One of the greatest American actors of the 20th century was voted “least likely to succeed” by his first theater school, wasn’t a star until he was 40 and possessed a face he once described as “your everyday mineworker.”
Gene Hackman, a 6-foot-2 ex-Marine from Denville, Illinois, and a self-described “big lummox kind of person,” was as hard to define an actor as he was an unlikely star. “Everyman” was the most common label for Hackman, but even that seems to fall short for a performer capable of such volcanic intensity, such danger.
