was 95. NPR's Neda Ulaby says Hackman thrived by playing the tough guy.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Gene Hackman played complicated men, many of them not very nice.
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ULABY: Like a sadistic sheriff in the 1992 Western "Unforgiven" trying to pry information out of poor Morgan Freeman.
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GENE HACKMAN: (As Little Bill Daggett) Now, Ned, you and Mr. Quincy and...
ULABY: Hackman tells Freeman's character he's already interrogated the local saloon girls without much luck.
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HACKMAN: (As Little Bill Daggett) Them whores are going to tell different lies than you. And when their lies ain't the same as your lies, well, I ain't going to hurt no woman. But I'm going to hurt you, and not gentle like before, but bad.
ULABY: Freeman later said the look of terror on his face was not faked. The role won Gene Hackman the second of his two Oscars. The first was for "The French Connection" from 1972.
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HACKMAN: (As Jimmy Doyle) Have you ever been to Poughkeepsie?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Brooklyn Drug Dealer) Hey, man, come on. Give me a break.
ULABY: Hackman played a hard-nosed New York cop who roughs up a drug dealer while dressed in a Santa suit.
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HACKMAN: (As Jimmy Doyle) I want to hear it. Come on.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Brooklyn Drug Dealer) Yes. Yes, I've been...
ULABY: Gene Hackman was tough in real life, too. When he was 16, he went to jail for stealing, and right after that, talked his way into the Marines. Hackman bumped around for about a decade then signed up for acting lessons at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse. He hated everyone there except for a short kid with a big nose, Dustin Hoffman. Hackman and Hoffman were kicked out for lack of acting talent, so they moved to New York and slowly broke into the movies.
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HACKMAN: It's always more fun to play a heavy than it is to play a good guy.
ULABY: That's Gene Hackman on WHYY's Fresh Air in 1999. He did play some good guys - the inspirational coach in the movie "Hoosiers," a preacher in "The Poseidon adventure." But Hackman was a coiled snake of an actor, always with a hint of menace. Hackman said he dug for intense emotions in his roles and kept them under wrap.
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HACKMAN: I find in me a sadistic streak. I find something in me that may not be very attractive, but that I feel would be valuable in this context. You know, under certain circumstances, we're all capable of murder, I suppose.
ULABY: Hackman epitomized the 1970s' edgy, tightly wound masculinity. In 1974's "The Conversation," he played a surveillance expert trying not to care about the people he spies on.
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HACKMAN: (As Harry Caul) I don't know anything about human nature. I don't know anything about curiosity. That's not part of what I do. This is my business.
ULABY: Some critics thought Hackman made too many small, weird movies in the 1960s and too much commercial dreck in the 1980s and after. But he sure made a whole lot of movies. He intimidated the cast of "The Royal Tenenbaums" from 2001, including Luke Wilson, who played his adopted son. In a Fresh Air interview a few years later, Wilson remembered doing a scene with Hackman, his idol. Wilson kept fumbling his lines.
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LUKE WILSON: He just looked back at me with this glance that shivered me to the bone.
TERRY GROSS: (Laughter).
WILSON: And needless to say, I nailed it on the next tape.
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HACKMAN: (As Royal Tenenbaum) You still consider me your father?
WILSON: (As Richie Tenenbaum) Sure, I do.
HACKMAN: (As Royal Tenenbaum) I wish I had more to offer in that department.
WILSON: (As Richie Tenenbaum) I know you do, Pop.
ULABY: The part was written with Hackman in mind. Director Wes Anderson told Fresh Air it took him months to convince Hackman to do it.
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WES ANDERSON: He was happiest when he was doing a hard shot. He's such a good actor he can do anything. And he sort of likes a chance to, you know, stretch his legs.
ULABY: Gene Hackman tried stretching his legs in other directions, painting and writing novels. He retired from acting multiple times during his career but always came back to it.
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HACKMAN: If you've done it as long as I have, it's very hard to drop it. You know, there's something very seductive about acting. You know, you come to work, and there's 90 people standing there waiting for you to do something. And there is something both very heady and seductive and unattractive about that (laughter).
ULABY: Gene Hackman said his entire acting career was rooted in a moment when he was 13 years old. His father left the family, walked right past his son and said nothing, just slightly waved. More than 60 years later, Hackman said he still thought about that little wave. And how as an actor how much he could show and hide with just one understated gesture.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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