The year is 2004. Don’t remember the month or day, which irks me, as I’d like to treat it as a national holiday. Especially now. You see, on a late afternoon in the summer or fall of that fateful year, I met Gene Hackman. He was in town to sign some novel he co-wrote with some guy I can’t bother to remember, and hell, maybe he’d throw in a few words. I’d dutifully buy the book, get the signatures of both men, and likely throw the thing on the top shelf of my closet. Then, as now, I have no use for Western fiction. Yes, I was there to see Gene. Just Gene. The other guy could hit the bathroom for all I cared. I wanted to catch a glimpse. Share the same air for an hour or so. But it got better. I shook Gene’s hand. Firm, intentional, masculine. Everything I hoped it would be. I half expected him to take a poke at me, just so the fact would match the legend. If my knees buckled, I sure as shit won’t apologize. To this day, it’s an event I speak of in hushed tones. As if I’d met a living saint.
Gene Hackman in Unforgiven
Because I had. Gene Hackman – prickly, growling, always in what appeared to be the worst mood imaginable – was one of those rare actors who stood out not because he was handsome, or wise, or particularly showy, but because, pound for pound, he was all talent. Never let you see behind the curtain. No flash or bullshit, just inhabiting the character with authenticity and nerve. He played dozens of men, all unique to their circumstances, but forever Gene. Like Spencer Tracy or Jimmy Stewart, always himself, yet true to the creation. As expected, he never pitched to the cheap seats or relied on makeup and gimmicks. It was coach, lawman, private eye, paterfamilias, con man, or journalist. Believable and sincere. A full accounting of the human animal, with all its complexity and shading. Even when he swallowed hard and took a script for money, or caved to commercialism, he never coasted. He believed in his craft too much. Acting, because it mattered. Still does. Or at least it should.
Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein
In forty or so years of onscreen brilliance, I can’t think of a single performance I didn’t like. Naturally, in any conversation, I’d go immediately to Popeye Doyle or Harry Caul, Little Bill Daggett or Buck Barrow. Gene Garrison in I Never Sang for My Father. The unforgettable Blind Man in Young Frankenstein. Night Moves, Reds, Mississippi Burning, and Superman. Hell, the man even appeared in a Woody Allen movie (Another Woman). Give me a drink or two, and I’d make a case for Loose Cannons. But when all is said and done and Gene is put to rest (hopefully with a grave site in Santa Fe so I can make my pilgrimage each and every year until I join him), I will stand most defiantly in favor of Reverend Scott. Turtleneck and all. If Gene only collected two Oscars in a career that could easily have seen a trunkful, surely this should have been the third. It’s the most obvious omission in the history of the prize. A character so beloved, he remains one of the few men of God to curse the fucker out for his sadism.
Gene Hackman in The Poseidon Adventure
Having seen the complete The Poseidon Adventure at least 45 times (and bits and pieces another two or three hundred), it is perhaps the one film in existence that can compete with Death Wish 3 for my heart, mind, body, and soul. There are dozens of reasons to sit before Poseidon as if witnessing the burning bush, from Ernest Borgnine to the shortest shorts in a decade that trafficked in little else, but everything swings back to Scott. Because it’s Gene, we don’t really buy this whole God business, and perhaps Scott came to the faith simply because he got tired of beating up rivals in the local dive bar. Got gonorrhea one too many times and had to make a clean break before he ended up under a bridge. He gave it his best shot, but the underlying anger always remained. Believed, yes, but never could shake the notion that if and when he met the fella upstairs, he’d provoke a fistfight before opening remarks. Always much too independent for an inherently subservient calling.
Gene Hackman in Mississippi Burning
And that’s due entirely to the Hackman persona. Mean as a snake, even when he’s winking in your general direction. Pissed and getting pissier, with so much to prove, he’d just as soon knock out your teeth as be figured out. Reverend Scott is that from head to toe. Pushing people to take charge because, deep down, he knows prayer ain’t bringing forth the cavalry. So you’d better toughen up. Stake your claim. Grease up and climb the fucking Christmas tree because sitting on your ass will get you good and drowned. It’s a macho spiritualism, one where you’d imagine Scott taking Jesus himself to task for focusing a little too intently on turning the other cheek. Stand firm, look ‘em in the eye, and pull a knife if it gets messy. A kick to the balls when the referee is turned. Whatever it takes; Hackman could no more play passively pious than sing in a choir. It’s telling that with the ocean water creeping in, not once does Scott suggest prayer. Into the fire or die trying.
So yes, as I honor a gen-u-ine legend in the days and weeks to come, I’ll be watching a disaster movie. The disaster movie. Screaming “How many more lives!” in synch with a god, and hoping, not for the first time, that Scott had lived and bare-knuckled it with Rogo before hitting the helicopter. Knowing that he sacrificed himself not because he wanted to inspire that same Rogo to brush off despair and lead the few remaining survivors to daylight, but because he knew damn well he was one more glance away from turning his back on the Almighty to shack up with a leggy Pamela Sue Martin. And he couldn’t go down that road yet again. Live, get the broad pregnant, and hit the horse to blow it all up. Die, and die a legend. A martyr. A noble sumbitch who wouldn’t have to humiliate himself in a sequel.
Gene Hackman in The Poseidon Adventure
If anything saddened me about Gene’s death, it wasn’t the death itself, given his 95 years above ground. That’s long enough, and I imagine he thought exactly that every day he struggled to take a piss. Instead, it’s that everything appears so ridiculous. While the cause of death is unknown at this time, I’m sure it was a heart attack, or a stroke, or maybe a bad fall after finding his beloved wife dead in the bathroom. Trite and obvious and not at all what the man deserved. Why, I ask the universe, couldn’t Gene have been found battered and bloody after one last brawl? I think back to that time he slapped around a homeless guy who asked one too many times for change. A very Gene thing to do, and arguably a finer moment than the 1972 Academy Award. Why not a long-delayed revenge for that act? A final “fuck you” to a deadbeat who deserved a far greater punishment than a stinging cheek. I’d even accept a dementia-ridden Gene stealing a car, channeling Popeye, and exploding in a wall of flame. Anything but rotting away for a week while the world moved on.
Gene Hackman in The French Connection
But the world has moved on. Always will. If we’re talking about him now, it’s because of a mysterious ending, rather than a career of endless highs. Can’t think of a single low, and I’m remembering he did Superman IV. Over twenty years since his last movie, so it’s likely only my generation gives a shit. And I do give a shit. It’s why I’ve spent the last 370+ days watching the classics. Light and sound from days long past. Every man and woman flickering before me, now dead. And Gene, sadly among them. All but a memory. But Gene Hackman lived. He was here. Stirred shit up and made an impression. And I shook his motherfucking hand. The same hand that pressed flesh with three presidents and Larry Flynt. But Gene’s matters more. Much more. Even if I never did read his book.
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