Sports Poets Society

Ma allora non era immortale.... Era alto, ma con una faccia più che ordinaria. Non aveva le carte in regola per diventare una star. Poi però la Nuova Hollywood di Coppola e soci travolse le regole. E da “Gangster Movie” a “Gli spietati” recitò in un centinaio di film: una decina sono capolavori 28 feb 2025 - L'Unità David Romoli “Popeye è un fascista”: era lapidario il commento di Gene Hackman sul personaggio che nel 1971 gli aveva meritato l’Oscar e un successo da quel momento imperituro. Un poliziotto onesto ma con la mano pesante, colorato in tinte più cupe del quasi contemporaneo Dirty Harry Callahan di Clint Eastwood. Non era un novellino Hackman. Aveva 41 anni, parecchi per diventare un divo e anche alla recitazione era arrivato relativamente tardi, dopo i 25 anni anche se raccontava di aver scelto il palcoscenico già a 10 anni. Era nato in California, a San Bernardino ma cresciuto nell’Illinois. A 16 anni, mentendo sull’età che non glielo avrebbe consentito, si era arruolato...

In praise of the great Gene Hackman Appreciation: A chameleonic everyman with charisma. 28 Feb 2025 - The Washington Post BY TY BURR Ty Burr is the author of the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr’s Watch List at tyburrswatchlist.com. Most people have a favorite Gene Hackman performance. I have two. The actor, a chameleonic everyman with a movie star’s charisma, was found dead Wednesday with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog in their New Mexico home. (An investigation into their deaths is ongoing.) Hackman was 95 and had stopped acting after playing a fictional former president in the 2004 satirical political film “Welcome to Mooseport.” He had a long and well-deserved retirement, and by all accounts a happy one. He also had the love and admiration of audiences who felt that one of their own had somehow clambered up there on the screen, with a face like a beer mug and an unassuming sense of his own Hackman, in a famous robbery scene, leap over a bank counter while very much l...

Everyman actor’s roles defined cinema for decades 28 Feb 2025 - The Washington Post WASHINGTON POST STAFF Gene Hackman, who has died at 95, was a stunner in great movies and the best thing in many bad ones — a rumpled, roiling, always complex and often combustible presence who helped define the New Hollywood of the late ’60s and ’ 70s before going on to a varied and generous career. The writers and editors of The Washington Post picked some of their favorite Hackman performances. ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967) “Bonnie and Clyde” landed as a new kind of violent, of-the-moment but mythically immortal American movie, but with Hackman’s supporting role it more quietly announced the emergence of a new kind of American star: the everyman actor. Watch self-worth. When Hackman was a struggling actor in the 1950s and early 1960s, he was close friends with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall , none of them considered leading men at the time, and certainly not the stuff of which movie stars are mad...

28 feb 2025 - The Washington Post BY FRANZ LIDZ Gene Hackman, an actor who powerfully embodied ordinary men under stress in dozens of films and twice won Oscars for bringing humanizing depth to corrupt lawmen, from the raging cop in “The French Connection” to the ruthless sheriff in “Unforgiven,” was found dead Feb. 26 along with his wife at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 95. Mr. Hackman and Betsy Arakawa’s cause of death was not yet known, but the local sheriff ’s office said in a news release that there were no signs of foul play. Officers suspected that Mr. Hackman may have “suddenly fallen,” according to an affidavit obtained by The Washington Post . A 6-foot-2 former Marine , Mr. Hackman was an imposing man with a curly nimbus of receding hair and a jowly potato face that he called “your everyday mine worker’s mug.” He was peerless at conveying frustration and throttled rage, but he showed glimmers of romantic warmth and a deft, if underused, comic flair. His onetime...

Career making tough guys unforgettable ONE OF A KIND: In a five-decade career during which he played a wide range of roles — from notso-angelic good guys to bad guys you couldn’t help but half root for — the legendary actor Gene Hackman had a penchant for infusing a bit of rascally mischief to his characters. 28 Feb 2025 - New York Post JOHNNY OLEKSINSKI WORDS you see a lot on Gene Hackman’s 85 film resume: Lieutenant, Sergeant, Detective, Sheriff . The movie star, who was found dead Wednesday at age 95 at home in New Mexico, was famous for playing admirals, generals, multiple (fictitious) presidents, coaches, a reverend, a senator and myriad other upright authority figures over his five-decade career in Hollywood. But his portrayals, like his life, were full of fascinating contradictions. Popeye Doyle wasn’t just another detective, and Gene Hackman was not just another actor. Early inspiration Hackman was born in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1930, and eventually settled with his grandm...

HIS BEST SHOT: Among the dense catalogue of roles by Gene Hackman (center),  coach Norman Dale in “Hoosiers” is one of Mike Vaccaro’s favorites. We will never forget Hackman as Hickory’s Coach Dale in ‘Hoosiers’ 28 Feb 2025 - New York Post Mike Vaccaro - mvaccaro@ nypost.com HE WON one Oscar for playing Popeye Doyle in “The French Connection,” and all these years later whenever someone props a pork pie hat on his head on a chilly morning, they’re inviting greetings of “Hey, Popeye!” the rest of the day. He won another for “Unforgiven,” which may well be the best Western of them all. He was nominated three other times, all of them indelible classics: “Bonnie & Clyde,” “I Never Sang for my Father,” “Mississippi Burning.” And as you sifted through the various lists of Gene Hackman’s 10 or 15 or 20 greatest roles after it was learned he’d passed at age 95, some of them never even got around to “Hoosiers.” That’s a testament to one of the great acting careers ever . So many characte...

Mystery surrounds death of Gene Hackman, 95 MOVIE LEGEND’S PUZZLER ENDING  Found dead in NM home with wife and dog also deceased 28 feb 2025 - New York Post By NIKA SHAKHNAZAROVA, ISABEL KEANE and JORGE FITZ-GIBBON With Post Wires  ikeane@nypost.com Two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman, who starred in such classics as “ The French Connection ,” was found dead yesterday along with his wife, Betsy, and a dog in his New Mexico home. Police are investigating the strange circumstances, with sources saying Betsy, 65, had been dead for two weeks . Hollywood icon Gene Hackman and his longtime wife were found dead Wednesday inside their New Mexico home — a “suspicious” and tragic discovery that included pills scattered about a bathroom, the couple’s dead dog in a closet and an open front door. The body of the 95-year-old “French Connection” star was discovered in a mudroom in his and wife Betsy Arakawa’s Santa Fe mansion next to his walking cane and a pair of sunglasses, indicating he li...

Investigation launched after Hackman and wife found dead 28 Feb 2025 - The Guardian Ed Pilkington, Benjamin Lee, Catherine Shoard An investigation is under way into the deaths of the Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, the pianist Betsy Arakawa, after their bodies were found “in a state of decomposition” along with that of one of their dogs in their New Mexico home, the local sheriff’s department has said. The local gas provider, the New Mexico Gas Co, was involved in the investigation alongside the Santa Fe county sheriff’s department, the Associated Press reported, raising speculation that carbon monoxide poisoning lay behind the deaths. But the emergence later yesterday of a search warrant cast doubt on a possible gas leak and raised alternative questions about prescription pills found near Arakawa’s body. Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 63, were found by deputies in their house in the Hyde Park area of Santa Fe on Wednesday. The sheriff’s spokesperson said that foul play was n...