[Source: Reuters]

Gene Hackman, the intense character actor who won two Oscars in a more than 60-year career, died of unknown causes at home, along with his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, as well as one of their dogs, the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The 95-year-old actor and Arakawa, 64, were found dead in separate rooms of their house on Wednesday afternoon, the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“Foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time, however exact cause of death has not been determined,” the statement said.

Authorities later said they were investigating all possibilities.

The sheriff’s office applied for a search warrant on Wednesday evening, telling the judge the deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”

The warrant application said the maintenance worker who discovered the bodies had found the home’s front door ajar, although there were no signs of forced entry, and there were no obvious signs of a gas leak or a carbon monoxide leak. Those possibilities were still under investigation.

Detectives were awaiting autopsy reports and toxicology test results.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said at a press conference that Hackman and Arakawa “had been deceased for quite a while” – though he could not say how long.

The sheriff said they were still trying to determine the last time anybody had contact with the couple.

Sheriff’s deputies found Hackman in the kitchen, and Arakawa and a dog, which was inside a crate, were in a bathroom, with scattered pills from an open prescription bottle on the bathroom counter.

Both Hackman and Arakawa appeared to have suddenly fallen to the floor and neither showed signs of blunt force trauma, the affidavit said.

Mendoza said two other dogs were found alive and that those dogs were not in a crate and were able to move freely in and out of the house by a pet door.
Hackman, a former Marine known for his raspy voice, appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde.” He was also nominated for best supporting actor in 1971 for “I Never Sang for My Father.”

It was his turn as Popeye Doyle, the rumpled New York detective chasing international drug dealers in director William Friedkin’s thriller

“The French Connection,” that assured his stardom and a best actor Academy Award.

He also won a best supporting actor Oscar in 1993 as a mean sheriff in the Clint Eastwood western “Unforgiven,” and was nominated for an Academy Award for his turn as an FBI agent in the 1988 historical drama “Mississippi Burning.”

Hackman could come across on the screen as menacing or friendly, working with a face that he described to the New York Times in 1989 as that of “your everyday mine worker.”

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