Gene Hackman, 93, must have good genes since he appeared healthy when he was observed out and about in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Sunday for the first time in years.
The renowned two-time Oscar winner, who hasn’t appeared in a film in nearly two decades, appeared to be in fantastic health, doing garden work with a shovel at his property.
Previously, the retired actor ate a fast food meal in a parking lot in his white truck after passing through Wendy’s drive-thru.
Later, the Royal Tenenbaums star fuelled himself in two ways: he pumped petrol and got a coffee at a gas station.
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman, who has over 100 credits to his name, wore a black Columbia fleece jumper over a grey long-sleeve t-shirt, blue trousers, and black trainers for an energetic day out.
He made cautious about protecting himself from the sun by wearing black sunglasses and a khaki baseball cap.
His grey hair was tucked behind his ear beneath the hat, and he sported his trademark mustache.
It was a rare sighting of the actor, whose most recent film appearance was in the 2004 comedy Welcome To Mooseport opposite Ray Romano and Christine Baranski.
On July 7, the same year, he gave a rare interview with Larry King, stating that he had no new film projects in the works and that his acting career was made.
Years later, he announced his retirement when marketing his third novel, Escape From Andersonville, in 2008.
In 2011, GQ asked Gene Hackman if he would ever come out of retirement to do another film, to which he said, ‘If I could do it in my own place, maybe, without them disrupting anything and with just one or two people.’
He hasn’t fully left the industry, as he has voiced two Marine Corps documentaries: The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima (2016) and We, The Marines (2017).
Gene Hackman’s acting career began nearly 70 years ago when he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in 1956 when he met fellow aspiring actor Dustin Hoffman.
In 1963, he relocated to New York and began appearing in various Off-Broadway productions and minor TV parts.
The actor gained his name in the 1970s when he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film I Never Sang For My Father.
The following year, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as New York City Detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection.
He continued to work steadily after that, including roles in disaster films The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), before winning the role of supervillain Lex Luthor in 1978’s Superman: The Movie.
