Summary
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, 95, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found dead in their New Mexico home, authorities confirmed Thursday.
Foul play is not suspected, but an investigation is ongoing.
Hackman, a revered actor known for The French Connection and Unforgiven, retired from Hollywood two decades ago and spent his later years writing novels.
He lived in New Mexico since the 1980s, remaining largely out of the public eye. His death comes just days before this year’s Academy Awards.
Both and the dog dead? It’s currently 7am in New Mexico. Article posted 2 hours ago. So before 5am.
So they were found dead between 12am and 5am at least. “No foul play suspected”, 3 dead, someone was probably responding to something, and if there’s no fire, it was almost definitely CO.
Put CO detectors on all levels people. It doesnt take long for it to overwhelm you, and if you don’t get out, that’s it.
Put CO detectors on all levels people. It doesnt take long for it to overwhelm you, and if you don’t get out, that’s it.
Per TMZ:
The fire department came and advised they did not see any signs of carbon monoxide leak or poisoning. The New Mexico gas company came to the residence and conducted testing on the gas lines in and around the house, and concluded, “As of now, there are no signs or evidence indicating there were any problems associated to the pipes in and around the residence.”
Looks like she maybe preceded him for a short time, whatever the hell that implies.
NM is just jealous that CO is better. Don’t put up detectors to keep CO out of your home, embrace it with open arms and lungs!
a CO detector is counting the number of subarus around you while driving. under 3 is safe
I used to own a Subaru Forester in Ohio. I sold it to a lesbian who was moving to CO. Felt like I was giving it a better home
You set it free in it’s natural habitat
Those detectors go off so much that they give me a headache.
Goddamn Coloradans killing our best actors!
Yeah this was my first thought as well.
Y’all, hundreds of people die every year from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, and tens of thousands are hospitalized annually. Weird Al Yankovic lost his elderly parents to CO poisoning in April 2004. It’s winter time and Santa Fe is at 7,000 ft (2130 m) of elevation. Please don’t rush to blame and conspiracy.
Can we stop piping natural gas into our homes pls k thx
Gas is nice for some things, but for heating a brand new heat pump is best.
Actually, the one thing that gas is good for is cooking, but induction is far better. So yeah. No real need for gas to the home.
Actually, the one thing that gas is good for is cooking
Adding on to what @[email protected] said. The main reason that cooking with gas indoors is a very bad idea, is “natural gas” isn’t just methane. The oil companies just pull the gas, and whatever may be with it, out of the ground, refine it somewhat to remove some things, like water that would rust their gas lines, and send it down the pipes.
They don’t process it further, however, leaving nasty stuff like benzene in it, as one summary hilariously put it, “Ultra-pure methane isn’t necessary for home use. The gas needs to be clean enough for safe combustion and pipeline transport, but further refinement isn’t economically justified.”
So they clean it enough that their infrastructure doesn’t degrade, but not enough to be safe to humans.
If you’ve ever cleaned the igniter or parts of the combustion chamber of a NG product, even one with hyper-efficient burners, it’s a wonder they filter it all, given how much crap builds up.
Bonus points as well: to maintain pressure regulation, every gas meter will vent methane periodically (as well as other places in the distribution network), so they’re venting a greenhouse gas that is worse than carbon dioxide, collectively in tiny amounts, from millions of homes.
Gas has been used in homes since the early 1800s, its time has passed, and it should go away.
Induction isn’t far better for cooking. It’s better for cooking on a flat surface of the appropriate (small) size. It’s bad for cooking with large pans (especially cast iron). It’s bad for cooking with curved surfaces (such as woks). It’s also bad for cooking with non-ferrous materials such as copper and aluminum (it doesn’t work at all for these), so high end copper French saucepans are off the table.
Yes I’m aware of the existence of induction wok hobs. They’re neat but they only work well with a wok of the correct size and shape (otherwise the wok either wobbles around or doesn’t fit) and they’re not very powerful with North American 120V mains power. They also come with a crappy nonstick PFAS wok so you end up buying a separate carbon steel wok anyway.
And none of these will work with a large wok!
I use a big Lodge cast iron pan on my induction stove, and it works fine.
Woks are a trick, though. They were designed with the idea that a flame would flow around them, and that’s just how it is.
So you’re telling me you’ve only ever used shitty, low budget induction. Likely only ever used the countertop plug in units.
