Gene Hackman has died at the age of 95 – alongside his 63-year-old wife Betsy Arakawa.

Their pet dog was also found deceased at their Santa Fe mansion in New Mexico. No foul play is suspected, but no cause of death has been confirmed as yet.

Gene was suffering with ill health towards the end of his life. In 1990, a near heart attack meant he had to undergo an angioplasty. He nearly suffered the attack while on holiday and was rushed to hospital, where a balloon catheter was used to unblock an artery supplying blood to his heart.

Cardiologist Dr Herbert Semler confirmed at the time: “We got him just in the nick of time. Fortunately for him, it was in a very excellent area that we could easily reach with a balloon catheter and dilate it.”

Hackman was 60 at the time, and drove himself to hospital when he was struck with chest pains that flowed down his arm. His doctor confessed afterwards: “He’s fine now. We got an excellent result. He feels much relieved, his pain is gone.”

In 2001, Gene allegedly became involved in a brawl on Sunset Boulevard. He was driving a Volvo sedan which rear-ended a Volvo station wagon with two male passengers inside – and the row spilled out onto the street.

One eyewitness said the driver of the station wagon “was really close to [Gene’s] face and kept stepping up on him. There was more of that for several minutes but [Hackman] seemed to keep his cool… But then something was said and [Hackman] just hit him four or five times.”

Hackman was then reportedly kicked in the groin and wrestled to the ground, but his representative claimed he could not remember being kicked – and said Hackman only hit back when the man shoved him in the chest and hit him.

That wasn’t Gene’s only brush with a car accident, however, as in 2012 he was struck by a car when out riding a bike in Florida aged 81.

He had not been wearing a helmet at the time, and was taken to Ryder Trauma Centre in Miami with “serious” injuries after being thrown from his bicycle by a Toyota Tundra pick-up truck.

But his publicist insisted: “Gene’s fine… Just a few bumps and bruises. He is already on his way home.”

Gene retired from acting in 2008 after a test from doctors revealed the stress wasn’t doing his body any good. He said: “The straw that broke the camel’s back was actually a stress test that I took in New York. The doctor advised me that my heart wasn’t in the kind of shape that I should be putting it under any stress.”

The star admitted that he found the “business part” of acting “wicked”, admitting it was “jarring” in his advancing years.