Any movie star worth his salt should have a distinctive manner of speaking. Jimmy Stewart charmed with his stammer, Orson Welles impressed with his baritone, and Gene Hackman elicited fear and respect with what can only be described as his bark.
Hackman died last month at age 95. On Feb. 26, the bodies of Hackman and his second wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found in the house they shared in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but as of press time, authorities have not announced the cause of either death.
In youth and old age, in drama or comedy, Hackman seemed perpetually prepared to engage in verbal combat with his co-stars: to badger, to hound, to chew up and spit out. In William Friedkin’s 1971 crime masterpiece The French
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