RIP Gene Hackman

From Peter Bradshaw’s tribute in The Guardian:

He was the character actor who was really a star; in fact the star of every scene he was in – that tough, wised-up, intelligent but unhandsome face perpetually on the verge of coolly unconcerned derision, or creased in a heartbreakingly fatherly, pained smile. He wasn’t gorgeous like Redford or dangerously sexy like Nicholson, or even puckish like Hoffman; Hackman was normal, but his normality was steroidally supercharged. His hair was of its age: frizzy, with evident male-pattern baldness. You really don’t get star haircuts like that any more.

A very short selection of scenes to treasure:

Mississippi Burning (1988)
   -Razor wielding scene
   -‘Wringing necks’ scene

The Firm (1993)
   -‘People grieve in different ways’

Get Shorty (1995)
   -‘Use your imagination’