Gene Hackman's Tragic Final Days

FADING acting legend Gene Hackman is living his final days as a “sad recluse” who has locked himself away in his gated New Mexico estate.

Best known for his Oscar winning role in The French Connection and turn as Warren Beatty’s brother in Bonnie and Clyde, the 86-year-old onetime bruiser is now a shadow of himself. He prefers to stay “cooped up” behind the walls of his Santa Fe mansion with second wife Betsy, whom he wed in 1991.

“He is spending what should be the sunset of his life seeing no one other than his wife Betsy,” says a source. “It’s like Howard Hughes all over again.

“He’s a sad recluse who rarely goes out anymore with only the occasional sighting of Gene in his pickup truck.” Occasionally, the star, who also won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role as sadistic sheriff Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western Unforgiven, goes boozing at a sleepy bar-cafe in the quaint hamlet of Tesuque — with a population under 1,000.