Morgan Freeman paid a special tribute to Gene Hackman Sunday night at the Oscars, calling the late actor a “giant” and a “dear friend.”
“This week our community lost a giant and I lost a dear friend, Gene Hackman,” said Freeman.
The 95-year-old actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Feb. 26. An investigation into the cause of their deaths, and that of one of their dogs, is ongoing.
“I had the pleasure of working alongside Gene on two films, ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘Under Suspicion.’ Like everyone ever shared a scene with him, I learned he was a generous performer and a man whose gifts elevated everyone’s work,” Freeman continued. Hackman won his second Oscar for playing the villain who kills Freeman’s character in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western.
Freeman recalled Hackman telling him, “‘I don’t think about legacy. I just hope people remember me as someone who tried to do good work.’ So I think I’ll speak for us all when I say, you will be remembered for that and for so much more. Rest in peace, my friend.”
The In Memoriam video played afterward, which honored stars and industry professionals Hollywood lost in the last year, including Maggie Smith, Gena Rowlands, John Amos, Louis Gossett, Jr., James Earl Jones and Donald Sutherland.
Hackman was also edited into the end of the In Memoriam montage, closing with a line from the 1983 film “Uncommon Valor” in which he quoted from William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar”: “If we meet again, well then we’ll smile, and if not then this parting was well made.”
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