Actor Gene Hackman and his wife found dead in their New Mexico home
CBC
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, was found dead with his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog when deputies performed a welfare check at the home around 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Denise Avila said. A statement from the same office obtained by CBC News indicated that Arakawa was 64 years old.
An email sent to his publicist by the Associated Press was not immediately returned early Thursday.
The gruff-but-beloved Hackman was among the finest actors of his generation, appearing as both 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 1971 and Unforgiven 21 years apart.
Hackman moved to the Santa Fe area in the 1980s, where he 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 last major onscreen role occurring in the 2004 comedy Welcome To Mooseport, which was filmed in Port Perry, Ont.
Although self-effacing and unfashionable, Hackman held special status within Hollywood — heir to Spencer Tracy as an every man, actor's actor, curmudgeon and reluctant celebrity. He embodied the ethos of doing his job, doing it very well, and letting others worry about his image.
Hackman established his range in the first decade of his film career, from his breakout performance in Bonnie and Clyde, the farce of Young Frankenstein, the road movie Scarecrow alongside another rising star, Al Pacino, and as the secretive surveillance expert in the Watergate-era release The Conversation.
Later in his career, he switched seamlessly from dramas like Mississippi Burning, Hoosiers and Crimson Tide, to comedies like Get Shorty, The Birdcage and The Royal Tennenbaums.
He made no secret of his disdain for the business side of show business.
"Actors tend to be shy people," he told Film Comment in 1988. "There is perhaps a component of hostility in that shyness, and to reach a point where you don't deal with others in a hostile or angry way, you choose this medium for yourself …Then you can express yourself and get this wonderful feedback."
He was an early retiree for Hollywood, after being a late bloomer.
Hackman was 35 when cast for Bonnie and Clyde and past 40 when he won his first Oscar, as the rules-bending New York City detective Jimmy (Popeye) Doyle in the 1971 thriller about tracking down Manhattan drug smugglers, The French Connection.
In his later years, he wrote novels from the hilltop ranch that provided a view of the Rocky Mountains.
