February 28, 2025 - 6:45pm
Gene Hackman, the Oscar-winning star of silver-screen classics including The French Connection and The Conversation, was found dead on Wednesday. He was 95, and an acting great; his death was no doubt anticipated by newspapers the world over, which tend to carefully compile material for celebrity obituaries long before the event. But, to the morbid fascination of fans and the frustration of news editors, this would not be a cut and dried case. The standard odes to Old Hollywood would have to be put on ice.
Hackman and his much younger wife, the classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, were both found dead â along with their German Shepherd â in their Santa Fe home by a shaken maintenance worker. The actor was discovered in a small room near the kitchen and Arakawa, 63, in a bathroom; her hands and feet bore signs of âdecompositionâ and âmummificationâ. The press was told, with befuddling verbiage, that Hackmanâs body âshowed obvious signs of deathâ. Nothing gets by New Mexico coppers.
The dog was found in a closet in the bathroom. Near Arakawaâs head lay a portable heater, which might, detectives surmised, have crashed to the ground in the event of the pianist falling herself. Hackman, they suggested, had also had a sudden collapse. There were scattered prescription pills on the bathroom counter â the kind of visual metaphor which television producers use to suggest distress. There was no gas leak, and no carbon monoxide poisoning. So far, so intriguing.
At this stage, police have not ruled out foul play. Just as in the days following the sudden and chaotic death of British pop star Liam Payne, social media Sherlocks are dusting off their deerstalkers to settle another case, hauling along their presuppositions about the kind of man Hackman was, the kind of marriage the couple had, and the victimsâ final moments.
Celebrity deaths and mysterious suicides permeate the lore of California and its exports. These subconscious connections are fatal for public speculation, and poison the waters of the rumour mill. In 1997, 39 members of the Heavenâs Gate cult, their hair cropped and all wearing brand new black-and-white Nike Decades trainers, were found dead in a rented mansion in San Diego. Another suicide cult, the Peoples Temple of Jim Jones, operated in San Francisco before its notorious decampment to Guyana, where more than 900 followers died.
Hollywoodâs history is littered with famous suicides. In 1932, the British actress Peg Entwistle jumped off the âHâ of the Hollywoodland Sign. Everyone knows the story of Marilyn Monroe, who coroners believe took her own life in 1962. Monroeâs All About Eve co-star George Sanders died by suicide 10 years later, leaving two notes, one of which read: âDear world, I am leaving because I am bored.â
Depressed comedian and actor Freddie Prinze, the Sr to Nineties rom-com favourite Jr, shot himself in front of his manager. Another gloom-stalked comic, Robin Williams, took his own life in Californiaâs Paradise Cay in 2014. There are Tinseltown tragedies everywhere, both as a result of intentional suicide and indirect suicide from incredibly hard living.
Are the deaths of Hackman and Arakawa therefore impossible to look at objectively? The mythos of fameâs underbelly certainly obscures much of the mediaâs compassion. Though the scene of these latest deaths is undoubtedly tantalising, and the temptation to solve the puzzle by making this tragedy part of a patchwork of sordid goings-on in a decadent world is great, we should resist. It is far easier to accept such stories when we package them into little moral lessons: here, that fame doesnât buy you happiness, or that age-gap relationships are inherently coercive, or that celebrities are subject to a cultish weirdness which happily escapes the rest of us.
Some of these things may prove correct, but we just donât yet know. The only thing we can count on is that social media will debase itself every single time, delighting in the spectacular schadenfreude of fallen celebrities and snuffling around for tidbits and rumours. Hackman, Arakawa and, indeed, their dog reveal what young Hollywood hopefuls never grasp: that sometimes, itâs a privilege to die in obscurity.
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SubscribeWhatever happened I say RIP to Gene Hackman, a truly great actor.
The French Connection is often cited as his best work, but I’d recommend The Conversation for its strong, understated performance.
