Remembering Donald Mills.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 15, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 111501np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: "Wake Of The 'Perdido Star'": An Interview With Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "FRENCH CONNECTION," 1971)

GENE HACKMAN, ACTOR: All right, Popeye's here. Get your hands on your heads. Get off the barn (ph), get on the wall. Come on, move. Move! Come on, sweetheart, move. Come on, (inaudible)! All right, come on. (inaudible)! Move! Face the wall! Turn around there, turn around. Move! Come on, move! Hands out of your pockets. Turn around, turn around. Come on, you (inaudible). Come on.

ACTOR: Turn around, (inaudible), come on, turn around. Get on the wall. Get on the wall.

(CROSSTALK)

ACTOR: ... turn around.

HACKMAN: Hey, did you drop that? Pick it up.

ACTOR: (inaudible) hands up.

HACKMAN: Pick it up!

ACTOR: Come on, move.

HACKMAN: What are you looking at? All right, bring it here. Get your hands out of your pockets. What's my name?

ACTOR: Doyle.

HACKMAN: What?

ACTOR: Mr. Doyle.

HACKMAN: Come here. You pick your feet (ph)? Do you? Get over there. Get the hands on your head.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GROSS: That's Gene Hackman as narcotics detective Popeye Doyle in a scene from the 1971 film "The French Connection."

Hackman won his first academy award for that performance. Hackman's movies include "Bonnie and Clyde," "The Conversation," "Superman," "Under Fire," "Mississippi Burning," "Unforgiven," "The Quick and the Dead," "Get Shorty," and "Enemy of the State."

We're going to talk with Hackman about acting, but first we're going to talk with him about a turn in his career. He's co-written a new novel called "Wake of the 'Perdido Star': A Story of Shipwrecks, Pirates, and Life at Sea in the Early 1800s."

With us is Hackman's co-author, Daniel Lenihan, who is also Hackman's neighbor and good friend. He's an underwater archaeologist who's head of the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit of the U.S. National Park Service. He's taught diving for research, law enforcement, and rescue purposes.

For Hackman, diving is a recreational activity, and one he's used in a few of his movies. I asked Gene Hackman how he started diving.

HACKMAN: Actually, my first -- actually use of underwater breathing equipment was in a picture called "Poseidon Adventure," where we were diving -- supposedly diving down trying to escape the -- in the ship, and we were diving down through some wreckage of the ship. And we -- they would have stunt men hiding behind some of this wreckage, and they would stuff this breathing tube into your mouth so you could then swim on or do a take two.

So that was my first introduction to it. And then later on, I met Dan in Santa Fe, and have been interested ever since then.

GROSS: Was it scary the first time you did a dive and there weren't stunt men standing by? (laughs)

HACKMAN: Well, the scariest dive I've ever done was a night dive, where you -- having not had much experience at that, and you -- I was on a boat in the Cayman Islands and -- at night, and you just step off into this blackness, and you know Mr. S. is down there with his mouth open, going to give you a big welcome.

GROSS: Mr. S. -- the sea?

HACKMAN: Mr. Shark.

GROSS: Oh, Mr. Shark, oh! (laughs) Right.

HACKMAN: Oh, I guess all of us novice scuba divers, you know, have some fear of sharks. Dan doesn't seem to, but I have always had a healthy fear of them.

DANIEL LENIHAN, UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGIST: I have a healthy respect for them.

HACKMAN: Respect, yes.

GROSS: Daniel Lenihan, have you had encounters with them?

LENIHAN: Yes, I've been -- I've had to leave the water a few times over sharks. But I think the place that we've had the most -- been the most concerned about them is where I've never seen them. The -- you know, the sharks you don't see are actually a lot worse than the ones you do see.

And off of the coast of California, Point Reyes, we've -- we had done a fair amount of work looking for a Manila galleon, and that's a white shark breeding ground. Visibility is only about seven or eight feet. So it kind of lives with you the whole time you're diving.

HACKMAN: You were in a shark cage that...

