Silence in Santa Fe: The Mysterious Final Chapter of Gene Hackman

Introduction

I don’t normally do social pieces, but admittedly, I’m a Gene Hackmann fan, so I felt it necessary. Regardless, he and his wife, and their dog passed away on Wednesday, under super fucking weird circumstances. So lets go through Gene Hackmann’s last years, and remember.

A Legend's Last Scene

The damn wind howled through the piñon pines that Wednesday afternoon in Santa Fe, as if nature itself was marking the passing of Hollywood royalty. Gene Hackman—the tough-as-nails son of a bitch who gave us Popeye Doyle, Royal Tenenbaum, and dozens more unforgettable characters—was found dead alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog in their secluded Hyde Park home. He was 95. She was 64. And just like that, the curtain fell on one of cinema's most brilliant, authentic careers.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office received the call at 1:45 p.m., …