TCM Celebrates Gene Hackman’s 95th Birthday With a Mini Movie Marathon

NIGHT MOVES, Gene Hackman, 1975
Everett Collection

Eugene Allen Hackman was born 95 years ago today (Jan. 30, 1930) in San Bernardino, California. He, of course, became famous onscreen as Gene Hackman, one of the most acclaimed actors of all time. He retired from acting about 20 years ago, but not before racking up an astounding and award-winning resumé of film roles, five of which you will see this evening as Turner Classic Movies celebrates the birthday boy.

These are all titles from Hackman’s participation as a formative part of the “New Hollywood” in the late 1960s and ’70s, beginning with one of his most iconic roles: as NYPD Detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in the Best Picture Oscar-winning crime thriller The French Connection (1971), a performance that won Hackman the Best Actor Oscar. After that comes another classic Hackman character, private investigator Harry Moseby, the protagonist of the fairly bleak 1975 neo-noir thriller Night Moves.

Next, Hackman costars with fellow acting icon Al Pacino in the road comedy/drama Scarecrow (1973). Hackman revisited the neo-noir genre in the following film, 1977’s The Domino Principle, which was directed by Stanley Kramer, costars Candice Bergen and Mickey Rooney, and is making its TCM premiere. The Hackman birthday bash concludes with The Gypsy Moths (1969), a drama directed by John Frankenheimer and led by Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION, Gene Hackman, 1971,

20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy: Everett Collection.

All movies air on TCM, beginning at 8pm ET.

8pmThe French Connection

10pmNight Moves

12amScarecrow

2amThe Domino Principle

4amThe Gypsy Moths

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September 2019

Cary Grant, Sean Connery, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman, smoldered onscreen and, in addition to being smokin’ hot, they were effortlessly cool.

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