LENIHAN: No, well, we'd have -- actually, a lot of it we did not in the shark cage. The shark cage was -- when we turned on the equipment, the digging equipment, we would go inside of a shark cage because it was really -- then you were really pushing the bounds of sanity, because those low-frequency vibrations attract the sharks, and the whole food chain, and you don't want to become, you know, a lower part of the food chain than they are.

HACKMAN: Well, didn't you find some actual dents on your shark cage from some great whites?

LENIHAN: Yes, we had people making it from the cage to the boat, in which there were -- actually, the pieces taken out of the fins. It was -- it's a fairly intense place to work.

GROSS: I imagine it is, I wouldn't doubt that for a second.

Gene Hackman, you mentioned that you've done some diving. Now, I know you signed up for the Marines when you were 16. I guess you faked your age. Did you have any interesting nautical experiences that helped you in writing this book?

HACKMAN: I did, actually. There's a couple of the storm sequences in our book that related to a time when we were aboard ship off the Japanese coast, and we were -- got either into the tail of a typhoon or in the middle of it, I couldn't tell. But it was quite rough. We were taking white water over the bow of the ship, and it went on for a number of hours.

That was one of those things that you just kind of never forget. I was fascinated by that, I was absolutely enthralled by it. Lot of people sick on the boat. There was something like 600, 700 Marines aboard, and -- But for me, it was a big adventure.

GROSS: How come you were fascinated and not either afraid or sick?

HACKMAN: I don't know. You know, there's something maybe wrong with me. (laughs) There was -- it was this kind of thing that -- of being a part and so close to this violence of nature that was just -- enthralled me.

GROSS: Gene Hackman, why did you sign up for the Marines at the age of 16? I think this was 1947.

HACKMAN: Yes, it was. I don't know, I was doing very poorly in school. I was -- had been kicked off the basketball team because of grades. It was kind of a low point in my life. I went home at one point and told my mother that I really felt that I had to get away. I don't know -- I don't quite know why other than -- you know, I just felt that my life was at a low point.

And she said, Well, you're just -- you're too young to be out on your own. And I said, Well, I'll go in the service, one of the services, where I'll be taken care of in some way.

And so she agreed to help me sign up, and I was actually 16 when I signed and went off, oh, six weeks later, and was suddenly a Marine.

GROSS: Do you think that that experience in the Marines not only helped you writing your new book, "Wake of the 'Perdido Star,'" but also maybe helped you in acting, because you were exposed probably to people who were from very different backgrounds than your background? And that's always good, I think, for an actor to be exposed to.

HACKMAN: Well, certainly any experiences you have as a human being will generally be valuable as an actor. You call on those experiences in your life, like we're doing right now, just to relate and try to make something interesting. In terms of the acting, there's been many times that I've been offered characters that I immediately knew kind of what was interesting about them because I had either seen people like that or had been in situations that were similar.

So it has been very valuable to have had some of those early experiences.

GROSS: Has this novel been optioned for a movie?

HACKMAN: Not yet, no. We haven't really pursued that to any great extent. There are people, I suppose, that are working on it, some in my agency's office, and that kind of thing. But I haven't been really up to speed on it. We're so concerned that people will think of the novel as a vehicle for the films, and we really want it to be judged on its own merit, and as a piece of literature, hopefully.

GROSS: Did you read...

LENIHAN: Actually, a question I had raised at the time when Gene actually brought up the idea, I was wondering, you know, were we talking about something here for a film? You know, it's an obvious question for Gene. His reaction was actually negative in the sense that he didn't have any problem with what someone did with it later, but he was real clear that he didn't want to be constrained by what he thought were the limits of writing something for a picture, you know, if someone did a picture with it later, that was great, but that (inaudible) was not why this was written.

GROSS: My guests are actor Gene Hackman and underwater archaeologist Daniel Lenihan. They collaborated on the new novel "Wake of the 'Perdido Star.'" We'll talk more with Hackman after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: My guest is actor Gene Hackman.

Gene Hackman, I'm wondering if studying screenplays helped you in writing the new novel, "Wake of the 'Perdido Star.'"

HACKMAN: Yes, I think over the course of so many years, having, you know, filtered through some of the really bad scripts that are offered to you and some of the really brilliant ones, you kind of discern, after -- you know, a while what did -- what can work and what has no possibility of working.

