The bodies of Oscar-winning American actor Gene Hackman, his spouse Betsy Arakawa, and their dog have been discovered in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, residence.
Hackman won two Academy Awards for his efforts on Unforgiven and The French Connection over his more than 60-year career.
“We can confirm that both Gene Hackman and his wife were found deceased Wednesday afternoon at their residence on Sunset Trail,” said a statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office in New Mexico.Although the inquiry is ongoing, we do not currently think foul play had a role.
Hackman was 95 years old, and his wife was 64. She was a classical pianist.
His portrayal of Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection earned him the Oscar for best actor. In 1992, he won another for best supporting actor, this time for his portrayal of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western Unforgiven.
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In addition, Gene Hackman was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the agent in Mississippi Burning (1988), as well as for his breakout role as Buck Barrow opposite Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde and the 1970 film I Never Sang for My Father.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office reported: “On 26 February, 2025 at approximately 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, 95 and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64 and a dog were found deceased.”
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hackman, a highly acclaimed actor, portrayed over 100 characters, including the villain Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring Superman films.
Hackman costarred with a number of Hollywood titans, such as Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in Reds (1981), Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein (1974), and Al Pacino in Scarecrow (1973).
In addition, Gene Hackman starred in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, and the popular film Runaway Jury.
Coppola referred to the late actor as “a great artist” while leading the Thursday tributes.”Gene Hackman is a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity,” he said in an Instagram post. I honor his life and contributions while grieving his passing.
The statement “we have lost one of the true giants of the screen” was put on X by George Takei, a Star Trek actor.
“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it,” he stated. He may be an imposing figure or just a regular Joe, everyone and nobody. He was a really powerful performer. His work will endure forever, yet he will be missed.
In addition to his Oscars, Gene Hackman received a Screen Actors Guild Award, four Golden Globes, and two Baftas.
Alongside Robin Williams and Nathan Lan, who play a homosexual couple in the 1996 film The Birdcage, he performed a humorous role as a conservative senator.
Following his final big-screen role as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, he left Hollywood to live a more sedate life in New Mexico.
After lying about his age at 16, Hackman, who was born in California in 1930, joined the US Marine Corps and served for four and a half years.
Before being released in 1951, he served in China, Hawaii, and Japan.
After serving in the military, Gene Hackman lived and worked in New York, attended the University of Illinois to study television production and journalism, and then returned to California to further his acting career.
Hackman became friends with a teenage Dustin Hoffman when he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
“I suppose I wanted to be an actor from the time I was about 10, maybe even younger than that,” he previously stated. “Recollections of early movies that I had seen and actors that I admired like James Cagney, Errol Flynn, those kind of romantic action guys.”I thought I could accomplish it after seeing those actors. But before I had a job, I lived in New York for roughly eight years. I drove a truck, cleaned leather furniture, and sold women’s shoes.
“I think that if you have it in you and you want it bad enough, you can do it.”
“I’ve always been convinced that actors had to be handsome,” he continued, adding that he “wanted to act.”
That was from when I was a huge fan of Errol Flynn. After leaving a theater, I would be shocked to see how different I appeared from Flynn in the mirror. I resembled him.
In 1963, he returned to New York and began doing little TV parts and Off-Broadway shows, such as the comedy Any Wednesday at the Music Box Theatre.
In the 1970s, however, he truly started to establish himself, starring as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, a detective in New York City, in The French Connection.
Gene Hackman soon started to appear often on the big screen in movies like The Poseidon Adventure, a catastrophe movie from 1972.
Before returning in 1992 to portray Death and the Maiden at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, he previously starred in the films Children From Their Games at the old Morosco Theatre, Poor Richard at the Helen Hayes Theatre, and The Natural Look at the Longacre Theatre.
After 30 years of marriage and raising three kids together, Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, separated in 1986.
With the exception of a rare public appearance at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, when he received the Cecil B. deMille award, he and his second wife, Betsy, remained out of the spotlight in their final years.
He informed Reuters in 2008 that he was “not going to act any longer” even though there had been no formal statement.
“I’ve been told not to say that over the last few years, in case some real wonderful part comes up, but I really don’t want to do it any longer.”
He said that he was shifting his concentration from the big screen to his more subdued, peaceful love of novel writing.
“Acting, not stardom, was my training. He once remarked, “I was trained to play parts, not to deal with fame, agents, lawyers, and the press.”
“Watching myself on film causes me a lot of emotional pain. When I consider myself, I feel quite youthful, but then I see this elderly man with the drooping chins, the weary eyes, the thinning hairline, and everything else.”
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