Academy Award-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife found dead alongside pet dog
Gene Hackman has been found dead at the age of 95 alongside his wife and dog.
Gene Hackman has been found dead alongside his wife and dog.
The Academy Award-winning actor was found to have passed away at the age of 95 alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa, 63, and their pet in their New Mexico home on Wednesday (26.02.25) but "no foul play" is suspected.
Adan Mendoza, the Santa Fe County told the Santa Fe New Mexican: "All I can say is that we're in the middle of a preliminary death investigation, waiting on approval of a search warrant."
Law enforcement officials have not yet revealed a cause of death.
Over the course of his six-decade career, Gene received two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and the Silver Bear.
In 1973, he received an Oscar for his role in 'The French Connection' and then received the accolade again in the early 1990s after he starred in 'Unforgiven' alongside Clint Eastwood.
In 1978, he achieved global fame as he took on the role of Lex Luthor in 'Superman', and reprised the part for the sequels that followed in the 1980s.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Gene worked consistently and starred in the likes of 'The Birdcage', 'Absolute Power' and 'Heist' before bowing out of the movie business altogether following his appearance in the 2004 comedy 'Welcome to Mooseport'.
On his retirement, he told Larry King: "The straw that broke the camel’s back was actually a stress test that I took in New York. The doctor advised me that my heart wasn’t in the kind of shape that I should be putting it under any stress."
Two years later, Gene noted that he would only consider a return to the spotlight if he could do it from his own home.
He told GQ: "If I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything and just one or two people."
Gene's final two appearances came in the form of 'The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima' and 'We, the Marines' in 2016 and 2017, where he provided the narration for both documentaries.
