KUALA LUMPUR — Actor Gene Hackman and his wife died of natural causes about a week apart, according to a medical examiner in New Mexico where the couple lived and were found dead at home.
“The cause of death for Mr. Gene Hackman, aged 95 years, is hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributory factor,” said Dr Heather Jarrell, the chief medical examiner for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator.
“The cause of death for Miss Betsy Hackman, aged 65 years, is hantavirus, pulmonary syndrome. The manner of death is natural,” AFP reports her saying at a news conference.
Hackman, 95, and wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, were found on Feb 26 in their Santa Fe home after emergency services were called to their property by neighbourhood security who sighted their bodies through the window.
Neither body showed any sign of trauma, nor any indication of carbon monoxide poisoning, which had been an initial suggestion.
Arakawa’s body was found in a bathroom with pills scattered next to her.
Hackman was found in another room, fully clothed, with sunglasses nearby, indicating a sudden fall.
A dog was found dead in the bathroom near Arakawa, and two other healthy dogs were at the house. The dog’s cause of death is not yet known.
The hantavirus present in Arakawa carries flu-like symptoms such as fever, muscle aches, cough, sometimes vomiting and diarrhoea that can progress to shortness of breath and cardiac or heart failure and lung failure, Jarrel was quoted as saying.
It can be contracted from exposure to the excrement of a particular mouse species that carries the virus, with symptoms appearing after one to eight weeks of exposure.
AFP quoted Jarrel saying it is believed that Arakawa died on Feb 11, “based on the circumstances”, while Hackman died “probably around Feb 18.
This basis is drawn in part from data on Hackman’s pacemaker which showed its last activity over a week before his body was found.
BBC meanwhile, reported that Arakawa’s last known movements were on Feb 11, when she was seen going to a grocery store, a pharmacy and a pet store, before returning home in the early evening.
BBC also quoted Jarrelll saying that Hackman was in the “advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease” making it “quite possible that he was not aware that she [his wife] was deceased”.
Arakawa’s body was found in a bathroom with pills scattered next to her.
Hackman was found in another room, fully clothed, with sunglasses nearby, indicating a sudden fall.
A dog was found dead in the bathroom near Arakawa, and two other healthy dogs were at the house. The dog’s cause of death is not yet known.
Hackman, a two-time Academy Award winner, was credited for intense performances inspired by his troubled upbringing, notching up dozens of movie credits extending into his 70s.
He is perhaps best known as vulgar New York cop Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in the 1971 crime thriller “The French Connection” – for which he won an Oscar for best actor.
He won another golden statuette two decades later for best supporting actor for his portrayal of the brutal small-town sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett in the 1992 western “Unforgiven.” — March 8, 2025