Oscar-winning US actor Gene Hackman and wife found dead at home
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Gene Hackman won Academy Awards for his roles in The French Connection (1971) and Unforgiven (1992).
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
LOS ANGELES – Gene Hackman, the intense character actor who won two Oscars in a more than 60-year career, has died alongside his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog at home, the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said on Feb 27.
The county sheriff’s office said deputies had found the 95-year-old American actor and Arakawa, 64, deceased on Feb 26 at around 1.45pm.
“Foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time, however the exact cause of death has not been determined. This is an active and ongoing investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office,” it said.
Hackman, a former Marine known for his raspy voice, 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, played by American actor Warren Beatty, in Bonnie And Clyde (1967).
Hackman was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1971 for I Never Sang For My Father (1970).
It was his turn as Popeye Doyle, the rumpled New York detective chasing international drug dealers in late director William Friedkin’s thriller The French Connection (1971), that assured his stardom and a Best Actor Academy Award.
He also won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1993 as a mean sheriff in American actor-director Clint Eastwood’s western Unforgiven (1992), and was nominated for an Academy Award for his turn as a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in the 1988 historical drama Mississippi Burning.
Hackman could come across on the screen as menacing or friendly, working with a face that he described to The New York Times in 1989 as that of “your everyday mine worker”.
A method actor, he drew from his personal experience to flesh out a role. His characters were sometimes raw and violent, and ranged from a small-town basketball coach in the sports film Hoosiers (1986) to Superman’s archrival Lex Luthor in Superman (1978) and its sequel Superman II (1980).
He retired in his 70s, saying the parts he was offered were too grandfatherly. His last substantial role was in the comedy Welcome To Mooseport (2004).
Living outside Santa Fe, Hackman was married twice and had three children – Christopher, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne, with his late ex-wife, Faye Maltese, who died in 2017. He married Arakawa in 1991. REUTERS
