Gene Hackman died nine days before his body was found
The interpreter of 'The French connection' and 'Unforgiven' was found dead in his house next to the body of his wife
BarcelonaThe death of actor Gene Hackman, found by police in his home, along with the bodies of his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and one of the couple's dogs, continues to reveal mysterious new details. Authorities have now confirmed that the actor The French connection He had died nine days before his body was located.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adam Mendoza said the last signal from Hackman's pacemaker was dated February 17, the date the 95-year-old Oscar-winning actor originally died. "It's a valid assumption that this was his last day of life," Mendoza said at a news conference.
No poisoning, no foul play
Authorities have not yet determined the cause of death for Hackman or Arakawa, but on Friday they ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning. They also said there is no evidence of foul play.
The neighbor who called the Santa Fe sheriff's office on Wednesday requested a police visit to check on the occupants of a home, either because he hadn't seen any movement in Hackman's home for a while or because he thought something fishy might be going on. Authorities found the couple in separate rooms, with no evidence of gas leaks, and next to Arakawa's body, which showed "obvious signs of decomposition, swelling of the face and mummification of the hands and feet," was an open pill bottle with its contents scattered. Hackman's body showed "obvious signs of death, similar and consistent with Arakawa's." In addition to the dead dog, there were two other dogs in the house, in good health. The couple had been married for more than three decades and the actor, aged 95, had long retired from acting and had not given interviews.
With his unaffected, everyman appearance, Hackman arrived in the cinema during the sixties, just when American directors were opening up to realism and new European trends. American cinema found in him a versatile and credible actor, capable of revising the archetype of the tough man configured during the golden age of Hollywood by Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, but also of showing his fragility as a vulnerable man. It was with The French connection (1970), the fast-paced thriller with which William Friedkin dynamited the narrative conventions of important North American cinema, the almost documentary style of the French Nouvelle Vague, for which Hackman won the Oscar for his performance.
