Oscar-Winning Actor Gene Hackman, Wife Found Dead At Home

Oscar-winning United States actor Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and their dog have been found dead at their home in Santa Fe in New Mexico.

A statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff in New Mexico confirmed that both Gene Hackman and his wife were found deceased Wednesday afternoon at their residence on Sunset Trail.

“This is an active investigation – however, at this time, we do not believe that foul play was a factor.”

Hackman was 95, and his wife 63.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office told the BBC, “On 26 February, 2025 at approximately 1:45 p.m., Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, 95 and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64 and a dog were found deceased.”

In a career spanning more than six decades, Hackman received two Academy Awards, two Baftas, four Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Hackman won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection, and another for best supporting actor for playing Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven in 1992.

His other Oscar-nominated roles were in the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde – as Buck Barrow in his breakthrough role – and 1970’s I Never Sang for My Father, as well as playing the agent in Mississippi Burning (1988).

Hackman played more than 100 roles including Lex Luthor in Superman movies in the 1970s and 1980s.

He also starred in the hit movies Runaway Jury and Francis Ford Copalla’s The Conversation, as well as Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums.

His last big screen appearance came as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004.

Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, were together for 30 years and raised three children before getting divorced in 1986.