The -- you kind of see the possibility of making something happen and how the plot always has an arc to it of some kind, how characters have a line that they follow, and when one can deviate from that line and still make it interesting.

So, yes, to answer your question, I think my experience as an actor has helped me as a writer, and plus the fact that I read a great deal.

GROSS: "The French Connection" is the movie that I think really changed you into a star. You got an Oscar for it, your first Oscar. Could you tell from the screenplay that this was going to be a good movie? Because I think it's sometimes hard -- at least it would be hard for a layman like me to tell from a screenplay if something was going to be a good movie.

HACKMAN: I don't think you can really tell. I think what you can tell is whether or not it's well written. But the problem with films is, there's a great deal of chemistry involved. Not only do you have to have a terrific script to have a successful film, but you have to have the right chemistry in the casting, and also with your behind-the-camera people.

Everything has to kind of come together. So you could read a script and say, Hey, given the right circumstances, this is going to work, but, you know, very seldom do you have control of all the circumstances one might want to have control of.

GROSS: When you were preparing for your role as a, you know, narcotics cop for "French Connection," how did you see this role as comparing to other cops that you had -- that you'd seen portrayed in movies?

HACKMAN: I try not to look at that kind of thing as an actor. I try not to -- it's very difficult not to have things affect you or be influenced -- influence your performance. But I try to only look at characters and the script in a way that is always fresh for me.

I ask myself a few very basic questions about, how is this person like me? How is this person unlike me? And in answering those things is where I usually come up with the character.

GROSS: Would you be able to tell us how you answered them?

HACKMAN: Well, there's some very obvious things where I asked myself, for instance, in "The French Connection," I would say to myself, Am I a policeman? No, of course not. What does it take to be a policeman? If I was a policeman, given my -- if I can really be honest about myself, given my personality, my physical makeup, what kind of a policeman would I be?

Would I be able to do certain things that are required of me in this story? Yes? Maybe. If I say to myself, No, then I have to ask -- then the next question is, Well, what do I have to do in order to convince somebody that I am capable of doing that?

So I try to base it in a kind of a strange personal reality for myself. I always approach -- I approach every character that same way, by asking just those few basic kinds of questions.

GROSS: So if you asked the question, Am I the kind of person who, if I were a cop, could walk into a bar and just kind of way, Hi, I'm Popeye Doyle, and just, like, bust everybody, and go searching under the bar for the drugs and be really kind of aggressive and even arrogant in the approach, could you do that as -- if you were a cop?

HACKMAN: I don't know. I managed to do it as the actor, because -- probably because I saw the policeman who the character was based on. I saw him actually do that. We had the -- Roy Scheider and myself had the privilege of riding with some of the New York police officers, and Eddie Egan (ph), who was the character -- my character was based on, it was the man who my character was based on. One night we were -- went into a bar in East Harlem, and Eddie actually did that exact scene, and he just scared the dickens out of everyone.

He was a kind of a bigger-than-life character. Whether or not I could have been that policeman, I don't know. I wouldn't have wanted to have been that policeman, I don't think.

GROSS: Right, right. So...

HACKMAN: But having seen him do that, it was -- it enabled me to do it.

GROSS: So when you asked yourself, What do I have to do to become that person in a role, what answers did you give yourself? What did you have to do to become that person?

HACKMAN: Well, some of it was pure acting, and some of it -- as I said before that sometimes I would say to myself, I couldn't do this, I couldn't say that line to that character in reality. So then I have to ask myself, If you can't say that -- if you say you can't say that in reality, then how are you going to act that?

I would then give myself a situation where, under some circumstance, I would be able to do that. I would relate to an argument, possibly, that I had had with somebody at some very high-voltage time in my life, to the point where I could say, OK, given the right circumstances, I can do that.

Now, I will now try to recreate that moment, just to speak in layman's terms, for myself by doing it in a sensory way. What was I wearing that day that this event took place? What was the weather like? What was the atmosphere? What was the -- And be very specific about that, so that then I can create -- recreate a situation for myself that was -- that is similar to the situation in the script.

GROSS: So when you approach acting, you have to feel like somebody else, the character you're playing, and feel like yourself at the same time.

