Tribute to Gene Hackman: CBS Playhouse: "My Father and My Mother"

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Preserved by UCLA from original 2 in. video master!

In a celebrated career spanning over four decades, Academy Award winner Gene Hackman (1930–2025) became recognized as one of the finest American actors of the New Hollywood era. A native Californian who relocated to New York to pursue acting in the late 1950s (with roommates Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall), Hackman toiled for over a decade off and on Broadway, and in dozens of small parts on film and television. By 1968, in between his star-making turns in the iconic features Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The French Connection (1971), Hackman landed the lead role in the prestigious television anthology CBS Playhouse, in the installment, “My Father and My Mother.”

Virtually unseen since its original broadcast, “My Father and My Mother” concerns a writer (Hackman) as he struggles to come to terms with decisions made in the care of his son with an intellectual disability. In seeking answers to his deep emotional crisis, the writer revisits his past, attempting to reconcile painful memories of his late parents (Ralph Bellamy, Jane Wyatt). An obscure footnote in Hackman’s oeuvre, the expressionistically staged drama (videotaped at CBS Television City) represents a creative high point in the actor’s television resume, revealing a performance of psychological depth uncommon to the small screen. In its review, the Los Angeles Times hailed Hackman as “outstanding,” noting the production was “... 90 minutes of thoughtful, well-played drama, of which there is much too little on TV these days.”

Programmed and notes written by John H. Mitchell Television Curator Mark Quigley.

CBS Playhouse: “My Father and My Mother”

U.S., 2/13/1968

With original commercials

DCP, color, 90 min. CBS. Production CBS. Executive Producer: Barbara Schultz.

Producer: George Schaefer. Director: George Schaefer. Writer: Robert Crean. With: Gene Hackman, Ralph Bellamy, Jane Wyatt. Preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Engineering services by CBS Media Exchange.

Part of: Archive Television Treasures