TCM Schedule for Friday, August 21 -- Summer Under the Stars--Gene Hackman

[Staph]

Today's star is Gene Hackman, two-time Oscar winner and one-time honoree of Richard Nixon on his 1972 Enemies' List. Enjoy!


6:00am -- Mad Dog Coll (1961)
A young hood kills his way to the top of the mob.
Cast: John Davis Chandler, Kay Doubleday, Brooke Hayward, Neil Nephew
Dir: Burt Balaban
BW-87 mins, TV-PG

Film debuts of Gene Hackman, Telly Savalas, and John Davis Chandler.


7:30am -- The Split (1968)
A gang of thieves plots to rob the Los Angeles Coliseum box office during a Rams game.
Cast: Jim Brown, Diahann Carroll, Ernest Borgnine, Julie Harris
Dir: Gordon Flemyng
C-89 mins, TV-14

This film was the very first theatrical release to receive an R rating from the then-new MPAA's film rating system.


9:30am -- Bite The Bullet (1975)
Cowboys compete in a grueling horse-riding marathon.
Cast: Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, James Coburn, Ben Johnson
Dir: Richard Brooks
C-131 mins, TV-MA

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Score -- Alex North, and Best Sound -- Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Richard Tyler and Al Overton Jr.

Charles Bronson turned down the leading role.


12:00pm -- Marooned (1969)
Three U.S. astronauts face a slow death when their rockets fail during a space voyage.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus
Dir: John Sturges
C-129 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Robie Robinson

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Daniel L. Fapp, and Best Sound -- Les Fresholtz and Arthur Piantadosi

There is no musical score for this film. Instead, each spacecraft has its own ambient soundtrack when it is shown in space. The Apollo shots feature a low hum; the XRV, a hollow ringing; the Nimbus Weather Satellite, a rapid series of beeps ascending in pitch; and the Russian Voshkhod, a constant pitch series of beeps. The only exceptions to this is are a very slight, muted bit of music played under the Apollo ambient soundtrack during Pruett's final EVA, and a single tone (with some ambient effects that could be called music) during the opening credits.


2:30pm -- I Never Sang for My Father (1970)
When his mother dies, a grieving son is torn between his demanding father and his need to live his own life.
Cast: Melvyn Douglas, Gene Hackman, Dorothy Stickney, Estelle Parsons
Dir: Gilbert Cates
C-92 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Melvyn Douglas, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Hackman, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Anderson

Based on the play by Robert Anderson, playwright/screenwriter of Tea and Sympathy (1956), The Nun's Story (1959), and The Sand Pebbles (1966). Anderson died of pneumonia on February 9, 2009 at his home in Manhattan. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for seven years prior to his death.


4:30pm -- Another Woman (1988)
While dealing with her own tortured past, an aging writer becomes obsessed with a psychiatric patient.
Cast: Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, Ian Holm, Blythe Danner
Dir: Woody Allen
C-81 mins, TV-14

John Houseman's last performance. Woody Allen had previously captured the final performance of Lloyd Nolan in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) in 1986, and would do so again with Keye Luke in Alice (1990) two years later.


6:00pm -- Lilith (1964)
A young psychiatrist finds himself drawn to a beautiful young mental patient.
Cast: Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, Peter Fonda, Kim Hunter
Dir: Robert Rossen
BW-114 mins, TV-PG

Feature film debut of Rene Auberjonois and Jessica Walters.


What's On Tonight: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: GENE HACKMAN


8:00pm -- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
The legendary bank robbers run riot in the South of the 1930s.
Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Dir: Arthur Penn
C-111 mins, TV-14

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Estelle Parsons, and Best Cinematography -- Burnett Guffey

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Warren Beatty, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Hackman, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael J. Pollard, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Faye Dunaway, Best Costume Design -- Theadora Van Runkle, Best Director -- Arthur Penn, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- David Newman and Robert Benton, and Best Picture

Gene Hackman was on the set one day when he noticed a guy standing behind him and staring. The man said, "Hell, Buck would've never wore a hat like that." Hackman turned around and looked at him and said, "Maybe not." He looked like an old Texas farmer. The man introduced himself and said, "Nice to meet you - I'm one of the Barrows."


10:00pm -- The Conversation (1974)
A surveillance expert uncovers a murder plot within a corrupt corporation.
Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
C-114 mins, TV-MA

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound -- Walter Murch and Art Rochester, Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Francis Ford Coppola, and Best Picture

The blue Mercedes limousine that Cindy Williams is sitting in near the end of the film was won by Francis Ford Coppola on a bet with Paramount Pictures. Coppola had complained about the station wagon he shared with five other passengers during the filming of The Godfather (1972) and studio execs told him if Godfather grossed a certain amount they would spring for a new car. After Godfather was a huge hit, Coppola and George Lucas went to a dealer and picked out the Mercedes, telling the salesman to bill Paramount.


