Tom Brogan

Over on Twitter a while ago Chris Ward tweeted that Gene Hackman should be as much loved by the internet as Bill Murray. Grantland has a profile of Hackman looking at some of his 79 films and reminding us that while he may be retired he's still one of the greatest living actors.

"He couldn’t have planned it this way, but Hackman had aged into a screen persona — he looked like he had spent years driving a truck or working as a doorman before lucking into the movies, because that’s basically what had happened. Hackman might’ve studied the Method under Lee Strasberg (“He played with people’s heads a lot,” he recalled derisively of Strasberg in 2001), but he could just be and be authentic onscreen."

Here he is below picking up his Oscar for The French Connection.