“You want to hear a story about that boy? He owned a dairy farm, and his old ma, she was kind of sick, you know? And the doctor, he called him over and said, ‘Your ma is lying there and she’s just so sick and weakly, I want you to try to persuade her to take a little brandy, see, just to pick her spirits up.’ ‘Ma, she’s a teetotaler,’ he says. ‘She wouldn’t touch a drop.’ ‘Well, I’ll tell you what to do,’ that’s the doc. ‘You bring in a fresh quart of milk every day and put some brandy in it, see, and you try that.’ And so he did, and he doctored it all up with the brandy, the fresh milk, and he gave it to his mama, and she drank a little bit of it. So, next day, he brought it in again, and she drank a little more. So, it went on that way. The third day, just a little more and the fourth day she took a little bit more. And then finally, one week later he gave her the milk and she just drank it down, she swallowed the whole thing and she called him and she said, ‘Son, whatever you do, don’t sell that cow.” -Gene Hackman, in the character of Buck Barrow in the 1967 movie “Bonnie & Clyde,” his breakout role in which he earned his first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

San Bernardino native Gene Hackman, a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, died on or about February 18 under circumstances that initially were unclear and led to widespread speculation when his death was announced last week.
At issue was that Hackman’s wife was found dead in the couple’s New Mexico mansion at the same time, as well. The results of her autopsy indicates that her death preceded his and was not directly related to his passing, but might have been an indirect contributory factor as the actor was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and was isolated in their home for as long as a week after she expired.
Hackman was born on January 30, 1930 in San Bernardino to Anna Lyda Elizabeth (née Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman. His father at the time of his birth was a pressman for the San Bernardino Sun. In 1932, the Hackman family left San Bernardino when Eugene Hackman was offered a job overseeing a newspaper press elsewhere. The Hackman family was itinerant for a time, but was stable for several years in the mid-to-late 1930s while they lived in Danville, Illinois where Anna’s mother and Gene Hacman’s grandmother, Beatrice had a home and where Eughen found work running the press for the Danville Commercial-News, a daily newspaper.
Hackman’s parents divorced in 1944. In 1947, having dropped out of high school, Hackman misrepresented his age to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving for four-and-a-half years as a field-radio operator, and was stationed in Qingdao and Shanghai in China, with the U.S. military mission assisting Chiang Kai-shek, until the country was overrun by communist forces under Mao Tse-tung in 1949. He was discharged in 1951, and lived for a short time thereafter in New York City.
He returned to California by 1955, intent on becoming an actor and hoping to break into the business by being close to Hollywood.
He and his first wife moved to Muscoy. His mother, who was at that time living in San Bernardino, was able to intercede with her employer, the County of San Bernardino where she was employed in the welfare department/department of social services, to find her son employment, in Gene’s case, with the San Bernardino County Department of Health as a animal control officer. After a relatively short time with the county, he also worked as a driver for a food packaging and distribution company.
He engrossed himself in acting with the Pasadena Playhouse. After some initial rough going, he found some minor success in 1959, landing roles in the television series the United States Steel Hour and Brennan. Over the next four years, he continued to work intermittently in Hollywood and relocated to New York to find work on Bleecker Street, Off-Broadway and Broadway.
In 1961, he obtained his first movie role in Mad Dog Coll, In 1964, he had another movie role in Lilith and in 1966 another role in the movie Hawaii. In 1967, in addition to Bonnie & Clyde, he had movie roles in A Covenant With Death, Banning, First to Fight and Community Shelter Planning, and had substantial work in television, including episodes of I Spy, the Invaders, Iron Horse, The F.BI., CBS Playhouse and Insight. He had a down year in 1968, landing only a single tlevision and a single movie role, but in 1969 worked in four movies. In 1970 he found work in only a single movie, I Never Sang for my Father, but did earn an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor for his role in that production. The following year, his performance in the French Connection earned him the coveted best actor Academy Award in 1972 for his portrayal of the character Jimmy “Popeye Doyle.
Thereafter, he became one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood. His body of body of work resulted in two further Academy Award nominations, for best actor in 1988’s Mississippi Burning and best supporting actor in 1992’s Unforgiven. He won the award in that final instance, making him a two-time Academy Award winner. In the history of motion pictures, this puts him behind Jack Nicholson, Walter Brennan and Daniel Day-Lews, each with three Academy Award trophies, and on a par with Spencer Tracy, Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Denzel Washing, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Caine, Tom Hanks Sean Penn, Frederic March, Gary Cooper and Anthony Quinn.
His final film role came in 2004 with Welcome to Mooseport.
By that point, he had settled into a second career as an author. In 1999, she Wake of the Perdido Star. , which he had cowritten with Michael Lenihan, was published. With Lenihan, he also Justice for None, published in 2004, and ha and Escape from Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War, published in 2008. In 2011, Payback at Morning Peak: A Novel of the American West, which he had written on his own, was published. In 2013, another of his books, Pursuit, was published.
In 1986, the marraiage to his first wife Faye nee Maltese, wwith whom he had three children, ended in divorce. In 1991, he married the classical pianist Betsy Arakawa.
They lived in mansion outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and since 2022 had lived a reclusive lifestyle.
Hackman, Arakawa and one of their dogs were found dead at their residence on February 26. According to investigators, foul play was not a factor in the couple’s deaths. There was, however, no explanation for the co-mortality of Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, who, at 65 and three decades his junior, was in what was thought to be good health. They were found in separate places, Hackman in a mudroom, a space immediately adjacent to the back entrance reserved for those entering to remove their shoes, coats and wet or soild clothing before entering the main living area. Arakawa was in a bathroom. A digital read-out from Hackman’s pacemaker indicates he likely died on February 18.
An autopsy carried out by the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, the results of which were released today, indicated Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe respiratory virus contracted through exposure to droppings from an infected mouse, most likely on February 11.
Hackman, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and Arakawa over the last several years have led a reclusive existence.