12:00am -- Mississippi Burning (1988)
FBI agents investigate the murders of civil rights workers in the South.
Cast: Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif
Dir: Alan Parker
C-127 mins, TV-MA

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography -- Peter Biziou

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gene Hackman, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Frances McDormand, Best Director -- Alan Parker, Best Film Editing -- Gerry Hambling, Best Sound -- Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Rick Kline and Danny Michael, and Best Picture

The film was very controversial when it was released. Though fictional, the movie was clearly based on the murder of voting rights activists James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. Many people felt that too many facts from the real-life case were distorted or left out.


2:30am -- A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Epic re-staging of the Allies' heroic airdrop behind Nazi lines in Holland.
Cast: Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde
Dir: Richard Attenborough
C-176 mins, TV-MA

According to the DVD version, Gen. R.E. Urquhart had no idea who Sean Connery was or why his daughters were so excited that he had been chosen to play their father in the movie. Richard Attenborough picked Connery because of his strong resemblance to the younger Urqhart.

[Staph]

1. Gene Hackman Profile

* Films in Bold Type Air on 8/21

One of the most versatile and well-respected actors in American cinema, Gene Hackman has enjoyed a productive career that has spanned over five decades and encompassed stage, television and features. Beginning as a reliable character player, the unglamorous Midwesterner assumed the unlikely mantle of leading man in the 1970s. Despite periods of "retirement" (one brought on by health problems), Hackman, who excels at portraying "regular guys" caught up in extraordinary circumstances, remains a much sought-after player.

Born Eugene Hackman in San Bernardino, California, he endured a nomadic childhood before finally settling in Illinois where he was raised by his maternal grandmother. Unchallenged by school, he dropped out at age 16, lied about his age and enlisted in the US Marines. Trained as a radio operator, he served in China where his radio background help land him work as a disc jockey. While recuperating from a 1950 motorcycle accident, Hackman decided to pursue a career as a radio announcer, moving to NYC after his discharge to study at the School of Radio Technique. For much of the early part of the decade, he worked his way across America's heartland, developing his resonant vocal abilities (which later served him in good stead as a voice-over performer in commercials). By the time he was approaching 30, Hackman decided to translate his radio experience into a career in acting. Enrolling at the famed Pasadena Playhouse, he was several years older than the average student, a misfit like classmate Dustin Hoffman. (The pair received the honor of being dubbed "the least likely to succeed.") Despite landing a supporting role in a play starring ZaSu Pitts, Hackman was not asked to return to continue his studies.

Undaunted, he returned to NYC where he blossomed under the tutelage of George Morrison, a former instructor at the Lee Strasberg Institute who trained the actor in the famed 'Method' approach. Hackman made his stage debut in "Chaparral" and began finding employment in various small screen productions like the "U.S. Steel Hour" and the premiere episode of the CBS series "The Defenders". Both student and teacher cite 1961 as the real breakthrough for the actor, when he joined The Premise, an improvisational troupe directed by Morrison. ("He learned how to make people laugh, got the kind of technical skills that you have to get in front of an audience--timing, delivery, voice," Morrison told The New York Times Magazine, March 19, 1989). Within a few years, Hackman had truly arrived as a stage actor, earning plaudits for his supporting performance in "Any Wednesday". That same year saw him land his first stand-out screen role, a brief but indelible turn as a romantic rival to Warren Beatty in Lilith (1964).

When it came time to cast the role of Buck, the older brother of outlaw Clyde Barrow, in 1967's seminal Bonnie and Clyde, Beatty remembered Hackman and offered him the role. Bringing a Brandoesque spin to the role, Hackman turned what could have been just a murderous rube into a character infused with a righteous innocence, earning his first Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. He was excellent as the driven Olympic coach in the documentary-like "Downhill Racer" (1969) and picked up a second Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod as he mined the autobiographical parallels of a son who cannot communicate with his dad in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). The following year brought the once-in-a-lifetime role, that of the uncompromising NYC narcotics cop Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971). While the film is perhaps best remembered for a brilliantly staged car chase, Hackman managed not to be overshadowed, skillfully crafting a warts-and-all portrait of a vulgar sadist. Accolades rained on Hackman and his performance and his banner year was capped by his taking home the Best Actor Academy Award.

Now established as a leading man, Hackman began to undertake a series of roles that further demonstrated his range and versatility. He proved effective as the de facto leader of a group of survivors of a sea disaster in the enjoyably cheesy The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and partnered with Al Pacino in the buddy road movie Scarecrow (1973). Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) offered one of his richest characterizations as a surveillance expert who takes one case a bit too personally. Mel Brooks finally tapped into the actor's comedic abilities casting him as the blind hermit in the horror spoof "Young Frankenstein" (also 1974). By the time he was showcasing his high camp villain Lex Luthor in "Superman" (1978), Hackman had announced his "retirement". After nearly non-stop work for close to seven years, he was physically drained and the toll was taken on his personal life.

