Gene Hackman, wife Betsy and dog found dead inside

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Published Feb. 27, 2025
Updated Feb. 27, 2025, 3:21 a.m. ET

Legendary Hollywood actor Gene Hackman has been found dead in his Santa Fe, New Mexico home alongside his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, citing police.

Santa Fe County police discovered the body of the two-time Oscar winner, 95, and 63-year-old Arakawa — his wife of 34 years and their dog — on Wednesday afternoon.

No foul play is suspected and no cause of death has been announced.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza confirmed the news on Thursday.

Hackman was one of the most accomplished actors of all time, thanks to star turns in “The French Connection,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”


The actor’s prolific resume includes two Oscars, three Golden Globes and the Cecil B. DeMille Award, bestowed in 2003.

The California native was born Eugene Hackman on Jan. 30, 1930. His parents moved from city to city, eventually settling in Danville, Illinois.

Hackman remembers his father, Eugene, saying goodbye to the family with the wave of a hand when he was 13.

“I hadn’t realized how much one small gesture can mean,” Hackman told GQ in 2011. “Maybe that’s why I became an actor.”

Hackman joined the Marines at 16, serving four-and-a half years in China, Japan, and Hawaii, before seeking a degree in journalism and television production at the University of Illinois.

He abandoned those plans to pursue a serious acting career, enrolling at 27 in the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he met 19-year-old Dustin Hoffman.

“There was something about him that — like he had a secret. You just knew he was going to do something,” Hackman recalled to Vanity Fair in 2004.

They formed a tight-knit group with Robert Duvall and tried to launch their careers in NYC.

“There was a kind of feeling of Jack Kerouac at that time — ‘On the Road’ — kids just wanting to have a good time and kind of experience things. It didn’t have anything to do with being successful — just wanting to try this thing and see if it worked,” Hackman told Vanity Fair.

In 1964, at 34, Hackman scored his big Broadway break in “Any Wednesday,” which resulted in a star-making scene in “Lilith” (1964) alongside Warren Beatty.

When Beatty was selecting his cast for the 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde,” he tapped Hackman to play his older brother. He scored an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, one of five nods throughout his career.

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