HACKMAN: Yes, I always try to work out on myself, and I try to relate my personality, my -- whatever it is that I'm doing, the work that I'm doing, that I described, I try to relate that to what's pertinent about the character.

GROSS: Let me ask you about "French Connection I." In that scene, you know, your character of the narcotics cop is captured by the people who had the drug ring, and they lock you up and turn you into a junkie. They start shooting you up with heroin. So here you are, somebody who's spending, you know, your career fighting drugs, fighting the dealers, now you've become a junkie because you've been forced to.

And when they come around to give you the fix, you're both like really upset and angry, you don't want it, yet you need it by this point, so you want it and you don't want that fix at the same time. And your face is great on screen during those scenes. You just see these really complicated emotions flashing across your face, though you're also really kind of knocked out by the drug at the same time.

So it's just this really wonderful mix of things flashing across your face. And I'm wondering what goes on in your mind during a scene like that, when it's not even about something you're saying, it's about what's happening on your face.

HACKMAN: Well, as an actor, you try not to do things with your face.

GROSS: You don't try to...

HACKMAN: You try to do...

GROSS: ... like, make faces, like I might make faces...

HACKMAN: No, you don't try to make...

GROSS: ... in front of the mirror.

HACKMAN: ... faces. Exactly. One of the real traps for an actor is to recite your lines in front of a mirror, because that's just not the way to go about it. What you try to do is have an internal life that will show through your face and your body and your mannerisms and your gestures or whatever, and try not to be conscious of that, so that that becomes -- for an audience, it becomes a real event.

In that particular scene, there was a withdrawal scene in the movie where I had seen a number of documentaries about people going through withdrawal, and the common thread seemed to be pain. And so I had very specific things that I worked on in terms of the pain.

GROSS: Were you thinking about things that had caused you a lot of pain in the past?

HACKMAN: Yes, I'd had a few motorcycle accidents and operations and that kind of thing. Nothing more unusual than most people go through in life, but I tried very -- to be very specific in that in terms of trying to recall that -- what that pain was like, how it affected my body.

GROSS: And so you were thinking about the pain, but not thinking about your face.

HACKMAN: Hopefully.

GROSS: Right.

Gene Hackman will be back in the second half of FRESH AIR.

Here he is in "The French Connection I" after the French cops have rescued him and are making him kick cold turkey. He's desperate for a delay and some American food.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "THE FRENCH CONNECTION I")

HACKMAN: Wait a minute. OK, all right. But I want this nice, nice juicy P.J. Clark's hamburger. Understand? With a lot of blood running out of it and some onions on it and some ketchup and salt and a beer, OK, all right? That's (inaudible)? (inaudible) Wait a minute, (inaudible), I need some help. Henry -- I need some help. Get me a doctor (inaudible), (inaudible) doctor. Don't tell me to forget.

What -- wait a minute! WAIT A MINUTE!

Just wait till you go get the hamburgers, all right? I'll wait here. Just -- wait till you -- All right, wait. (inaudible) Let's change the order. I don't want the hamburgers, I'll change it, I'll -- I want some (inaudible)...

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(BREAK)

GROSS: Coming up, we remember Donald Mills of the Mills Brothers, once one of the most influential singing groups in the country. Mills died Saturday at the age of 84.

Also, more about "The French Connection" with actor Gene Hackman.

(BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with actor Gene Hackman. He's co-authored a new novel about pirates and life at sea in the 1800s, called "Wake of the 'Perdido Star.'" His movies include "Bonnie and Clyde," "The French Connection," "The Conversation," "Unforgiven," and "Enemy of the State."

You started in movies fairly deep into your career, didn't you?

HACKMAN: Yes, I had been in New York for 20 years, and I suppose the first, oh, 12 years of that I'd only done a little stage work. And then I had done a few little television things around New York, and then started to be sent to California to do maybe a week's guest appearance on some television show.

So yes, films came to me a little later, and probably that was very good for me too, because I had the great fortune to then spend a lot of time in the theater.

GROSS: Right. I had just one other question about "The French Connection" movies. They were each directed by different directors, the first by William Friedkin, the second by John Frankenheimer. Did working with two different directors on the same character change in any way the way you interpreted the character?

