These Three Hollywood Legends All Lived Together – And The Stories Are Truly Wild
Imagine three aspiring actors living close-knit lives. Young, carefree and reckless, they spend their days womanizing and getting into fights on the streets of New York. Now imagine that these hell-raising kids will grow up to become some of Hollywood’s most celebrated stars. Sounds unbelievable? Well, for Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman, it’s apparently true.
Between themselves they have five Academy Awards and 19 nominations. But at first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking that’s all actors Hoffman, Duvall and Hackman have in common. Because not only do these thespians seem to have come from different sides of the tracks, but they’ve barely worked with each other either.
Sure, there have been a couple of occasions when some of them shared the same screen. Both Duvall and Hackman starred in Geronimo: An American Legend in 1993, while the latter acted alongside Hoffman in 2003’s Runaway Jury. On the whole, though, these three always seem to have run in different circles.
Yet all three titans of acting have a storied history that goes beyond their statuses as screen legends. For close to seven decades, these famous faces have shared one of Hollywood’s least likely friendships. And it all began in 1956 when two misfit acting hopefuls met at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Then a 27-year-old former Marine from the Midwest, Hackman did not look or act like anyone else at the school. But among all the beach-ready bodies of his Californian classmates, the acting hopeful found someone who also didn’t fit in. “The first time I saw [him, he was] in a, uh, corduroy vest,” he told The New York Times in 2003 of his and Hoffman’s first meeting.
