Nathan Lane shared a touching tribute to Gene Hackman following the legendary actor’s stunning dying final month.
Lane, who starred alongside Hackman in Mike Nichols’ 1996 movie “The Birdcage,” opened up about his time taking pictures the comedy throughout a Tuesday evening look on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
“I think I told him every morning he was my favorite actor,” Lane, 69, stated of the late “Unforgiven” star.
“It was the thrill of a lifetime to get to work with him,” Lane continued. “He was such, one of the greats of the screen, and I was just very fortunate to share that time with him.”
“The Birdcage” sees Lane and Robin Williams painting a homosexual couple getting ready to satisfy their son’s soon-to-be in-laws – performed by Hackman and Dianne Wiest.
Lane mentioned one scene particularly and the way Hackman was capable of do a comedy “beautifully.” He additionally recalled pestering Hackman about all of the earlier films the “Superman” actor starred in.
“When we were shooting that scene, that dinner scene, we were all at a table for a whole week, so every morning, I would tell him he was my favorite actor, and I would say, ‘Tell me about The Conversation. Tell me about Scarecrow — you and Pacino,’” Lane instructed Colbert.
“And he would go, ‘Scarecrow? You liked Scarecrow?’” Lane added. “He was like Spencer Tracy: you couldn’t catch him acting, he could do comedy or drama beautifully, and he was such a smart actor.”
Additionally stunning was “The Producers” star’s declare that there was “kind of a slight flirtation going on” between him and Hackman in the course of the filming of “The Birdcage.”
“He was brilliant at comedy, and I do remember we had a scene where he and I are dancing, and we’re singing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night,’” Lane recalled to “The Late Show.”
“And then at the end, we’re leaving the scene,” Lane continued. “We’re going into dinner. And I ad-libbed, I said, ‘You know, I played Eliza in high school,’ and he said, ‘I bet you were wonderful.’”
“There’s kind of a slight flirtation going on there, which was hilarious.”
Lane’s touching remarks got here simply weeks after Hackman and his spouse, Betsy Arakawa, had been discovered lifeless inside their Santa Fe, New Mexico dwelling on February 26. Hackman was 95. Arakawa was 65.
New Mexico Chief Medical Examiner Heather Jarrell and Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza revealed throughout a press convention final Friday that Hackman “was in very poor health” forward of his dying. In addition they confirmed that the “French Connection” star’s dying was attributable to coronary heart issues and superior Alzheimer’s illness.
“Examination of the brain showed advanced Alzheimer’s disease as well as blood vessel changes in the brain,” Jarrell stated in the course of the press convention.
She additionally claimed that, in response to proof of a “cardiac event” recorded by his pacemaker, Hackman probably died on February 18 and roughly one week after his spouse.
“It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman died on February 18,” Jarrell stated.
Arakawa’s reason for dying was attributed to a flu-like sickness referred to as Hantavirus – a virus unfold primarily by rodent feces.
In line with Sheriff Mendoza, Arakawa was final seen – and probably handed away – on February 11.
“Numerous emails were unopened on her computer on February 11,” he instructed reporters. “There was no additional outgoing communication from her or known activity after February 11, 2025.”
Certainly one of Hackman and Arakawa’s three canine, Zinna, was additionally discovered lifeless in a crate in the identical rest room the place Arakawa’s physique was found.