HACKMAN: Well, I don't think so. Working on "French Connection I" was difficult in that it was, I think, three or four years after "French Connection" one, and it was difficult for me to kind of revive the character. The -- in terms of working with the two different directors, they weren't that much different in style, strangely enough, that they were both high-energy directors, both terrific directors for both action and character-driven pieces.

They complemented each other in a strange way. I enjoyed working with both of them. I was probably more difficult on "French Connection I" because by that time I'd had a little success and I felt like I should have something to say, and got myself in a little bit of difficulty by maybe saying too much sometimes, you know.

GROSS: About what?

HACKMAN: Oh, just about the way things are done on films. You know, actors always feel that they -- generally speaking have a sense of a scene, how a scene can be played or what -- the way a scene should be played. And I think by the time "French Connection I" came along, I was maybe -- oh, a little out of control. Although, you know, I don't think the results were any different. But...

GROSS: No, it's a great performance.

HACKMAN: Oh, thank you. But I just probably had too much to say.

GROSS: You know, in your movie "Under Fire," where you played a journalist in Nicaragua, there was one scene where you're at a club, and you get up, I think, and go to the piano and sing, if I remember, "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," was that it?

HACKMAN: Yes. (laughs)

GROSS: No, I -- is that -- was that, like, a secret talent or secret interest of yours, singing?

HACKMAN: Well, I love piano. My wife is a pianist. Yes, I -- they called me and they said, We'd like you to be able to play the piano in this little sequence. And I said, Oh, that sounds like great fun. And I had about six weeks before we started. And I said, What do you want me to play? And they said, Can you play "Tenderly"? And I said, Well, I'll -- you know, I'll get somebody to teach me how to play "Tenderly."

And so I worked on it for about a month, I guess it was, and I got to the point where I could play it, and sing and not have to look at the music. So that was all fine. And they called about 10 days, I guess, before we started shooting and said, Hey, "Tenderly" doesn't work for us. It's going to cost us $25,000 for the rights. There is this song called "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most."

And it was a jazz song. I dug it out, and it was a -- the only version I could find was by Ella Fitzgerald, which is wonderful, but it's a very obscure and not very -- musical is not the word, but it's not very melodic, really, I guess is the way to put it. And it was kind of tough for me.

But that was a challenge. So we did it. (laughs)

GROSS: You know, you were talking before about how, when you do a character, you have to ask yourself, What's similar about me and this character? What's different about me and this character? What would I have to do to fill in the gap between what he would do and what I would do? And in at least two recent movies, you played characters with a real sadistic streak, the sheriff in "Unforgiven" and the sheriff in "The Quick and the Dead."

And these were characters who definitely had a strong sadistic streak. What do you do to get in the spirit of a character like that?

HACKMAN: I find in me a sadistic streak. I find something in me that may be -- not be very attractive, but that I feel would be valuable in this context. I think if we -- if you search hard enough, you can find a lot of elements in yourself that you can use as an actor. You know, under certain circumstances, we're all capable of murder, I suppose.

So you just have to find that circumstance. We live a moment where you can do certain things. And sadism, I suppose, is not something that I find very attractive, but I guess there is certain things in me that will elicit that kind of thing.

GROSS: (inaudible), you know, the great sadists have a lot of charisma. (laughs)

HACKMAN: (laughs) Well, it's true.

GROSS: So it must be fun to play roles like that.

HACKMAN: It is. It's always more fun to play a heavy than it is to play a good guy. My kids are always asking me to play these things that are grandfathers and kindly old gentlemen, and I just tell them that, you know, it's not that I dislike watching that kind of thing, but for me to play it is not as interesting.

GROSS: Do you get offers for kindly old gentlemen kind of roles?

HACKMAN: I have, yes. I have, grandfathers and things like that that are all-knowing and wise and all that, and it -- they just don't interest me.

GROSS: You've actually dropped out of acting a couple of times, didn't you?

HACKMAN: Mm-hm.

GROSS: Why?

HACKMAN: Yes, well, I thought I wanted to paint. I thought I wanted to do a lot of things. And once I started doing those things, I found that I didn't have the skill that I pretend to have as an actor. And so I kind of drifted back to it.

