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Gene Hackman, Oscar-Winning ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘French Connection’ Actor, Dead at 95

Gene Hackman, the Oscar-winning 'Unforgiven' and 'French Connection' actor who was an onscreen fixture for 40 years, has died at 95.

After a career in which he played everyone from conflicted cops to inspirational basketball coaches to failed fathers to Lex Luthor, Hackman quietly retired from acting after the 2004 comedy Welcome to Mooseport, devoting his energies to writing novels and painting. Coming of age at the same time as other influential American actors like Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall, the former Marine delivered his performances with a minimum of fuss, creating characters who, whether they were comedic or dramatic, always exuded an air of lived-in realism. Hackman continued to essay iconic roles throughout the decade – including that of the doomed surveillance expert Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 paranoid thriller The Conversation – but this character actor also branched out into big studio productions like the celebrated disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure.

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