Two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman, 95, and his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, 64, and their dog were found dead Wednesday afternoon in their home outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office says.
In an email to CBS News early Thursday, the office said, “Foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time. However, (the) exact cause of death has not been determined.”
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“This is an active and ongoing investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office,” the statement added.
Hackman was a consummate actor renowned for playing complicated figures in such classics as “The French Connection,” “The Conversation” and “Unforgiven,” and who also delighted superhero fans as the comical villain Lex Luthor in three “Superman” films.
Hailed as one of the best actors of the era before retiring from the screen in 2004, Hackman moved easily among genres, from heart-wrenching family stories (“I Never Sang for My Father”), crime dramas (“Bonnie and Clyde,” “Mississippi Burning”), thrillers (“The Conversation,” “No Way Out”), and triumphant tales of sports (“Hoosiers”) to comedies (“Get Shorty,” “The Royal Tenenbaums”).
Rough-hewn and flinty, a movie star without stereotypical movie-star looks, Hackman gave even his humorous roles a slightly sinister, unpredictable edge.
The quality of Hackman’s performances and the charisma that the shy ex-Marine would bring to the screen were praised by famed stage director Ulu Grosbard, who’d once hired him for a small role in Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge.” In a 2004 Vanity Fair profile, Grosbard described the actor as “a complex guy. Very intelligent. A generosity of spirit. Socially charming. A lot going on in him. A certain sense of being tormented with past ghosts and things. That’s part of what he brings to his work.”
“Ghosts and things” were likely evoked in three of Hackman’s most heralded performances, in movies that redefined their genres. In William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” (1971), Hackman played “Popeye” Doyle, a New York City detective unbound by rules, who constantly crossed the line between law officer and law breaker while tracking down the head of a drug ring. Dangerous and unpredictable, his Doyle was brash, vindictive and colorful, whether it was chasing down a suspect while wearing a Santa Claus costume or recklessly driving a car in pursuit of an assassin through the streets of Brooklyn.