An actual induction stove is much better than that.
They are a dream to cook on, they have all the speed of gas, but none of the side spill heat. All the heat is concentrated in the pan itself.
Woks do have issues due to their shape. And those issues crop up with any western style stove. So who cares. There are eastern style induction stoves, they’re more expensive but work fairly well.
Or you can buy a cheap countertop unit and pretend that its the best induction can be.
Side spill heat is the whole point. It lets you cook with the sides of the pan while turning, tossing, tilting, basting, flambe, and wokhei. It’s essential to Jacques Pepin’s French omelette technique. It’s essential to basting eggs or meat while pan frying. You need to tilt the pan to gather the fat to one side. If you do that with induction the power shuts off. Sure you can baste with a pan laying flat but that means you need to use way more fat.
It’s also the magic property of gas that makes it flexible enough to work with very large pans. Try using a 14” cast iron pan on your high end induction stove. You’re going to get a hot spot in the middle and cold sides where food will stick and make a mess.
Does your high end induction cooktop have a wok hob? As far as I know, the only ones you can get for woks are countertop models.
Another advantage to gas I didn’t mention: you can cook directly over the flame without any pan at all! This technique is perfect for charring peppers, tortillas, naan, and other dry items you can hold with tongs.
Not to mention that most induction tops are made from glass which can shatter if you’re too rough with it. And I am a violent chef when it comes to stovetop mixing/tossing
Yes especially if you’re handling a very heavy cast iron pan, stock pot, or Dutch oven. I would not want to make a commercial stock pot sized batch of stock on any sort of glass flat top, induction or otherwise.
the one thing that gas is good for is cooking
Only if your kitchen is adequately vented, but most that I’ve seen are not.
A modern gas furnace or water heater will have a flue, and if the system has been installed properly then exhaust gasses, including CO, will get sucked out of the house.
Most gas ovens/ranges are unvented - they just spew combustion products, including CO, directly into the home. Its so bad that the 1st generation of CO detectors had to be retired because they were constantly going off when people would cook dinner. Modern CO detectors will only be set off if detected CO levels remain elevated for some number of hours.
Cooking with gas in a home that lacks a large hood fan that’s ducted to the outdoors is a terrible idea.
I have a heat pump in Wisconsin along with solar panels on the roof. Getting by on that alone would be completely nuts. Winter is exactly the time when a heat pump is not only straining to work, but also the time when solar panels can’t do their job very well. While it could hypothetically be augmented with electric resistive heating, that would end up with very high bills in the winter, and the power for it would come predominantly from fossil fuel sources, anyway. Might as well burn a fossil fuel for heat directly.
It’s certainly worthwhile, but it’s not feasible as the only heat source for much of the US.
We have an induction stove already. I’d like to replace the water heater with a hybrid electric model. At that point, the furnace will be the only use of natural gas in the house, and that only when it’s strictly needed.
Did I say you had to rely on Solar for your electricity in the winter? No? And remember I said brand new heat pump. The newest models can work in much colder temps.
Also, if you’re in Wisconsin, you might be getting your power from nuclear (about 16% of the State’s power production). Which is far better than fossil fuels.
I have a very new heat pump. I’m quite aware of the improvements and made this choice for a reason.
No, you can’t run them alone here, not even the new ones. In fact, the permit department here won’t even allow it.
You say this but up here in the PNW electric power isn’t very reliable at all. Look up Washington lake. This past year during the holidays everyone around the entire length of the lake lost power for a week. The week after power got restored we started getting into the low 30’s and hitting the freezing mark a few times. Everyone got lucky. But still lost food and it was a pain in the ass because it 5pm but its pitch black outside your house. We burnt wood in the chimney to keep cold as fuck but not freezing. Meanwhile the politicians keep peddling the removal of gas lines. I’m totally fine if they do. I’ll just ger myself a large battery bank, a generator, a solar panel etc. Having backup power is important. Gas makes it so much easier to keep massive amounts of power ready to go when the grid goes down. Otherwise agree with most comments about point of use heaters that are electric as well as heat pumps which are crazy good.
When you find another way to transport that much energy, that doesn’t always need to be directly connected to infrastructure, to us with such a high ROI, you’ll be famous and rich because you’ll have solved the world’s energy crisis.
Solar panels with attached energy storage like batteries or fly wheels.
