Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and his wife have been found dead, with authorities saying the couple had seemingly been deceased for some time when their bodies were discovered.
Hackman, 95, and his 63-year-old wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their New Mexico home on Wednesday, it was announced on Thursday. One of their pet dogs also died.
Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Denise Avila said deputies found the bodies while carrying out a welfare check on Wednesday at around 1.45pm local time.
The actor’s body was discovered in a mudroom while Arakawa was found in a bathroom next to a heater, detectives from the sheriff’s office wrote in a search warrant.
Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa in 1991. Pic: Dave Lewis/Shutterstock
There were scattered pills and an open prescription bottle on a countertop near the 63-year-old.
There was no indication they had been shot and they had no other wounds, Ms Avila said. The warrant added the door to the property was found ajar and there were no signs of forced entry.
A German Shepherd was found dead in a bathroom closet near Arakawa, police added. Two healthy dogs were on the property.
The police have since said the deaths of Hackman and his wife are “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation”.
Preliminary findings from a medical investigation have found the couple suffered “no external trauma”.
Official results of post-mortem examinations and toxicology reports are pending and the manner and cause of death have not yet been determined, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities outside the couple’s home. Pic. AP
The actor’s daughter had earlier suggested they may have been killed by carbon monoxide – but the cause of death remains unclear. Speaking to TMZ, Elizabeth Jean Hackman said the family was not sure but thought the couple may have died from toxic fumes.
The local utility company tested gas lines in and around the home after the bodies were found and did not find any sign of problems, the warrant said.
In a statement issued to Sky News, the sheriff’s office said: “We do not believe foul play was a factor in their deaths, however exact cause of death has not been determined at this time.”
Hackman’s daughters, Elizabeth and Leslie, and granddaughter, Annie, said: “He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but to us he was always just Dad and Grandpa.
“We will miss him sorely and are devastated by the loss,” they added in a statement.
Hackman won an Oscar for a leading role in The French Connection, a 1971 action movie by William Friedkin, and another for best supporting actor in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western, Unforgiven.
The French Connection earned him his first Oscar. Pic: 20th Century Fox/D’Antoni Productions/Schine-Moore Prods/Kobal/Shutterstock
He was also known for playing Lex Luthor in the Superman films of the late 1970s and 1980s.
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Hollywood actor Gene Hackman dies aged 95
Roles in the Francis Ford Coppola mystery thriller The Conversation and in the historical drama Mississippi Burning, where he starred as an FBI agent alongside Willem Dafoe, helped cement his career as one of Hollywood’s greats.
Playing Lex Luthor alongside Christopher Reeve’s Superman. Pic: THA/Shutterstock
Long career
The former US Marine appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage, during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.
He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde.
He is also remembered for playing Captain Frank Ramsey alongside Denzel Washington in the 1995 thriller Crimson Tide.
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He starred alongside Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide. Pic: Richard Foreman/THA/Shutterstock
In the early 2000s, he starred as an eccentric patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson.
Hackman’s final film appearance was in 2004’s Welcome To Mooseport, after which he retired from acting and began co-writing adventure novels with friend and underwater archaeologist Daniel Lenihan.
“It’s very relaxing for me,” Hackman told Empire Magazine in 2020. “I don’t picture myself as a great writer, but I really enjoy the process.”
Playing the villain in Unforgiven. Pic: Everett/Shutterstock
‘He could play anyone’
Michael Caine revered Hackman as “one of the greatest actors” he had known while presenting him with the Cecil B DeMille Award in 2003.
Arakawa was a classical pianist. The couple married in 1991 and lived outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Hackman had three children, Christopher, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne, with his late ex-wife, Faye Maltese, who died in 2017.
Star Trek star George Takei said: “We have lost one of the true giants of the screen,” in a tribute on X.
“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it.
“He could be everyone and no one, a towering presence or an everyday Joe. That’s how powerful an actor he was,” Takei wrote on X.
“He will be missed, but his work will live on forever.”
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Gene Hackman won his second Oscar in 1993. Pic: AP
Irish comedian Dara O Briain called Hackman “the finest screen actor ever”.
“Not a single duff performance, in a long, long career,” he wrote in a post on X.
Hackman was versatile on screen, working with a face that he described to the New York Times in 1989 as that of “your everyday mine worker.”
StudioCanal, the UK arm of the leading European film studio, called Hackman’s death “a colossal loss for cinema” in a tribute posted on X.
