Friends of Gene Hackman aren’t staying silent amid recent allegations made against him a year after his passing.
Actress Liza Minnelli accused the actor of being “dismissive” and “rude” to her when they worked together on the 1975 film “Lucky Lady,” but Hackman’s friends claim it’s not true.
Gene Hackman, alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa and one of their dogs, was mysteriously found dead in his New Mexico home last February.
Gene Hackman’s Friends Hit Back At Liza Minnelli
It’s been more than a year since Hackman’s passing, but he faces a fresh allegation from his former co-star Liza Minnelli, who accused him of being “downright rude” to her in her recently released memoir, “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!”
According to a report, Hackman’s Friends are not happy with the Broadway icon and have hit back at her claims.
“Gene can’t defend himself,” a longtime friend of the late actor said. “Going after someone who’s dead feels cowardly.”
“If Liza wants to talk about rude behavior, she should look in the mirror,” a harsher source noted. “She was a nightmare on set.”
The Late Actor’s Friends Claim Liza Minnelli Was Not ‘Easy’ To Work With
In the Stanley Donen-directed comedy-drama, the 79-year-old Oscar-winning actress played Claire, a singer who promises to help two businessmen, Kibby Womack [Hackman] and Ellison Walker [Burt Reynolds], smuggle alcohol from Mexico to the U.S.
However, it appears that there were some underlying tensions on set as sources told journalist, Rob Shuter, that things didn’t really go smoothly due to Minnelli.
“Liza was often late, sometimes sick, and not always prepared,” the insider said. “Working with someone struggling with addiction isn’t easy.”
“She wanted to be treated like Hollywood royalty,” they continued. “And when she didn’t get that, things got difficult fast.”
Some Broadway insiders also alleged that Minnelli faced such complaints from people who worked with her on “Victor/Victoria.”
“Cast members would call in sick when they knew she was performing,” a theater insider said. “They joked they had ‘influenza with a Z.’”
What Liza Minnelli Said About Gene Hackman
The “Cabaret” actress wrote in her book that one of the reasons she agreed to star in the movie despite not liking it was because she “respected” Hackman’s work, although as she puts it, the feeling “wasn’t mutual.”
“I don’t like to whine, but [director] Stanley [Donen] later shared publicly that Gene was very dismissive of me during the film,” she writes, per USA Today. “It’s hard to go to work when the chemistry is absent. I think it’s fair to say that Gene was downright rude.”
In her book, Minnelli also claims that the film suffered from a “cliched script,” which “screamed disaster from page 1,” adding, “The powers that be made the old mistake of counting box-office receipts before the film was hatched — and we all paid the price.”
She continued, “Imagine a film where the script is lousy, the director gets increasingly frustrated, there are nasty tensions behind the scenes, and, worst of all, you have to spend months — six months — filming on an old, rickety boat off the coast of Mexico.”
Burt Reynolds Hinted That Gene Hackman Was Hard On Liza Minnelli
Hackman and his wife were found dead in their Santa Fe home in early 2025, and Minnelli notes that she “felt sad” to hear of their deaths.
However, before his death, Burt Reynolds, who passed away in 2018, claimed in his own memoir “But Enough About Me,” that Hackman was a “good” but “tough” actor who sometimes told Minnelli to shut up, and “we’d all have to walk off the set until he cooled off.”
“Gene’s not a bad guy, but he allowed Liza to distract him,” Reynolds continued. “Gene wasn’t the easiest to work with either. You’d do the rehearsal one way, and when you got to the take, he’d say, ‘You’re not gonna do it that way, are you?’ He’d do that to Liza, and she’d fall apart.”
What Caused The Actor’s Death?
Authorities have since said that Gene Hackman’s wife, Arakawa, died from hantavirus, while the famous actor died about a week later from a combination of severe heart disease, high blood pressure, and advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
“It is reasonable to conclude that Ms. Hackman passed first,” Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner, told reporters last year.
The couple’s dog, Zinna, was also found dead. They have since been laid to rest, with reports of legal tensions brewing between Hackman’s kids over his estate.