Santa Fe, New Mexico - Recently deceased Hollywood legend Gene Hackman won two Oscars and left behind a fortune of $80 million, but his children aren't mentioned in his will. Why?

In the years leading up to his death, Gene Hackman suffered from Alzheimer's disease and had a heart condition.

The 95-year-old – who secured his place in film history with classics such as The French Connection and The Poseidon Adventure – died on February 18, presumably as a result of his heart condition.

He left an inheritance of $80 million, which, according to his will, was to go to his wife Betsy Arakawa, but she died a few days earlier than Hackman from a lung disease caused by the hantavirus.

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The actor had named his two former lawyers as his successors in the will, but Michael G. Sutin and Julia L. Peters are also dead. This creates a legally tangled situation in which the succession is unclear.

As The New York Times reported, Gene Hackman did not mention his three children Christopher, Elizabeth, and Leslie in his will. Do they still have a claim to their father's estate?

It is not known why the Hollywood actor did not include his children in his will, which named Awakawa as sole beneficiary in 1995.

According to Christopher, Elizabeth, and Leslie, who are the product of Hackman's first marriage to Fay Maltese, they had a good relationship with their father.

"We were close," Lesie told the Daily Mail in an interview after her father's passing.

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"I hadn't talked to them for a couple months, but everything was normal and everything was good."

In 1989 Hackman himself told The New York Times that he had become somewhat estranged from his children after years in the entertainment industry.

"You become very selfish as an actor," he said. "Even though I had a family, I took jobs that would separate us for three or four months at a time."

Although the children were named as heirs in a court document, it remains uncertain whether they can actually make a legal claim to the estate.

Adding to the complexity of the situation is Arakawa's will, in which she had expressed the wish that her money be passed on to a trust that pursues charitable purposes.