Gene Hackman Was Hollywood Royalty, But He Embodied Texas

It’s not even March and 2025 has seen the passing of many entertainment industry titans. But the death of Gene Hackman, announced on Thursday, marks the loss of a piece of history. The actor, his wife Betsy Arakawa and the couple’s dog, were found dead. No foul play is suspected.

Few actors within the history of cinema have attained as many accolades as Hackman. He managed to reinvent his persona over generations. Hackman’s versatility was so strong that he meant a lot to many groups of people, so it should not be a surprise that a considerable amount of his best work had distinct ties to the Texas film community.

Hackman, who was 95 at the time of his death, is often identified as the most recognizable leading man of the “New Hollywood” era, a movement that emerged in the late 1960s when film studios outsourced creative control to younger, hipper filmmakers after the successive failure of highly expensive blockbusters, musicals and Westerns. This generation kicked off memorably with the release of the true-crime thriller Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, which introduced shocking violence, lewd sexual references and dark humor that took the industry by storm.

While Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty played the title roles, Bonnie and Clyde introduced another rising talent when Hackman was cast as Buck Barrow, the Texan gang leader at the center of one of the biggest manhunts in U.S. history. Hackman’s casting was more than a bit unusual; at 37, he was already seven years older than the real Barrow was when he was shot dead by federal agents after a gruesome firefight. Nonetheless, Hackman transformed into the snarky, surprisingly charismatic criminal, boasting a Texan drawl that wasn’t tinged with the inauthenticity flaunted by most non-native actors.

Hackman was able to slip into the role of the notorious Texan outlaw because he was never closely tied to one area of the country. Born in San Bernardino, California, Hackman moved with his family frequently throughout his childhood, living in Illinois, Iowa and even the deep South. Although he had the defiant spirit and hardworking earnestness that made him distinctly American, Hackman’s colorful upbringing allowed him to embody the Texan soul. His performance in Bonnie and Clyde was one of the few instances in which Hollywood took an interest in modern Texas; while the Lone Star State was frequently the setting for classic Westerns, Bonnie and Clyde was inspired by a true story that was recent enough for older members of the audience to remember well.

Hackman’s acclaim in the film, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination, was also based on his keen interest in collaborating with Texas artists. Bonnie and Clyde was penned by first-time screenwriter Robert Benton, who would eventually become a renowned filmmaker who took home Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for Kramer vs. Kramer. Benton’s snappy, conversational dialogue drew out an off-putting realism to Bonnie and Clyde that made Hackman’s performance so memorable. The film became a subject of controversy not just because of its graphic content but because Benton and Hackman made it possible to sympathize with a killer.

Benton would later become instrumental in writing another famous Hackman role when the actor was cast as a ruthless billionaire in Superman, the first major studio superhero film in history. Although the genre is now the dominant force in today’s entertainment ecosystem, pundits in 1978 were skeptical that a film based on a comic book (then ostensibly seen as a medium for children) could be anything but a complete embarrassment. Even if Hackman’s humble upbringing bore more in common with that of Clark Kent’s – another child of multiple homes who grew up on a farm – his delightfully evil performance as one of DC Comics’ most imminently hateable supervillains set a major precedent.

The Texas Connection

Hackman would return to Texas stories frequently; he played a Marine colonel training soldiers in Galveston in Uncommon Valor; starred as a Texan bartender in the romantic comedy Full Moon in Blue Water; appeared as a corrupt president modeled after Lyndon B. Johnson in Absolute Power; and eshared the screen with Dallas-born actor Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines (and again, with his brother Luke Wilson in The Royal Tennenbaums), which offered a rare dramatic role for the star of Zoolander and Wedding Crashers.

Among the many gifts that Texas gave the world was the Western. While not every Western is set in Texas, the Lone Star State’s culture and history are omnipresent in most stories of gunslingers, bandits and border towns. Although he first entered the world of cowboys with the ill-received Bite the Bullet in 1975, Hackman crafted one of his greatest performances ever when he was cast as the terrifying sheriff known as “Little Bill” in Unforgiven, which earned him the second Academy Award of his career.

Unforgiven marked the culmination of Clint Eastwood’s decades of Western stories, as he starred in the revisionist film as the cold-blooded killer Will Munny, who is drawn out of retirement for one last job. As cruel as Munny was depicted as being, Little Bill was even worse: His corrupted inner circle, bullying nature and capacity for cruelty signified him as one of the most evil characters in film history.

It’s possible that Hackman eviscerated the opportunity for anyone else to even try their hand at playing a Western villain again, as they would appear superficial next to his incomparable work. Nonetheless, Hackman did contribute another memorable bad guy to the genre when he popped up as John Herod in 1995’s The Quick and the Dead, a throwback to Spaghetti Westerns helmed by future Spider-Man director Sam Raimi.

Hackman’s last truly great role was the result of the trust he placed in another great Texas artist; although Wes Anderson had made two cult hits with Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, he managed to get Hackman to play the hapless, unpredictable patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums. Hackman brought his decades of experience to a poignant yet absurd film that spoke to anyone who had ever had a complicated relationship with his parents. Hackman would retire only a few years later, opting to spend his final years in the company of his family; as a result, The Royal Tenenbaums is about as profound of a final statement as any actor could make.

In an industry that is still dominated by New York and Los Angeles culture, Hackman expanded the definition of what a movie star could be, proving to be a chameleon who could adapt to any number of cinematic sensibilities. The fact that he often chose to be a Texan is not only evidence of Hackman’s versatility but proof that he was filled with Lone Star spirit.