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Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife and dog found dead in their home in New Mexico

    Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, his wife and their dog were found dead in their house in New Mexico, the authorities said on Thursday.

    Dirty game was not suspected, but the authorities did not release any circumstances of their death and said that an investigation was underway.

    Hackman, 95, Betsy Arakawa, 63, and their dogs were all dead when delegates entered their house to check their well -being around 1:45 PM on Wednesday, said spokesperson for Santa Fe County Sheriff Denise Avila.

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    The Nors-but beloved Hackman was one of the best actors of his generation, who appeared as villains, heroes and anti-heroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s to his retirement in the early 2000s.

    He was a five-fold Oscar nominated that two decades later won for “The French Connection” and “Unforgiven”. His death only comes four days before this year's ceremony.

    Hackman met Arakawa, a classically trained pianist who grew up in Hawaii, when she worked part -time in a Californian gym in the mid -1980s, reported the New York Times in 1989. They quickly moved together, and at the end of the decade had bought their house in Santa Fe.

    The large farm in the southwest style in a gated community just outside the capital of New Mexico is located on a hill with a view of the Rocky Mountains.

    Hackman was often seen in the city and served as a board member of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in the nineties, according to the local newspaper, the New Mexican.

    Apart from the performances on Awards shows, he was rarely seen in the Social Circuit of Hollywood and he retired about 20 years ago. He was the rare Hollywood pension that actually lasted.

    In his later years he wrote novels.

    Hackman had three children from an earlier marriage, but he and Arakawa had no children together. In 1999 they had adopted three German shepherds, according to the Baltimore Sun.

    Hackman told the film magazine Empire in 2020 that he and Arakawa were happy to watch DVDs she rented.

    “We love simple stories that some of the small low-budget films manage to produce,” he said.

    An e -mail sent to his publicist was not immediately returned on Thursday.

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    Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles, and Sylvia Hui and Brian Melley in London have contributed.