Actor Gene Hackman and wife found dead in home: Local media

The award-winning American actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead, along with their dog, in their home in the US state of New Mexico.

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Gene Hackman, the intense character actor who won two Oscars in a more than 60-year career, has died alongside his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog at home, the sheriff's office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said on Thursday (Feb 27).

The county sheriff's office said deputies had found the 95-year-old actor and Arakawa, 64, deceased on Thursday afternoon at around 1:45pm.

"Foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time, however exact cause of death has not been determined. This is an active and ongoing investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office," it said.

Hackman, a former Marine known for his raspy voice, appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967's Bonnie And Clyde. He was also nominated for best supporting actor in 1971 for I Never Sang For My Father.

It was his turn as Popeye Doyle, the rumpled New York detective chasing international drug dealers in director William Friedkin's thriller The French Connection, that assured his stardom and a best actor Academy Award.

Its five-and-a-half-minute car chase scene – in which Doyle crashes his way through bustling city streets, grunting, grimacing and honking as he pursues a bad guy who has commandeered an elevated train – is the stuff of Tinseltown legend.

He also won a best supporting actor Oscar in 1993 as a mean sheriff in the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his turn as an FBI agent in the 1988 historical drama Mississippi Burning.

He earned two more Oscar nominations during a five-decade career in which he appeared in 80-odd films.

Hackman could come across on the screen as menacing or friendly, working with a face that he described to the New York Times in 1989 as that of "your everyday mine worker."

A method actor, he drew from his personal experience to flesh out a role. His characters were sometimes raw and violent and ranged from a small-town basketball coach in the 1986 sports film Hoosiers to Superman's archrival Lex Luthor.

He retired in his 70s, saying the parts he was offered were too grandfatherly. His last substantial role was in the 2004 comedy Welcome To Mooseport.

Living outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, Hackman was married twice and had three children –Christopher, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne, with his late ex-wife, Faye Maltese, who died in 2017. He married Arakawa in 1991.

Hackman was a native Midwesterner, born during the Great Depression in Illinois.

He came from a broken family – his father left when he was 13, waving enigmatically as he drove away one day. Hackman said he knew right then that the man was never coming back.

Hackman's mother died in a fire before he had established himself as an actor.

He also served an unpleasant stint in the US Marines, which he joined at 16 by lying about his age.

He used his personal turmoil as fuel to flesh out his characters. "Dysfunctional families have sired a number of pretty good actors," Hackman told The Guardian in 2002.

Hackman was an unlikely star – he came to acting relatively late after dabbling in a series of jobs, and only attracted attention in his 30s.

In fact after his enrollment at the Pasadena Playhouse in California in the late 1950s, Hollywood legend tells that he and a fellow student, one Dustin Hoffman, were voted the "least likely to succeed."

Later, they would pal around with Robert Duvall in New York when all three were struggling actors.

Not blessed with leading man good looks, Hackman instead drew on his talents and versatility, taking on gritty roles and delivering thoughtful, intelligent performances.

"I wanted to act, but I'd always been convinced that actors had to be handsome. That came from the days when Errol Flynn was my idol. I'd come out of a theater and be startled when I looked in a mirror because I didn't look like Flynn. I felt like him," Hackman once said.

After studying journalism at the University of Illinois, he first tried television production, before going to acting school in Pasadena.

Upon graduation, Hackman moved back to New York, where he worked off-Broadway and began to turn heads.

In 1964, he was cast on Broadway in the play Any Wednesday, which led to a small role in the film Lilith starring Warren Beatty.

A few years later, Beatty was casting for "Bonnie and Clyde" and chose Hackman as Clyde's brother Buck Barrow.

That landmark 1967 film won Hackman his first Oscar nomination for best supporting actor, and put him firmly on track for stardom.

A second Academy Award nomination came for I Never Sang For My Father (1970), in which he played a professor who feels he has never won his father's approval.

"I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press," Hackman said.

Into the 21st century, he starred in The Heist and The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001, the latter winning him his third competitive Golden Globe, before announcing his retirement in 2008.

"It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on screen," Hackman once said.

"I think of myself, and feel like I'm quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that."