There was a time when the New Mexico home of actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa was a hive of activity.
The "massive and cosy" house set amid the pine trees on a hilltop north of Santa Fe had been completely remodelled by the couple in 1990.
Hackman, according to the architects involved, called constantly, checking in every few days.
Arakawa buzzed around the site, taking photos and calling Hackman to update him.
"We had to call him and send sketches constantly," architect Stephen Samuelson told Architectural Digest at the time.
"If we didn't, we'd get a call in a few days: 'Hello, this is Gene Hackman. Do you remember me?'"
Once it was finished, the home became a "haven", its open floor plan allowing music to fill the rooms for hours.
Both he and Arakawa became fixtures of the Santa Fe community, investing in several businesses and being seen regularly around town up until a few years ago.
In one restaurant downtown, a mural painted by Hackman still adorns the dining room wall.
In the end, it was two weeks of silence from the couple that ultimately sounded the alarm.
An everyman of the ages
Gene Hackman decided he wanted to be an actor when he was 10 years old.
Born to a working-class family at the height of the Great Depression, Hackman spent his early years moving around the mid-western United States following his father's job as he nursed his passion for cinema.
He was just 13 years old when his father walked out on his family.
Hackman later recalled playing in his friend's front yard when his father's car drove past for the last time, Eugene waving out the window.
"'OK, it's all yours,' that wave was saying," Hackman said.
"'You're on your own kiddo.'"
Hackman credited that wave for his decision to strike out on his own, choosing to lie to the US Marine Corps about his age to enlist.
He worked in China, Hawaii and Japan as a radio operator before he was discharged in 1952 and moved to New York at age 22.
While he began his pursuit of acting there, he only found casual work — including as a shop assistant, door-to-door salesman, furniture-mover and doorman at a Times Square Hotel.
Hackman later told David Letterman it was a run-in with his old marine drill instructor, who had coincidentally walked past him on the job, that forced him to leave New York for the west coast.
"He never looked at me but muttered, 'Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch,'" he said.
[dustin and gene]The comment — which Hackman later put down to his deep dislike of rejection — sent him to California with his new wife Faye Maltese to double down on his efforts to become an actor.
At 26 he was five years older than the average student at the Pasadena Playhouse, California's main theatre acting school, and he had an uphill battle when he and fellow classmate Dustin Hoffman were voted "the least likely to succeed" by their class alumni.
However, Hackman took it as a challenge and went on to feature in television and Broadway shows, as well as films over the next 20 years of his career.
His break-out role was in Bonnie and Clyde, and he would go on to feature in about 80 movies, including cultural touchstones Mississippi Burning and The French Connection.
In his Oscars speech for best actor in 1972 for his work in The French Connection, Hackman reflected the everyman persona he was later known for.
[oscar speech]"My first ever acting scene ever was in New York, and the gentlemen sitting in front of us when we were doing that scene was my acting teacher, and I just have to mention his name: George Morrison," he said.
"I want to thank him."
His entire speech was just over a minute long.
A piano prodigy
Betsy Machiko Arakawa was 28 years younger than Hackman when they met.
She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and it was her love of piano that would define most of her early life.
Arakawa played in front of thousands of students at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall at just 11 years old, and later worked with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra as a pianist.
According to the New York Times, Arakawa was also a cheerleader for a professional soccer team, a production assistant on a television game show, and a part-time assistant at a Los Angeles fitness centre before she met Hackman.
Not much is known about their first meeting in the mid-80s, but Hackman was still married to his first wife, Maltese.
While entertainment reporters would later describe the marriage as "crumbling", it wasn't until sometime later Hackman and Maltese officially divorced.
"By the way, I did not leave my real-life wife for a younger woman," he reportedly told People Magazine.
"We just drifted apart."
Arakawa and Hackman were married in 1991 and went on to have an incredibly private life, with the pair often only attending award shows.
Arakawa also no longer performed as a pianist.
Hackman did not often comment on his relationship with his wife, but did call her his rock.
"Betsy has been my rock. She's kept me grounded and focused on what really matters."
Arakawa was a loving step-mother to Hackman's three children he shared with his ex-wife.
A quiet house raises alarm
The call to the police was made by a maintenance worker at 1:43pm, local time, on February 26.
The front door of 1425 Old Sunset Trail was ajar.
All other doors were locked and there was no sign of forced entry, according to a search warrant affidavit.
The two workers, who had discovered the open door, said they rarely saw Hackman and Arakawa when doing routine maintenance on the property but usually kept in contact with the couple via text and phone calls.
They had last had contact with Arakawa two weeks earlier.
Inside, police found Arakawa body on the floor of a bathroom to the left of the front door.
A space heater was found near her head, which the police officer on scene suspected "could have fallen in the event [she] abruptly fell to the ground".
An orange prescription bottle was found open "with pills scattered around" on the bathroom counter-top.
A German shepherd dog was found dead in an adjoining "closet" to the bathroom. Two other dogs, one inside and one outside, were found alive.
As police moved through the home, they found another body in the mud-room near the kitchen.
"Deputy Thomas indicated he observed a pair of sunglasses located near the deceased, left of his body," the affidavit said.
"Based on Deputy Thomas' training and experience, he suspected male individual has suddenly fallen."
Both bodies showed obvious signs of decomposition, with the report noting "mummification" in Arakawa's hands and feet.
While Hackman's children initially said they suspected a possible carbon monoxide leak, police and the New Mexico Gas Company have since confirmed there was no sign of any issue with the pipes.
There was "no immediate signs or indications of blunt force trauma".
"[Detective Roy Arndt] believes the circumstances surrounding the death … to be suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation," the affidavit said.
They cited the two surviving dogs running loose, the moved space heater, the pill bottle, and the two bodies being in separate parts of the house as reasons for their investigation.
The search warrant indicates officers would be looking for camera, narcotics, flammable substances, fingerprints, DNA, phones and blunt or sharp force weapons, among other items.
A steady partnership
As Hollywood mourns, Hackman was remembered by Dustin Hoffman.
"We used to play congas together on the roof [of Pasadena Playhouse], trying to be like our hero Marlon Brando," he said.
"Gene was like Brando … he was that good.
"Powerful, subtle, brilliant, a giant among actors. I miss him already."
While the couple valued their privacy, another friend Barbara Lenihan gave a small insight into their relationship.
After Hackman retired from acting in 2004, he began writing historical and Western novels.
Long-time friend Lenihan told the New York Times Arakawa was a quiet hand during the process.
Gene would hand write his books with pen and paper, she said, and Betsy would type them up on a computer for him.
"She was very involved with what he did," she said.
"She made it very possible for him to do it."
