Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and wife found dead at home
Actor Gene Hackman and his wife have been found dead at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, police have said.
Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office told Sky News: “We do not believe foul play was a factor in their deaths however, exact cause of death has not been determined at this time.”
Spokesperson Denise Avila said deputies responded to a request to do a welfare check on Wednesday around 1.45pm local time and found Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and a dog dead.
Hackman, 95, won an Oscar for a leading role in The French Connection, a 1971 action movie by William Friedkin, and then again for best supporting actor in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 Western, Unforgiven.
He was also known for playing Lex Luthor in the Superman films of the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as The Conversation and Mississippi Burning.
The former 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 is also remembered for playing Captain Frank Ramsey alongside Denzel Washington in the 1995 thriller Crimson Tide.
Michael Caine revered Hackman as “one of the greatest actors” he knows while presenting him with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2003.
Hackman’s final film appearance was in 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport.
His wife Betsy Arakawa, 63, was a classical pianist and married Hackman in 1991. The couple lived outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Hackman married twice and had three children.
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Irish comedian Dara O Briain posted a tribute to the actor following the news, calling Hackman “the finest screen actor ever”.
“Not a single duff performance, in a long, long career,” he wrote in a post on X.
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.
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