He brought something unprecedented to our craft,” his longtime friend Dustin Hoffman said. “Powerful, subtle, brilliant. A giant among actors..”

Gene Hackman knew how to explode on screen, but his explosions were not like Jack Nicholson’s conniptions in Carnal Knowledge or The Last Detail. Hackman’s seemed the just response of a righteous man boiling over.

Actor Gene Hackman, who appeared in more than 70 films and won two Academy Awards (for "The French Connection" and "Unforgiven"), was found dead at his home near Santa Fe, N.M. this week. He was 95. Correspondent Mo Rocca looks back on Hackman's brilliant career,