After a couple of years, Hackman was seduced back by Warren Beatty who tapped the actor to play magazine editor Peter Van Wherry in the epic Reds (1981). While he was miscast opposite Barbra Streisand in the triangular romantic comedy All Night Long (also 1981), the actor brought depth and conviction to his performance as a straying husband undergoing a mid-life crisis in Twice in a Lifetime (1985, perhaps drawing on his own 1982 separation from his first wife). Re-energized, the actor went on to etch several memorable characterizations in the 80s, including a small-town high school basketball coach in Hoosiers (1986), a cold-hearted Secretary of Defense in the thriller No Way Out (1987) and a good ol' boy FBI agent investigating the murders of civil rights workers in the 60s-era drama Mississippi Burning (1988), for which he picked up yet another Best Actor Oscar nomination.

At the dawn of the 90s, Hackman alternated between leads (the lawyer up against his own daughter in Class Action 1991) and finely carved cameo appearances (the film director in Postcards From the Edge 1990). Surgery in 1990 for heart problems provoked another hiatus but the actor roared back with yet another fascinating role, the sadistic, smiling sheriff Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992). Infusing this effective lawman with a streak of decency, the actor sketched a character that was profoundly ambiguous, one that could be either heroic or villainous. Critics and audiences embraced the film and Hackman's character and he earned not only stellar reviews but numerous prizes capped by a second Oscar, this time as the year's Best Supporting Actor.

Healthy and in-demand, the prolific character player embarked on another round of seemingly non-stop roles. While Sydney Pollack cast him as the burnt-out lawyer and mentor to Tom Cruise who is powerless to help his protege in The Firm (1993), the majority of his roles were in Westerns. Hackman was the sympathetic general in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), the moral compass of Wyatt Earp (1994) as the family's patriarch, and an almost-spoof of Little Bill as the gunslinger in the loopy The Quick and the Dead (1995).

Loosening up a bit, Hackman displayed his assured comedic gifts as the hack filmmaker of Get Shorty (1995) and the conservative politician who plays straight man (on more than one level) to Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in The Birdcage (1996). The actor was also more willing to explore darker figures as well, playing a sinister surgeon in Extreme Measures and a racist killer on death row in The Chamber (both 1996). The ambiguity at which he excels could be viewed in his turn as a US President embroiled in a murder investigation in Absolute Power (1997) and, in a nod to The Conversation, as a renegade NSA agent in the thriller Enemy of the State (1998).

Having completely conquered Hollywood, Hackman turned his sights on the world of publishing, completing the manuscript for his first novel in 1998 with plans for others. 1999 marked both the year the actor's novel was published and one of the few years in decades that the actor hadn't starred in a released feature. The following year he returned to the big screen as an NFL coach heading up The Replacements, a ragtag collection of players filling in for a striking team. Later he was featured in Under Suspicion Stephen Hopkins' nervy reworking of the French film Garde a vu, playing a wealthy attorney suspected of rape and murder, flawlessly evincing his characters personal turmoil and working well within Hopkins' interesting and unconventional use of flashback sequences.

Hackman started out a busy 2001 with an uncredited cameo in The Mexican, followed by a charming role as a billionaire reeled in by mother-daughter beauties Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt in the unremarkable con-women comedy Heartbreakers. He headed up the impressive cast of David Mamet's Heist with yet another note-perfect and seemingly effortless performance lending both bravado and vulnerability to his almost untouchable veteran master thief. Next up for the actor was a role as a steely admiral who risks his career when he puts people over politics in an effort to save a maverick navigator (Owen Wilson) shot down Behind Enemy Lines in Bosnia. Hackman reteamed with Wilson on the actor-screenwriter's The Royal Tenenbaums, playing the rascally titular patriarch of a dysfunctional family of geniuses. Director Wes Anderson admitted to creating the funny but touching role for Hackman though the actor has vocally opposed such endeavors. The finished product (and Hackman's acclaimed and award-winning performance) served as proof that the helmer had had the right idea. Hackman reunited with his Tenenbaums co-star Owen Wilson for the decidedly more conventional (and less involving) military thriller Behind Enemy Lines (2001), playing a Navy admiral bucking his orders and the military bureaucracy to save a downed pilot (Wilson). After receiving a special Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes ceremony in 2003, the actor was next seen on screen in Runaway Jury (2003), an adaptation of author John Grisham's bestselling legal potboiler, in which he played Rankin Fitch, a high-priced and morally bankrupt jury "consultant" who will stop at nothing to control the outcome of a crucial trail verdict. For the first time, Hackman played opposite his friend of many decades, Dustin Hoffman.

Biographical data supplied by TCMdb