Accomplished Racing Driver And Actor Gene Hackman Found Dead At 95

Legendary Oscar-winning actor, author, and seriously impressive racing driver Gene Hackman was found dead at 95 years old on Wednesday evening, along with his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog in the couple’s Santa Fe, New Mexico home. Reports from the scene indicate no immediate signs of foul play, though the investigation remains underway. 

A prolific actor, Hackman appeared in over 80 feature films between 1961 and his quiet retirement in 2004, as well as dozens of television and stage roles. Hackman lied about his age at 16 to join the U.S. Marines, and later studied journalism at the University of Illinois, before going on to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse with the man who would become a lifelong friend, Dustin Hoffman. 

Among automotive enthusiasts he is probably best known for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in “The French Connection”–driving in one of the best car chases in cinema history–but you probably should be more aware of his motorsport exploits. 

It was his stunt driving in 1971’s “The French Connection” that got him interested in going fast in cars, but it was a run at the Toyota Pro/Celebrity race during the Long Beach Grand Prix weekend that really gave him the bug, Hackman told the LA Times in a 1988 interview: 

“Normally, racing is a profession with a closed-door attitude about it. When you’re on the outside, it’s very tough to get in. But when you’re a celebrity, suddenly you’re invited to be part of this inner group and it makes you feel like really something. Later, I went to the Bob Bondurant race-driving school in Northern California. It was different than what I had expected. You think in terms of racing that it’s all daredevil and kind of harum-scarum. But it isn’t at all.

In order to be really good, you have to be absolutely the opposite. You must be extremely careful. You have to think in a very orderly fashion. What you do is you try to slow everything down instead of getting yourself all excited and expending a lot of energy. Instead, you try to slow it all down so you can go quicker. It’s a very strange process.”

He was hardly the first Hollywood star to make the transition to going fast on four wheels. Like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman before him, Hackman was good enough a driver that he probably could have made a career of it if he’d started earlier and stuck with it. In the late 1970s, the actor attended the Bob Bondurant School and quickly found his groove. In his run as a racing driver he won a handful of races at Long Beach, Watkins Glen, and Riverside.

Hackman ultimately gave up racing altogether in the 1980s, to put all of himself into his acting career:

“But, then, I realized that if I wasn’t really serious about it, and if I couldn’t commit to 15-18 races a year, that I couldn’t really compete at a professional level. At least at a decent national-class level. I never went through a period when I felt I could really do it. I suppose there was a part of me that thought I could. But the reality of it is I know I would have to give a lot more commitment than I ever did. I never did over six races a year.

Instead of winning little plaques and trophies on the podium of race tracks all over the world, Hackman earned himself two Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, and four Golden Globes. Hackman is survived by his son Christopher and two daughters Elizabeth and Leslie, all from his first marriage (divorced in 1986) to Faye Maltese, who passed in 2017.