Stopover in Portland

Gene Hackman died in his home in Santa Fe in mid-February. At age 95, he had had quite a run. His career as a film actor, including two Oscars, was the stuff of legend.

Whenever I think of Hackman, for some reason my mind flashes on a Portland connection that's barely a footnote to his life story. In 1990, while he was vacationing with family on the Oregon Coast, he had pain in his chest and arm. He drove himself to Saint Vincent Hospital in Portland, where a heart doc, Herbert Semler, did a balloon operation on one or more of his coronary arteries. As the L.A. Times reported at the time:

“We think we got him just in the nick of time,” Dr. Herbert Semler said at a news conference after he treated the actor for partial blockage of a coronary blood vessel...

Semler said he is recommending an exercise and diet plan for Hackman, who lives in Beverly Hills.

I don't know how the surgical work held up. I suspect it was pretty good if the patient made it to 95, although when Hackman quit acting in his late 70s, he said it was in part because of heart issues. He eventually wound up with a pacemaker, according to the reports now circulating about his death.

I never seem to have time to sit and watch movies, but if that day ever gets here, I'll definitely be dialing up some Hackman. Probably start with "Unforgiven," which was shot pretty soon after his stay at Saint Vincent's. I loved that movie.

As for Dr. Semler, as far as I can tell he's still around. And if I'm right about that, he's even a little older than Hackman was.