Gene Hackman was great in everything he did, hardly high brow work but i love the Poseidon Adventure and it was always my goto Christmas Movie, then you have the likes of Unforgiven, BAT 21, even a cameo in Young Frankenstein
What I liked about Hackman is how he enjoyed acting so much, he would even do a mediocre script just for the chance to keep busy, like Michael Caine. And if weâre going to make recommendations here, how about I Never Sang For My Father, which I highly recommend for the young Hackman showing a different side.
Superman. He was brilliant as Lex Luther. And, uh, let’s not forget the greatest sports movie of all time, Hoosiers!
Miserable article from a sour writer.
Unherd never fail do they?
What rubbish.
You still here (yawn)
If you know it’s going to be bad, why do you keep coming back? Masochism maybe?
Some of Poppy Sowerby’s writing is intelligent and engaging but I’m afraid I find this article slightly ghoulish
Pedant alert: Robin Williams died in Paradise Cay (Beleverder Tiburon in Marin County), not Paradise Bay (no such place in California afaik).
As well, my understanding is that he had received a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, which puts his suicide in a different context than the others.
I’m not big on social media so maybe I just missed the debasement, snuffling and schadenfreude going on there. Or maybe it just isn’t going on. I have seen an almost universal appreciation of Gene Hackman as an actor and a curiosity (non-morbid) about how he, his wife, and dog died. Nothing more.
The best guess I can make is that he died of a stroke, she, distraught, committed suicide, and the dog died of thirst or starvation. I have seen no salacious suggestions to explain the triple demise and can’t imagine what they might be. Perhaps my innocence is showing through and there is tawdriness written all over the police report. If so, I would appreciate those more worldly filling me in.
i agree Gene Hackman was rightfully universially respect as one of the Great actors, with many a great film to his name, and that’s what i see from the response to this sad event
best guess is that the dog was plotting Hackman’s death for years, wife was suspicious, dog got her out of the way too, then died itself of natural causes
Nah, it was the other two dogs. The first dog got cold feet, tried to tip off the wife.
They’re halfway to Mexico by now.
Nah Carlos. It is an obvious failed alien abduction. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Well done Poppy you managed to transform Hackman’s death into a nothing-burger article for clicks and money
No surprise here. Poppy is just a vacuous nobody.
Why donât the Unherd editors get on the stick and intervene when good writers produce last minute trivial commentary. This is indeed a waste of time and a disappointment for those who appreciate this actor and appreciate insight into popular celebrity culture.
There is a bankruptcy here that may discredit this writerâs sensibility going forward. Editors wake up.
Yadda yadda yadda, let us wait and see what the police come up with.
The last line “sometimes, itâs a privilege to die in obscurity” is fantastic, Poppy! Most everything before that is manic, borderline-nonsensical metaphor casserole.
To put things in perspective, and to discount this article’s anecdotes of a Hollywood suicide culture, the World Heath Organization says that 720,000 people die from suicide every year…720,000!
Gene Hackman was 95 years old…95! My father died at 87 after fighting cancer for 13 years, my mother, an amazing athlete well into her 80’s, died at 92 connected to a portable oxygen machine 24/7. They both prayed for their own deaths during there last year. Extreme old age is rarely a blessing for those who experience it.
Who knows what the story was with Hackman’s wife…but, there’s probably a story to be told that died with her.
My father died of a brain tumour at 59. That said, I hade a Great Uncle who went past 100. I never actually met him myself, but he was apparently fit and healthy almost to the end (he apparently rode his bicycle around when he was well into his 90s).
Wasn’t it about time he died?
He was certainly “within the window” for it. No obituary is going to say “he was taken too soon”.
Turns out the wife died first of a deadly virus. That left Hackman, confused with Alzheimerâs and a bad heart condition wandering aimlessly about the house for at least a week until his heart gave out or he starved (there was nothing, zero, in his stomach). The kenneled dog died of starvation or thirst.
The sad part is that they didnât have any live-in help, nor did any friends or children routinely check on them. Loneliness or self-isolation in old age can be deadlyâŠas deadly as being ignored by supposed family or friends.
Maybe they liked living like that. Not everyone wants “live in help”. The fact is that Betsy (prior to her unfortunate passing) would have been well able to care for Gene, and had probably done so entirely successfully for years.