Meanwhile, I can take a 20kg LPG tank on a donkey most anywhere on earth and let it sit for months before I use it.
I’m not evangelizing fossil fuels here, but I am pushing back because they are an underappreciated energy resource we tale for granted. They make hugely concentrated amounts of immediately available energy potable.
I highly recommend the book When Trucks Stop Running by Alice Friedmann. You’ll never know how profoundly modern society hand trapped itself until you see if by the numbers.
But they said it wasn’t carbon monoxide poisoning.
Agree with the comment about conspiracies.
I know who did it and how. But I can’t talk about it here. Meet me behind Chili’s.
Ok. But this time, you’re buying.
What are they selling behind Chilis?
southwest egg rolls
yo, hmu
It’s winter time and Santa Fe is at 7,000 ft (2130 m) of elevation.
Wow never would have expected that!
That’s way higher than our highest City in Switzerland, Davos, (which is also the heighest of Europe) at only 1560 m. Not to mention that Santa Fe is 7 times as populous as Davos.
Sure, but keep in mind that Santa Fe is also the same latitude as Tangier, southern Sicily, and Crete. The entirety of mainland Europe is north of Santa Fe, so being at elevation is what keeps the weather relatively nice most of the year, rather than a desert like Texas or Arizona.
You think that’s crazy, check out Leadville, Colorado. (3,095m)
Wow! Thanks!
Welp, time to watch Young Frankenstein right after watching prime cut. Maybe throw in some unforgiven and loose cannons for some show of range.
That’s some weird circumstances.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I never would have guessed that Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg would be in the same celebrity death triplet.
Is nr 3 already known or are tey 1 and 2
I didn’t realize he was 95 years old. Wow.
That sucks man. Best Lex Luther and Hoosier of all time.
Foul play is not suspected
Does “foul play” include gas leaks, etc., or are those counted as accidents or similar?
Unless the leak was caused intentionally, it’d be considered an accidental death.
She couldve passed first and been sole care taker
That’s dark. Fingers crossed they tried to barbeque indoors then.
Could have been something like a leak in the exhaust of a gas furnace etc as well.
Oh yeah. Because for gas itself to have killed them it would have had to have been a pretty massive leak.
Natural gas utilities are also required to add sulphur to it so that it stinks. You would notice and evacuate long before it overcame you.
Mercaptan is the chemical they add to it, which has a very recognizable smell. It is a sulfur compound though, so I guess I’m just being pedantic.
It’s not just the recognizable smell they add it for, it’s the fact that it’s an odorant that’s detectable at an INCREDIBLY small concentration (humans can smell it at 1 part per BILLION).
Suicide? Old people sometimes decide to end life on their own schedule.
Suuure sounds like carbon monoxide poisoning, which accidentally kills lots of people every year.
It’s the dog that knocks it off the possibility list for me. Most people who commit to the act of suicide start giving stuff away. That and a sudden ‘happiness burst’ are things that you sometimes see in people who have made the decision. Why would you take a chance to kill your dog, when you could just take a half day and get a vet to do it, or just ask someone to take care of the dog for a few days with the excuse you’ll be out of town or are hosting a party or a half dozen of the other plausible reasons?
It doesn’t, but per comments from the fire department and the gas company there were no signs of leaking pipes or carbon monoxide.
The fact that the dog died makes me think it was environmental of some kind though. Maybe something they all ate/drank?
Apparently not a gas leak.
Longtime Democrat voter, was very proud to be labelled the enemy of Richard Nixon. I haven’t read his novels, I might look into them.
He was great in everything he played. The bird cage and get shorty were ridiculous. Quick and the dead was one of my fav westerns. He really left a mark on my childhood.
Damn. I just looked him up a month ago after rewatching Bat 21. I was happy to see he was still alive. I should have knocked on wood.
Bat 21 great fucking movie. Today is a sad day indeed.
Insane that it’s based on a true story.
Per TMZ: Gene Hackman, Wife Betsy Deaths Called ‘Suspicious’ https://www.tmz.com/2025/02/27/gene-hackman-death-investigation-suspicious/
That’s just their probable cause to enter the property and search. The bar on that is incredibly low and they’d likely have succeeded with the bodies alone and not just the door unlocked.
This would be a good time to rewatch Mississippi Burning
deleted by creator
Alec Baldwin was not available for comment.
