Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife and dog found dead in their New Mexico home
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, his wife and their dog were found dead in their New Mexico home, authorities said Thursday.
Foul play was not suspected, but authorities did not release circumstances of their deaths and said an investigation was ongoing.
Hackman, 95, Betsy Arakawa, 63, and their dog were all dead when deputies entered their home to check on their welfare around 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Denise Avila said.
The gruff-but-beloved Hackman was among the finest actors of his generation, appearing as villains, heroes and antiheroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.
He was a five-time Oscar nominee who won for “The French Connection” in 1972 and “Unforgiven” two decades later. His death comes just four days before this year’s ceremony. Hackman met Arakawa, a classically trained pianist who grew up in Hawaii, when she was working part-time at a California gym in the mid-1980s, the New York Times reported in 1989. They soon moved in together, and by the end of the decade had bought their home in Santa Fe.
The large Southwestern-style ranch in a gated community just outside New Mexico’s capital city sits on a hill with views of the Rocky Mountains.
Hackman was often seen around town and served as a board member of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in the 1990s, according to the local paper, The New Mexican. Aside from appearances at awards shows, he was rarely seen in the Hollywood social circuit and retired about 20 years ago. His was the rare Hollywood retirement that actually lasted. In his later years, he wrote novels.
Hackman had three children from a previous marriage, but he and Arakawa had no children together. In 1999 they had adopted three German shepherds, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Hackman told the film magazine Empire in 2020 that he and Arakawa liked to watch DVDs she rented. “We like simple stories that some of the little low-budget films manage to produce,” he said. An email sent to his publicist was not immediately returned early Thursday.
AP
Felicia Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles, and Sylvia Hui and Brian Melley in London contributed.