Gene Hackman Was the “Most Impressive” Celebrity Driver Bob Bondurant Ever Coached

Before I write a little about the afternoon I spent with actor/gentleman racer Gene Hackman—who was found dead Wednesday in his Santa Fe, New Mexico, home with his wife and one of their dogs—I should explain how I got the interview.

At the time, I was working for the Dallas Times Herald newspaper, where I was not necessarily known for being a good reporter as much as a prolific one; I could turn an interview into a story pretty quickly. I kind of fell into a role that I referred to as the “PPTT” reporter, who interviewed People Passing Through Town. That covered a wide spectrum of semi-newsworthy individuals, from Western movie star Lash LaRue to drag queen Divine to TV personality Art Linkletter, whom I interviewed in the managing editor’s office. Linkletter began telling stories, which were so fascinating that people started drifting into the office to listen to them—half the newsroom eventually squeezed in.

The key to starting a conversation, especially with a mildly recalcitrant subject, is to find a common interest. I happened to be writing a weekly test drive column then, and I was also writing a lot about airplanes, and both those interests came into play with Hackman.

Also with lawyer-turned-novelist George V. Higgins, whose best-known book, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, was turned into a successful movie that starred Robert Mitchum. Higgins, who despised interviews almost as much as he hated book tours, showed up slightly drunk, in the company of a woman whose job it was to pick up celebrities at the airport and transport them around town to various interviews. She and I were friends.

“This is the last interview I’m ever doing,” Higgins pronounced. “I’ve cancelled the rest of the book tour, and I’m going home after this interview.” Wide-eyed, I looked at the woman accompanying him, and with pursed lips, she nodded that it was true.

Huh! That’s pressure. Shortly, the subject somehow turned to cars. Higgins loved them and wanted to know what I’d been driving. Then he asked, “What do you have now?” I told him it was an Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais, powered by the brand-new “Quad 4,” a 2.3-liter, twin-cam, four-valve four-cylinder—GM’s first attempt at designing and building such an engine.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he said, so we did. He insisted on driving, and he was in a spirited mood. I sat in the passenger seat, holding my little tape recorder, and his minder for the day squeezed into the back seat. I got my interview, and I’m not sure if Higgins ever gave another one.

Anyway. I met Gene Hackman, one of my favorite actors, in a dark Dallas restaurant. He was alone, which was unusual—no hovering public relations people. As we were eating, talk turned to racing and to airplanes. Hackman was an accomplished stunt pilot and owned several stunt planes. I recall that we commiserated over the recent death of a friend and mentor of his, professional stunt pilot Art Scholl, killed in 1985 during the filming of Top Gun when his Pitts S-2 camera plane did not recover from a spin and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. Neither the plane nor Scholl’s body were recovered. Scholl’s last words over the radio were, “I have a problem‚ I have a real problem.”

Then racing. I once asked Bob Bondurant, the racing coach who trained a long list of celebrities, who the most talented one was. “Gene Hackman,” he replied immediately. “He was the most impressive.” He said Hackman, one of the most mild-mannered men I’ve ever met, would fully commit, with a “win, or crash trying to win” mindset. Hackman just shrugged when I told him that. In a Los Angeles Times story by legendary celebrity writer Nikki Finke, Hackman said that pro race car drivers have to have “that killer instinct.” Bondurant said he thought Hackman did.

Hackman raced Formula Fords with the SCCA before moving into sports cars in the early 1980s, participating in the 1983 24 Hours of Daytona, driving a Toyota Celica for his friend, Dan Gurney, whose All American Racers had entered three Celicas in the race, one of them driven by Willy T. Ribbs and Wally Dallenbach, Jr.

Hackman co-drove with a pair of Japanese Toyota factory racers, one of them Masanori Sekwiniya, who, 12 years later, would score an overall win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, driving a McLaren F1 GTR. Hackman’s Celica finished 57th at Daytona in a field of 79 cars. A few months later Hackman raced an AAR Celica at the 6 Hours of Riverside, alongside Dallenbach and Margie Smith-Haas. They finished 16th.

In 1984, Hackman raced in the 12 Hours of Sebring in a Mazda RX-7, with wealthy racer-turned-art-collector Whitney Ganz. They suffered a DNF and finished 56th in the 81-car field. Later that year, they raced the RX-7 at the 6 Hours of Riverside, finishing 52nd in a 52-car field. Interestingly, the winner of the race was the Blue Thunder March-Chevrolet, driven by Randy Lanier and Bill Whittington. Both were subsequently convicted of marijuana smuggling to finance the race team.

It’s not surprising, then, that Hackman would win the celebrity portion of the 1980 Toyota Pro Celebrity race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. It may be surprising that, in 1987, he lost to Jason Bateman.

All this was discussed, except probably the Jason Bateman thing, which I don’t think had happened yet, as my lunch with Hackman continued into the afternoon. That was 40 years ago. I remember leaving the restaurant thinking that I’d just met one of the most humble, self-effacing celebrities ever. He’ll be missed.