Gene Hackman

Eugene Allen Hackman made his credited debut in Lilith in 1964 and spent the next forty years becoming the kind of actor other actors studied. He won his first Oscar playing Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection in 1971, collected nominations for Bonnie and Clyde, I Never Sang for My Father, and Mississippi Burning, then took a second statue for the villainous sheriff in Unforgiven in 1992. Between those bookends he became Lex Luthor across three Superman films, survived The Poseidon Adventure, unraveled in The Conversation, and moved through Hoosiers, Crimson Tide, Get Shorty, The Bir…