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\u201cI like characters that have flaws in them,\u201d said Gene Hackman, who was adept at playing flawed but stalwart men\u2014usually in flawless performances in some 79 movies shot over the course of 40 years. The two-time Oscar winner, whose versatility and reliability made him a welcome addition to any picture, was found dead on Wednesday at age 95, the New York Times<\/em> writes. The bodies of actor; his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa; and their dog were all discovered in their Santa Fe home. Arakawa was 63.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not believe foul play was a factor in their deaths however, exact cause of death has not been determined at this time,\u201d a statement from the Santa Fe Sheriff\u2019s Office reads<\/a>, though the Press Association has confirmed<\/a> that there is an \u201cactive investigation\u201d into their deaths.<\/p>\n Eugene Allen Hackman was born on January 30, 1930, in San Bernardino, California. His newspaper-pressman father, Eugene Ezra Hackman, took the family all over the country during the actor\u2019s early years, finally settling them in Danville, Illinois. He abandoned the family when Gene was 13, leaving the boy playing in the street as he departed with no more farewell than a tiny wave of his hand. \u201cIt was so precise,\u201d the star told Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a> in 2004. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s why I became an actor. I doubt I would have become so sensitive to human behavior if that hadn\u2019t happened to me as a child\u2014if I hadn\u2019t realized how much one small gesture can mean.\u201d<\/p>\n After some trouble with the law\u2014he spent a night in jail for shoplifting candy and soda\u2014the 16-year-old Hackman lied about his age and enlisted in the Marines. During his four and a half years in uniform, he traveled the world and got his first showbiz gig as an announcer on Armed Forces Radio. After he mustered out, he studied radio technique further on the G.I. Bill in New York; he then pursued TV production in Florida and acting at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. In Pasadena, he made a lifelong friend of fellow student Dustin Hoffman<\/strong> before flunking out. Despite his academic failure, he moved to New York in 1957 to commit himself to acting as a profession. He would spend a decade there as a struggling actor, working odd jobs, and palling around with fellow struggling actors Hoffman (who sometimes slept on Hackman\u2019s kitchen floor) and Robert Duvall.<\/p>\n Hackman\u2019s big break came in 1967 with the role of Buck Barrow, brother of outlaw Clyde (Warren Beatty<\/strong>), in the groundbreaking Bonnie and Clyde.<\/em> The role earned Hackman the first of his five Oscar nominations. He earned his second when he starred opposite Melvyn Douglas in 1970\u2019s I Never Sang for My Father,<\/em> a poignant drama about the troubled relationship between a man named Gene and his distant dad, a story that hit close to home for Hackman.<\/p>\n Still, he wasn\u2019t yet a star; in fact, director William Friedkin hired him for The French Connection<\/em> only because he was available and cheap (at just $25,000). The role of thuggish cop Popeye Doyle proved to be the most iconic of Hackman\u2019s career, winning him his first Oscar and making him an in-demand performer for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n Indeed, Hackman seemed to seldom turn down roles, freely admitting that he occasionally took work for the money. His body of work alternated between future classics and forgettable films. He was often the best thing in bad movies, from his sole scene in his debut film, 1964\u2019s Lilith<\/em> (the first time he worked with Beatty), to his radical preacher, raging at God in The Poseidon Adventure<\/em> (1972), to the cop partnered with a detective with multiple personalities (Dan Aykroyd<\/strong>) in Loose Cannons<\/em> (1990), to the G-man in the historical travesty Mississippi Burning<\/em> (1988) who jokes, cajoles, sings, flirts, and finally beats the truth out of a cabal of racist killers of three civil-rights activists. (The latter role won him a fourth Oscar nomination.)<\/p>\n And then there were the gem roles in cult favorites that deserve to be more widely seen: Prime Cut<\/em> (1972), where he played a sadistic gangster named Mary Ann; Night Moves<\/em> (1975), a bleak neo-noir that saw him playing a hapless detective; and Scarecrow<\/em> (1973), Hackman\u2019s favorite among his own films, where he and Al Pacino<\/strong> play a pair of drifters who dream of opening their own car wash.<\/p>\n Despite his reputation for dramatic intensity, Hackman was also capable of goofy comedy\u2014as the blind hermit in Mel Brooks<\/strong>\u2019s Young Frankenstein<\/em> (1974); the Hollywood B-movie producer in Get Shorty<\/em> (1995); the nervous conservative senator in The Birdcage<\/em> (1996); the wheezing cigarette mogul in Heartbreakers<\/em> (2001); and even the vain villain Lex Luthor in three of Christopher Reeve\u2019s four Superman<\/em> movies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n