Movie icon Gene Hackman was found dead in his New Mexico home in Santa Fe on Wednesday, Feb. 26. He was 95.
Police found Hackman dead along with his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, and their dog while conducting a welfare check on Wednesday afternoon.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza confirmed their deaths and announced no foul play is suspected, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
The two-time Academy Award winner was best known for his roles in The French Connection (1971), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Superman (1978), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Firm (1993), The Birdcage (1996), and many more memorable films.
Hackman was born Eugene Allen Hackman in San Bernardino, California, in 1930. When Hackman was 13, his father abandoned the family with a final wave to his son.
“It was so precise. Maybe that’s why I became an actor,” Hackman later told Vanity Fair in 2013. “I doubt I would’ve become so sensitive to human behavior if that hadn’t happened to me as a child — if I hadn’t realized how much one small gesture can mean.”
After a stint in the Marines, Hackman bounced around in New York and Florida, before returning to his childhood home in Danville, Illinois. That’s where he met his girlfriend, Faye Maltese, and they were married in 1956. She worked as a bank clerk to support his fledgling acting career in California.
Hackman joined the famed Pasadena Playhouse, where he bonded with another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman.
Hackman was eventually kicked out of the Pasadena Playhouse. He moved to New York and landed a small role in a two-week production of Arthur Miller’s play A View from the Bridge.
His breakout role came when Hackman was in his mid-thirties. He played Warren Beatty’s brother Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The role earned him his first of 5 Oscar nominations in 1968.
In 1986, Hackman divorced his first wife, Faye, with whom he had three children.
In 1991, he married Hawaiian classical pianist Betsy Arakawa after first meeting her at a gym.
They moved into a Santa Fe, New Mexico home on 12 acres, which was featured in Architectural Digest in 1990. The home was situated on a hilltop, with a view of the Colorado mountains.
