Gene Hackman, the two-time Oscar winner with more than 75 film credits amassed over his 40-year career, died at his Santa Fe home along with his wife, the pianist Betsy Arakawa, on February 26, 2025. He was 95.Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, on January 30, 1930, and grew up in Danville, Illinois. As a young adult, the screen legend resisted his calling, instead considering a career in journalism. But I kept rediscovering the fact that I wanted to be an actor, Hackman told Architectural Digest during a 1982 tour of his Montecito home. Finally the desire became so strong that I just gave in to it. It took me a while to get started. A 19-year-old Hackman enrolled in acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he met and befriended Dustin Hoffman. Ironically, the future film icons were named the least likely to succeed.Hackman was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for his roles in The French Connection (1971) and Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven (1992). His breakout role was in 1967s Bonnie and Clyde, for which he earned a best supporting actor nomination. He went on to build a wide-ranging body of work that included a turn as villain Lex Luthor in Superman and the eponymous patriarch in Wes Andersons The Royal Tenenbaums. He retired from acting in the mid-2000s, after which he turned his attention to painting and writing. Between 1999 and 2008, Hackman cowrote three novels and penned two by himself in 2011 and 2013.He is survived by three children from his relationship with Fay Maltese, to whom he was married from 1956 to 1986. He wed Arakawa in 1991.A little over a decade ago, GQ asked Hackman how hed want to be remembered. He said, As a decent actor. As someone who tried to portray what was given to them in an honest fashion. Asked to sum up his life in a phrase, he wryly responded, He tried. I think thatd be fairly accurate.Read on to revisit the 1990 Architectural Digest tour of Hackman and Arakawas Southwestern-style ranch. Katie SchultzGiven the choice, Gene Hackman would rather remodel a house than build one from scratch. I think it's like being an actor. I interpret what's already there, he says.Hackman's career has ranged from the introverted eavesdropper of The Conversation to the villainous Lex Luthor in Superman. He won an Oscar in 1971 for The French Connection and has been nominated for three others, most recently for his role as an FBI agent in Mississippi Burning. He has spent most of his working life on the move from one role to another, one location to the next. In the same spirit, he has moved from one house to anotherhe is currently in the tenth house that he's created. I don't know what's wrong with me, he says wryly. I guess I like the process, and when it's over, it's over.