GROSS: (inaudible), yes.

HACKMAN: I think if you've done it as long as I have, it's very hard to drop it, you know, there's something very seductive about acting, because, you know, you come to work and there's 90 people standing there waiting for you to do something. And there is something both very heavy and seductive and unattractive about that. (laughs)

GROSS: I think a lot of people assume that what makes an actor great is the way they look on camera, and certainly that has a lot to do with it. But I think voices are a really important part of good acting, even in movies, which are so much a part about how somebody looks. And I -- you know, I really love your voice. And I read that you did some radio announcing, I think, early in your career. Maybe it was even when you were in the Marines?

HACKMAN: Yes, I worked early on for Armed Forces Radio Service. I answered a little thing that was on a bulletin board. I was in China at the time. And I was quite young, as I had explained to you earlier.

But that -- it seemed fascinating to me. I -- that's all I ever wanted to do was be an actor, and of course I didn't tell anybody that until I was about 20 years old.

GROSS: (laughs)

HACKMAN: But anyway, I was given this job on -- this was Armed Forces Radio Service station where we broadcast to, oh, 3,000 Marines and a couple thousand sailors in the harbor there. And it was fun, it was a great time. I was never taught anything really, other than how to do a station break. And I played records. It was XABU in Sing Tau (ph), China.

GROSS: What kind of records did you play?

HACKMAN: Mostly jazz, Stan Kenton, that kind of thing. Matter of fact, the title of the book, "'Perdido,'" comes from an old June Christie song called "Perdido." I think -- which means "lost."

GROSS: Oh, I thought that was coincidence. (laughs)

HACKMAN: Oh, no, that's -- I don't think I've ever told Dan that, actually. But it's where that comes from.

GROSS: So...

HACKMAN (singing): Perdido, I left my heart in Perdido.

GROSS: So were you a good announcer?

HACKMAN: Well, I wasn't very good at first, I'll tell you. They told me how to do the switches and segue the records and things, and I was supposed to make the station break every half an hour. And -- or more often than that, I suppose. But anyway, the first -- my first station break, I looked up, and it was a 24-hour clock. And...

GROSS: (laughs)

HACKMAN: ... I didn't have any idea how to read it. So I was stuck. And I fumbled through it, and then I started getting phone calls from some of the officers on the base, and they were all up in arms about my giving the wrong time.

But eventually I got more comfortable with it, and it was great, it was my introduction to show business, so it was great.

GROSS: Gene Hackman. He's co-authored a new novel called "Wake of the 'Perdido Star,'" about pirates and life at sea in the 1800s.

Here's a scene from "Unforgiven," for which Hackman won his second Academy Award. In this scene, the sadistic sheriff, played by Hackman, is trying to beat information out of a retired gunslinger played by Morgan Freeman.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "UNFORGIVEN")

HACKMAN: Now, Nat, Mr. Quincy, and what was the young fellow's name?

MORGAN FREEMAN, ACTOR: Elroy. Elroy Tate.

HACKMAN: No, no, that's not what you said.

FREEMAN: Hell if it ain't.

HACKMAN: No, you said Elroy Quincy out of Medicine Hat, and Henry Tate out of Cheyenne.

FREEMAN: Hell if I did. Hell if I did. (inaudible)

HACKMAN: Go and get them whores (inaudible) these boys in the eye of the storm. (inaudible) and Silky. (inaudible), go on, get them.

Now, Nat, them whores are going to tell different lies than you. And when their lies ain't the same as your lies, well, I ain't gonna hurt no woman. But I'm gonna hurt you. Not gentle like before, but bad.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Gene Hackman, Daniel Lenihan
High: Actor Gene Hackman is now an author, collaborated with Daniel Lenihan (one of the world's leading underwater archaeologists) on the new novel, "Wake of the 'Perdido Star': A Novel Of Shipwrecks, Pirates, And The Sea."
Spec: Entertainment; "Wake Of The 'Perdido Star'"; Movie Industry

Please note, this is not the final feed of record

Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: "Wake Of The 'Perdido Star'": An Interview With Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.