Gene Hackman, 93, must have excellent genes since he seemed 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 been in a film in over two decades, appeared to be in fantastic form, doing yard 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 a Wendy’s drive-thru.
Afterwards, the Royal Tenenbaums star fuelled himself in two ways: he pumped gas and got a coffee at a gas station.
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 shoes for an energetic day out.
He took precautions to shield himself from the sun by wearing black sunglasses and a khaki baseball cap.
His grey hair was tucked behind his ear under the hat, and he sported his trademark moustache.
That was a rare glimpse 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 in which he said that he had no new film projects in the works and that his acting career was done.
Years later, when marketing his third book, Escape From Andersonville, in 2008, he announced his retirement.
In 2011, Hackman was asked whether he would ever come out of retirement to shoot another film, to which he replied that if he could do it in his own place, maybe, without them disrupting anything and with just one or two people.
He hasn’t fully left the business, either, as he has narrated two Marine Corps documentaries: The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima (2016) and We, The Marines (2017). (2017).
Hackman’s acting career started over 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 started appearing in various Off-Broadway productions and minor TV parts.
The actor gained fame 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 role as New York City Detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection.
He continued to work steadily after that, with roles in disaster films The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), before winning the part of supervillain Lex Luthor in 1978’s Superman: The Movie.
During the 1980s, he was in many movies, such as Reds (1981), Under Fire (1983), Hoosiers (1986), No Way Out (1987), and Mississippi Burning (1988).
In 1992, he won his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as cruel sheriff ‘Little’ Bill Daggett with Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.
He also appeared in Narrow Margin (1990), Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), The Firm (1993), The Chamber (1996), Wyatt Earp (1994), The Quick And The Dead (1995), Crimson Tide (1995), Get Shorty (1995), Absolute Power (1997), The Birdcage (1996), and Enemy Of The State (1996) during that decade (1998).
Hackman remained busy in the early 2000s, with appearances in Beyond Enemy Lines (2001), Heist (2001), Runaway Jury (2003), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy.
