The wife of Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman was discovered dead in their Santa Fe residence.

Santa Fe police say they are still investigating the couple’s and their dog’s deaths.

Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman was discovered dead in his Santa Fe home on Wednesday afternoon, along with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, a classical pianist, and their dog.

When he passed away, Hackman was 95 and his wife was 63.  The cause of death has not yet been established, but the office indicated that foul play is not currently suspected as a contributing role in the deaths.  There is an investigation going on.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office informed Fox News Digital early Thursday morning that Gene Hackman, 95, his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, and a dog were discovered dead at an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park after deputies were called there at around 1:45 p.m. on February 26, 2025.

The two films for which Hackman won Oscars were “The French Connection” and “Unforgiven.”  From the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s, he starred in scores of dramas, comedies, and action pictures as villains, heroes, and antiheroes.

Along with these roles, Hackman had a breakthrough performance in “Bonnie and Clyde,” a humorous cameo in “Young Frankenstein,” a role as the villain Lex Luthor in “Superman,” and the title role in Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

“The loss of an outstanding artist is always cause for both mourning and celebration: Gene Hackman an outstanding actor who was inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity,” Francis Ford Coppola, the composer and director of the 1974 movie “The Conversation” in which Hackman featured, posted on Instagram.  “I regret his loss, and praise his existence and contribution.”

Eugene Alden Hackman was born on January 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California. He grew up in Danville, Illinois, where his father worked as a pressman at the Commercial-News.  His parents argued frequently, and his father frequently used his fists on Gene to vent his fury, according to the Associated Press.  The child found solace at movie theatres, connecting with Errol Flynn and James Cagney as his heroes.

When Gene was 13, his father said goodbye and drove away, never to return.  Gene had long-term consequences from his abandonment.  His mother had become an alcoholic and was often at clashes with her mother, with whom the fractured family resided.  At sixteen, he “suddenly got the itch to get out.”  He lied about his age and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

According to an article on the Department of Defense’s website, this was “a fairly common practice before the advent of computer records,” and Hackman worked as a field radio operator and broadcast journalist from 1947 to 1952.

“In the 1940s, he served in Qingdao, China, and later Shanghai.  According to the story, one of his jobs was to destroy Japanese military equipment so that communists could not access it.

Hackman attended the University of Illinois and studied journalism after earning a high school certificate while serving in the Marine Corps.  He dropped out after 6 months to pursue radio announcing in New York.  After working in Florida and Danville, he came to New York to study painting at the Art Students League.  Hackman shifted again, enrolling in an acting class at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Back in New York, he worked as a doorman, truck driver, and other occupations while hoping for a break as an actor.

Summer work at a Long Island theatre led to roles off Broadway.  Hackman began to catch the attention of Broadway producers, and he garnered positive reviews in plays such as “Any Wednesday,” with Sandy Dennis, and “Poor Richard,” with Alan Bates.

Hackman’s first big film role was in 1970’s “I Never Sang for My Father,” in which he played a man grappling with a failing relationship with his dying father, Melvyn Douglas.

In 1956, Hackman married Fay Maltese, a bank teller he met at a YMCA dance in New York.  They had one son, Christopher, and 2 daughters, Elizabeth and Leslie, but separated in the mid-1980s.  In 1991, he married Betsy Arakawa, a classical pianist of Japanese heritage bred in Hawaii.

When not on film sets, Hackman enjoyed painting, stunt flying, stock car racing, and deep sea diving.  In his later years, he authored novels and lived on his ranch in Sante Fe, a hilltop overlooking the Colorado Rockies.

“We have lost one of the true giants of the cinema.  Gene Hackman could portray anyone, and you could feel a complete life behind it,” “Star Trek” actor George Takei posted on X Thursday morning.  He could be an imposing figure or just a regular Joe, everyone and nobody.  He was an extremely strong actor.  His work will endure forever, yet he will be missed.

 

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