Dark at the End of the Tunnel: Gene Hackman and The French Connection

SteynonLine ^ | January 17, 2026 | Rick McGinnis

[Twotone]

Gene Hackman was still alive the last time I wrote about him here, in a column about Arthur Penn's 1975 neo-noir Night Moves. But early last year, news broke – a confused story that was revealed piecemeal in a series of sordid details – that Hackman, his wife Betsy and their dog had been found dead in their home outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Hackman, who suffered from Alzheimer's and was quietly estranged from the children of his first marriage, had been dead for eight days and had been alone in the house with their three dogs for at least six after Betsy had died of pulmonary hantavirus. Police reports stated that their bodies showed signs of mummification in the dry desert air. It was all so unspeakably sad.

The vivid, often aggressive figure Hackman cut onscreen is hard to square with the (rather overcooked) portrait Joy Williams paints in "One Four Two Five Old Sunset Trail", a feature about the Hackmans' last days in the November issue of Harpers, and of a man for whom, as Williams writes, "discretion had devolved into reclusion, privacy into withdrawal":

"For fourteen days after Betsy's death, no one came to the property. The cadre of help most wealthy people surround themselves with was nonexistent. There was no majordomo or maid or gardener or cook, no conditioning coach or groomer or therapist or secretary. There were just two dogs roaming the necropolis all that while, unseen and unheard."

Fans of Hackman's work would have been dismayed by the story while they had, over the years, been quietly prepared for such a bleak ending by Hackman's best films and the unhappy place they usually left him at the end.

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TOPICS: History; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: frenchconnection; genehackman; hackman; hollywood; movies

[Larry Lucido]

RIP Lex Luthor

[Fido969]

Saw that in the theater.

[Stosh]

Put Poughkeepsie on the map . . .

[MikelTackNailer]

His role as the rebellious young preacher in "The Poseidon Adventure" threatened to overshadow it's all-star cast, while his villains like "Unforgiven"'s Little Bill and "The Quick and the Dead"'s Herod were especially effective by his carefully showing glimpses of their diminishing humanity.

Perhaps most importantly his roles (role revisited) in "The Conversation" and "Enemy of the State" taught us that we we're not paranoid - but the opposite by not being paranoid enough.

[xp38]

Great essay. Steyn still has it.

[xp38]

oops...my mistake Rick McGinnis