Gene & Me

When I was 12 I developed an obsession with the actor, Gene Hackman.

I can’t remember what sparked it, how I came across Gene Hackman to become so obsessed with him, but it might have had to do with a paperback my older sister had of Academy Award nominees.

I spent hours with that paperback, Paul Newman was on the cover, the photo of him from Hud. Sometimes I even brought it along with me to school, to remind myself that there was a whole world for me out there beyond the pedestrian one of grade six at Francis H. Clergue in Sault Ste. Marie.

I remember studying a black and white photo in it, a photo from I Never Sang for My Father (Gene Hackman was nominated for Best Supporting Actor) and being annoyed that the blurb was about Melvyn Douglas, who was nominated for Best Actor. But I’m pretty sure I started studying the photo after the spark had been lit, and that it came from somewhere else, possibly my older brother’s paperback of The French Connection, which featured Roy Schneider and Gene Hackman on the cover. And, of course, my older sister had magazines that may have featured him, and I read the Sault Star, which I remember did a big spread on him one weekend. But I can only remember already being obsessed with him, I can’t remember how the obsession came to be.

Anyway, that’s not what this story is about, because this story is about what happened when I found out The French Connection was going to be playing at the Princess theatre in the west end, for one night, during the week, and that it was rated R for restricted to persons age 18 and older.

Now, like I said, I was 12. And I looked 12. But there was no way I was not going to see The French Connection. Cripes, I was this close to finding my way to the San Fernando Valley where Gene Hackman lived at the time. (This is all from memory so I could be wrong about that, memory being such a faulty fact checker, although I do remember studying maps and highways and trying to figure out how I could bus it to the San Fernando Valley from the Sault.)

All that mattered was that the French Connection was coming to the Sault and I was going to see it one way or another.

By this time, my older brother, M, and my older sister, S, knew about my obsession with Gene Hackman. If you have older siblings, you can imagine what great sport it was for them that I did, too. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Gene Hackman, but it would probably seem weird to just about anybody that a 12 year old girl was obsessed with him. He was over forty, after all, and with what even I would have conceded at the time was a potato face.

Oh my goodness. You’re not going to believe this, but just now, writing that, I know why I had an obsession with Gene Hackman – over 40 with a potato face – just like my father, who died at 45 when I was four!

Holy Breakthrough, Batman!

But that’s not what this story is about, either – although it would have been helpful if S and M had put two and two together for me fifty years ago, instead of me having to wait until just now writing this story to realize why I had an obsession with Gene Hackman when I was 12 years old.

Anyway, to continue, my older sister pretty much lived her life as if she was an only orphan but I must say that she could be counted on to help out in situations that required by-the-book me doing something illicit. (This led to me being in more than a few sketchy situations because S was good at helping me get into them, but never around to help me get out of them.)

“Okay so you know how you and M are always making fun of me for admiring Gene Hackman’s acting abilities?”

“You’re obsessed with him. It’s weird. He’s a thousand years old with a potato face. You’re 12.”

“No. It’s not weird. He’s an academy award nominated actor. The French Connection is going to be at the Princess and I really want to go but it’s restricted. Also it’s during the week. Wednesday.”

“Hm. Okay. I’ll do your make-up. You can wear one of my outfits. Mom’s trench coat! I’ll give you my ID. Probably they won’t even look at you. No one’s expecting a kid to want to see The French Connection. But don’t make eye contact. They’ll see right away that you’re only 8, I mean, 10.”

Anyway, Wednesday came, and S was true to her word. She put foundation, lipstick, eye-liner – the works on my 12-year-old face. I wore her grey flannel pants, which were actually a bit tight, although too long, because I was a normal-sized 12-year-old and S was a willowy ballerina (also a hippie legend in the Sault and then Toronto where she moved to go to university and never looked back).

This would lead to me having an eating disorder, of course, but that’s a whole ‘nother story, that is.

S even distracted our mother in the living room while I took her trench coat from the closet and snuck out the side door to begin my trek to the Princess, which, like I said, was in the west end.

Fortunately, I was a distance runner at the time, every night doing 2.5 miles, 5 on weekend nights, although not used to running in S’s stupid shoes, and so clocked in at about 30 minutes, which got me to the Princess right at show time. Like S had figured, when I bought my ticket the woman didn’t even look up. The usher gave me the once over, though, so I quickly slipped into the dark theatre where The French Connection had already started.

Anyway, all I really remember about the movie itself is Gene Hackman driving home and seeing a young woman riding a bike. Then the scene cut to a sexual encounter having taken place. Now, for sure, that was always the vague part about my obsession with Gene Hackman, which I realize now makes sense, and I was put off by the scene, although I don’t think it made me any less obsessed with Gene Hackman. It might have done, though, I can’t remember what ended the obsession just like I can’t remember what sparked it.

Perhaps it just gradually fizzled when my obsession with Bob Dylan took over.

In any case, I saw The French Connection through to the almost end, exiting before the lights came on, walked/ran home, snuck back in to the house and began the process of removing all that make-up from my face, wondering all the while how S could stand having it on hers.

And then began what this story is really about because this story is really about what asshole jerks older siblings are to younger siblings with Gene Hackman obsessions. Because now, now that S and M (yes, I see it now!) both knew I’d snuck in to see The French Connection, so began the coy references to it whenever we were all anywhere together with our mother.

No wait, not coy references, asshole jerk references.

“It’s too bad Kathryn didn’t get to see The French Connection when it was here on account of it was restricted and there was only one showing during the week.”

And so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc. It went on for days, weeks, months. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and blurted out in the car to our mother: “I went to see The French Connection!”

Now, if I’d been a smarter kid I would have noticed by now that our mother, who was widowed with four children under the age of ten, preferred to be left out of kid world and whatever was going on in our lives. Voicing a problem to my mother almost always got the same response: “Well you’re not exactly a widow with four young children, are you?”

Except it wasn’t a question.

Anyway, my mother, without taking her eyes off the road, asked, “How did you get in?”

“I loaned her my ID!” S piped up. “She really wanted to see it! She’s in love with Gene Hackman!”

Then, and I remember this part like it was yesterday, my mother said, “I saw Gene Hackman on Johnny Carson doing a fundraising pitch for George McGovern. Lovely man. He really explained it well, what fundraising is all about. Those Americans, though, they’re crazy. They’ll elect Nixon. Well you shouldn’t have loaned Kathryn your ID. If she’d been caught I would have had to go out in the car at night and pick her up. I work all day. I do not want to go out in the car at night and pick up one of my kids because they’ve done something stupid.”

So true. If there was one thing my mother did not EVER want to do, it was to be called upon to pick us up, night or day, no matter the situation. I broke my leg during a gymnastics display a year later (because I was a long distance runner, not a gymnast) and she yelled at me all the way to the hospital. Why? Because the principal had put in a call to Sir James Dunn, where she was the librarian (which is why we had copies of the Galloping Gourmet’s cookbooks at home) and she had to leave work to drive me there.

Really, our lives as kids pretty much revolved around not getting into a situation that would require a phone call to our mother to pick us up.

Anyway, that’s my Gene Hackman story. The next fall S went away to university and a year after that M went away to university, too. But thanks to their asshole jerkery, I had learned to keep my weird obsessions to myself when I went off to high school a year later.