Posted on 03/02/2025 2:22:46 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman was found dead last week at age 95. Following news of his death, a resurfaced 2001 interview with James Lipton for Inside the Actors Studio began making the rounds on social media. A clip of the interview focuses on the lasting pain Hackman suffered when his father abandoned the family.
Lipton asked Hackman how old he was when his father left. Hackman replied, “I was about 13 I guess. I was down the street playing with some guys, and he drove by and kind of waved and that was it.” Hackman appeared to get choked up before joking,
“It’s only been 65 years or so.”
On another occasion, he said of his father’s leaving,
“It was a real adios. It was so precise. Maybe that’s why I became an actor. I doubt I would have become so sensitive to human behavior if that hadn’t happened to me as a child — if I hadn’t realized how much one small gesture can mean.”
After marrying and starting a family, Hackman’s long absences created both physical and emotional distance between him and his own children. They were estranged at times, but in later years, they would reconnect.
Fathers play a crucial role in the family, but their importance is often undervalued by society. According to the National Center for Fathering, “[C]hildren from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems.”
(Excerpt) Read more at liveaction.org ...
“Cigars!”
“A clip of the interview focuses on the lasting pain Hackman suffered when his father abandoned the family.”
WTF dude, you got to 95 and were STILL hung up on family stuff that happened 80 years ago? ... it’s not like you were starved or beaten ... sounds to me like you never grew up ... REAL ADULTS get move past mommy and daddy and get over this stuff, move on in life, and live it the best they can without a lot of whinging and whining about what mommy and daddy may or may not have done ...
My childhood experience was
Different. Father worked long hours handling kingdom’s guest house with British guests, and managing king’s vast collection of jewelry. I only saw him once at dinner time, and he never inquired about my school grades. My mother watched my school work like a hawk. If my grades were not up to her expectations, she would take away all my perks, toys & play time. I hated her drill sergeant behavior. But looking back I owe her all my success in college and later in engineering field.
I read that in “Little Bill’s” voice.
I am fifty and only in the last few years have I been able to move past the hurt that my mother inflicted upon me.
I was employed in the mental health field for almost four years (until the Biden economy forced me to look for work that paid more). I was regularly working with adults, some older than I, who were still in recovery from things that happened when they were children.
Child abuse resonates and rings long into life. I suppose I'm very fortunate, I have had good people who God brought into my own life who have helped me move along. Others aren't so fortunate.
Oh, come on. First of all, in this clip he was around 74. And his dad just up and left without so much as an explanation. That kind of thing can rip at a boy's soul. Also when he was 30 his mother died in a house fire, so most of his life he had no parents at all.
Catherine, Princess of Wales is really onto something by devoting much of her royal capital towards the work of studying ‘The Early Years’
“...Over the last decade, The Princess of Wales has spent time looking into how experiences in early childhood are often the root cause of today’s hardest social challenges, such as addiction, family breakdown, poor mental health, suicide and homelessness...What we experience in our early years, from conception to the age of five, shapes the developing brain, which is why positive physical, emotional and cognitive development during this period is so crucial...In June 2021, The Princess of Wales launched The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.”
https://royalfoundation.com/early-childhood/
One thing about articles like this,
Is MOM is never the problem!
BS!
She gets the house, moves her boyfriend in, and dad
pays all the bills!
That is how it really works.
Effing Courts!
Mom had had 4 marriages I got drug through three of them.
I managed to escape from my mother and get to a stable home.
Finally as an adult tell her to EFF off!
Don’t assume the guy is always at fault.
Our court systems destroy Fathers.
Fathers have just as much claims to their kids
as mothers do.
Just so you don’t think I’m bitter, been married to the same woman for 47 years, have a kid, and lots of family.
My sense is Hackman came of age in the pre-feminist generation. Not to say that the phenomenon didn't exist in reverse...but I think it happened a lot more in the generation(s) following.
ere STILL hung up on family stuff that happened 80 years ago? ... it’s not like you were starved or beaten ... sounds to me like you never grew up ... REAL ADULTS get move past mommy and daddy and get over this stuff, move on in life, and live it the best they can without a lot of whinging and whining about what mommy and daddy may or may not have done ...”
I disagree - Things and Events that hurt the individual are not so easy to out out of your life.
If you never had such an event in your life you would appreciate the lasting pain he was feeling.
I've read Hackman insisted on these two waving scenes in the French Connection because they reminded him of his fathers leaving
For most people, what happens in your childhood can stay with you for the rest of your life. At some point you move on, but the memories remain and mold how you become an adult.
I guess it's better than havin a real azzole for a Father but mebbe that's the same thing. And it helps in some aspects. Ya learn to count on yourself instead of others.
If someone grew up with a good Father in the house it would be hard to be familiar with these things.
He wasn’t hung up on it- he became one of the world’s greatest actors in spite of his pain and even used it to further his career goals.
But that doesn’t mean the wounds heal.
Glad you are here Citizen.
It was only after my brother killed himself because he tried to be like my Dad and couldn’t, my sister killed herself because she didn’t want to end up angry like he was, my Mom killed herself because she couldn’t be as perfect as my Dad previously required of her, and I survived my ex-wife trying to destroy my life for 5 years that I learned I am one tough son of a bitch.
Oh, and I was disowned for 30 years because my ex was Jewish.
I learned early on to not care much what others thought, and bulldozed ahead trying to do the right thing by my own lights.
Eventually, it worked.
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