Legendary actor Gene Hackman, and his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, have died, respectively aged 95 and 63. Authorities found their bodies at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Wednesday afternoon, along with that of their dog; while the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office did not provide a cause of death, they did not suspect any foul play either, informing their neighbors “that there’s no immediate danger to anyone.”
A giant in his field, Eugene Allen Hackman won two Oscars, for his portrayal of Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection (1971), and the evil Sheriff “Little” Bill Daggett in Unforgiven (1992). Other projects across his vast body of his work included Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Conversation & Young Frankenstein (both 1974), French Connection II (1975), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Firm (1993), The Quick and the Dead, Crimson Tide & Get Shorty (all 1995), The Birdcage (1996), Enemy of the State (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and his final film before retiring from acting, Welcome to Mooseport (2004).
Readers of this site will probably associate Hackman most with portraying Superman’s archnemesis Lex Luthor opposite Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie (1978), Superman II (1980), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). Along with Marlon Brando as Jor-El, Hackman’s casting was a major coup for producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind, who were keen to prove the movie could be taken more seriously than previous versions of the title character; as a result, Hackman was billed over Reeve himself on the first two movies (which were largely shot back-to-back.)
Hackman was purportedly more interested in his $2 million pay day for the role than bringing an authentic portrayal of Luthor to the big screen, sporting “a wig” instead of the character’s traditionally bald appearance, while recounting that director Richard Donner had to trick him to even shave off his mustache for the part. Regardless, he declined to finish filming Superman II when Donner was fired and replaced with Richard Lester, forcing the filmmakers to complete his performance with a body double. Though he and Ilya Salkind denied there was a rift, citing scheduling conflicts and a desire to do something new for Luthor’s absence from the third film, perhaps tellingly, Hackman’s return in Superman IV came after the Salkinds sold the film rights.
Apart from acting, Hackman was also an architect, and a novelist, penning three historical fiction books with Daniel Lenihan from 1999 to 2008, as well as two solo novels in 2011 and 2013. He was married to Faye Maltese (who died in 2017) from 1956 to 1986, and is survived by their three children. He and Arakawa had been married since 1991.