Betsy Arakawa, Gene Hackman’s wife — a businesswoman who was a steadfast companion of the screen legend and had musical talents of her own — died with him Wednesday.
Arakawa, 65, was found dead with Hackman and the couple’s dog in their New Mexico home, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said. A search warrant says the deaths are “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”
Hackman’s daughter Elizabeth declined to comment when reached by phone, but said in a statement along with his other daughter, Leslie, and his granddaughter, Annie, that they are “devastated” by the loss.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father, Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy,” Hackman’s family said in the statement. “He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but to us he was always just Dad and Grandpa.”Arakawa, a former classical pianist, had been with the “French Connection” actor for more than four decades. She met the actor while working part time at a fitness center in California, according to The New York Times Magazine. Together, the pair, who married in 1991, enjoyed watching DVDs that Arakawa would rent, particularly “simple stories that some of the little low-budget films manage to produce,” Hackman told Empire in 2020.
But long before meeting the actor, Arakawa, a Hawaii native, was an accomplished young pianist. While attending Kahala Elementary School, Arakawa, then 11 years old, performed for 9,000 children at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, according to a 1971 Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper article.
Arakawa moved to Los Angeles after high school, where she attended the University of Southern California. During her time there, she juggled going to classes, working as a production assistant on popular classic television game show “Card Sharks,” and cheerleading for the now-defunct professional soccer team, the Los Angeles Aztecs, according to a 1981 issue of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
She continued performing on occasion, once giving a piano concert at the Altenheim Geriatric Center in Chicago, which was featured in Hackman’s 1989 action thriller film “The Package,” according to a Chicago Tribune article from that year.
Arakawa eventually ended up in New Mexico with the actor and, according to Architectural Digest, had a big hand in the couple’s home renovations, filling their household with items from their travels.
“We bought a few things in Santa Fe,” Hackman told the outlet. “Other things came from auctions in New York, an antiques shop in Germany that Betsy and I found, and from Los Angeles.”
There, she also co-owned a home decor shop that often featured work from local artists, according to a 2005 article in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Hackman addressed rumors that he had left his first wife, the late Faye Maltese, with whom he shared three children, for Arakawa, clarifying in a 2021 interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel that that wasn’t the case.
“I did not leave my real-life wife for a younger woman. We just drifted apart,” Hackman said. “We lost sight of each other. When you work in this business, marriage takes a great deal of work and love.”
