10 Things You Didn’t Know About Christopher Reeve’s Superman

2. Richard Donner Used Facial Hair Trickery On Gene Hackman

Moving away from unhappy stories of studios and movie stars falling out, here€™s a nice little yarn from the set of Superman: The Movie. Gene Hackman is brilliant in the finished film, but the actor wasn't initially convinced by the role. He thought Lex Luthor would be detrimental to his career, and wasn€™t happy at the idea of shaving off his moustache for the part.

Director Richard Donner came up with a cunning plan to get around this facial hair dilemma. He hadn€™t yet met Hackman face-to-face, so he promised Hackman that he€™d shave off his own moustache (which didn€™t actually exist, since Donner was already clean shaven) if the actor did the same. Impressed by Donner€™s spirit of camaraderie, Hackman agreed.

They met up on set, and Hackman shaved off his moustache. Donner then peeled off a fake €˜tache that he€™d affixed, revealing to Hackman that he€™d been playfully manipulating him all along. Hackman wouldn€™t be fooled again, and flatly refused to shave his head.

To get around this, Hackman€™s own natural hair was styled in several weird and wacky ways to make it look like Lex had multiple different dodgy hairpieces. Donner managed to get Hackman into a skull cap for one scene, but other than that Hackman's natural hair is visible in every one of his scenes from the first movie.

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Contributor

Film & TV journo. Quite tall.