Over the years, Hackman remained quiet about his personal life, including the three children he shared with Maltese.
Their first child, Christopher Allen Hackman, was born in 1960. Hackman opened up about parenthood during an interview with GQ in 2011, when he was asked if there was any advice that he gave to his son.
“I lost touch with my son in terms of advice early on,” he said.
Hackman continued: “Maybe it had to do with being gone so much, doing location films when he was at an age where he needed support and guidance. It was very tough for me to be gone for three months and then come home and start bossing him around.”
Hackman and Maltese welcomed their second child, daughter Elizabeth Jean Hackman, in August 1962.
Though he didn’t specify which of his two daughters he was speaking about, Hackman opened up about how one of them helped in the early days of his career.
“I used to have to borrow my daughter’s car to go to interviews in Hollywood,” he told Cigar Aficionado in 2000. “Just a piece-of-s— Toyota and I’d have to park it a couple of blocks [away] and walk so I wouldn’t be seen as being that needy. I was just barely hanging in, taking pretty much anything that was offered to me and trying to make it work.”
Leslie Anne Hackman was born in 1966. In 1984, Hackman was discussing his movie Misunderstood and explained how Leslie was “very affected” by it.
Speaking to Bobbie Wygant, Hackman said: “My youngest daughter has seen the film and she was very affected by it. But I think that she was affected because it was a film, not because I was in it.
“She liked it as a film and she recommended it to her girlfriends and they’re going to see a screening of it this week. She was very taken with it and I hope the older children are, too.”
