Gene Hackman was a superstar in the '70s - with that face!
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Gene Hackman is one of the great American actors of all time.
I idolize Gene Hackman. He is not a natural star, not an incandescent personality like Jack Nicholson, but he makes luminous the problems of being an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation.
Patrick Swayze reminded me a lot of Gene Kelly. Patrick had that Everyman quality. Gene made dancing sort of an accessible idea for the regular guy out there.
I've always admired Gene Hackman, Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck. I'm showing my age here.
It was just the thrill of a lifetime. Brando and Hackman were two of my heroes.
And Hackman had really choked up when he was telling it. It was very moving.
Gene Kelly was hard on me, but I think he had to be.
There is this great, great wrestler, who never really got an opportunity to be a star, named Len Denton: he was a masked guy called The Grappler. He was one of my favorite guys to ever wrestle, and it was just a tremendous pleasure to step in the ring with him.
From 1980 to 1990, I shot more films than any other actor in the Screen Actors Guild, apart from Gene Hackman.
When I was growing up in L.A. in the late '70s and early '80s, Michael Jackson's was the first face on TV that looked like mine.