RIP Gene Hackman. Remembering a true master of his craft. Someone with a fascinating life story which could be a movie script. 

📽️ His father walked out when he was 13. The desertion scarred him for life and he never forgot his father’s last wave from his car as he left.

📽️ Left school at 16 and joined the US Marines by lying about his age. He managed a promotion to corporal but was immediately demoted again for brawling.

📽️ His battalion was about to fight in the Korean War in 1952 when a motorcycle crash left him with a broken leg and shoulder, resulting in his discharge.

📽️ Spent six months studying journalism at the University of Illinois before dropping out. 

📽️ Drifted to New York, worked as a shoe salesman and as a furniture removal man until his wife persuaded him to “follow the dream” of acting

📽️ Voted one of the two students “least likely” to succeed at acting school

📽️ Awarded the lowest grade the theatre had ever given any student

📽️ Learnt to act wandering around the streets of New York, endlessly watching people and absorbing their mannerisms

📽️ Yet at 40 his cinematic life was just starting and the following year won an Oscar for his performance in The French Connection. It secured his place on Hollywood’s A-list of leading men. He later picked up a second Oscar for his performance in Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven and received Oscar nominations for his roles in Bonnie and Clyde, I Never Sang for My Father and Mississippi Burning.

📽️ Steered clear of the Hollywood party circuit, which he found “shallow”, but by the 1980s had blown much of his fortune on private planes, racing cars and bad investments.

📽️ Hobbies: flying stunt planes, deep-sea diving and racing in Sports Car Club of America and writing 

Visitors to his home noted the total absence of movie memorabilia. When asked where his Oscar statuettes were, he claimed he didn’t even know.