Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and his wife found dead at their home

A statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff in New Mexico said: "We can confirm 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."

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 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).

Born in California in 1930, Hackman had enlisted in the army after lying about his age at 16, serving for four-and-a-half years.

Following his military service, after briefly living in New York he decided to pursue acting.

In order to pursue his chosen career, Hackman joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended a young Dustin Hoffman.

"I suppose I wanted to be an actor from the time I was about 10, maybe even younger than that," he once said. "Recollections of early movies that I had seen and actors that I admired like James Cagney, Errol Flynn, those kind of romantic action guys.

"When I saw those actors, I felt I could do that. But I was in New York for about eight years before I had a job. I sold ladies shoes, polished leather furniture, drove a truck."

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

In his later years, he and his second wife, Betsy - a classical pianist - stayed out of the spotlight, bar for a rare public appearance together at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, where he won the Cecil B. deMille award.

In 2008 he told Reuters: "I haven't held a press conference to announce retirement, but yes, I'm not going to act any longer."