Actor Gene Hackman painted in the Hollywood spotlight and rode his bike in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and he and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, are woven into the structure of the local community.
Friends say Hackman cherishes the simple life away from paparazzi and promoting business machines. In Santa Fe, he made friends, attended community events, and dined in local restaurants.
“Even though he’s an amazing story to tell Hollywood and other celebrities, he’s a very low-key guy,” said longtime friend Stuart Ashman. “He’s just a normal guy.”
However, this peace’s anonymity did not follow the death of the Academy Award winner.
Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, died at their home with one of three dogs last week. Investigators ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning, but were awaiting toxicological results. They are working to rebuild the couple’s last few days by phone logging, email and other means.
Those who knew them over the years have been described as private, but as neighbors.
Ashman was one of them – with a two-time Oscar-winning champion after the two finally sat down with each other at a community arts conference. Ashman was then director of the New Mexico Museum of Art, while Hackman sat down on the board of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, who served from 1997 to 2004.
“He told me his name and I said, ‘Of course, I know who you are,’” Ashman said. “He just smiled with his bright smile, and our friendship came from there.”
For two years, Ashman was a part-time egg supplier for Hackman, occasionally giving him to him from the chickens he raised. One day Hackman returned to favour with a painted landscape of a tree-shaded river. Hackman politely insisted when Ashman initially refused to accept it.
“Gen told me, ‘You’ve been giving me eggs for two years. I think a painting is a fair deal,” Ashman recalls.
The two will also chat between Pilates classes, where they share the same individual lecturer.
“She would say, ‘Gen, are you working here or want to go with Stewart?'” Ashman said with a smile.
Gene Hackman’s landscape paintings he gave to his friend Stuart Ashman.
(Contributed by Stuart Ashman)
Ashman said Hackman discussed renting a house on Florida Keys a few years ago and might have a meeting after the holidays, but the pandemic followed and the people scattered.
Longtime friend Doug Lanham doesn’t think Hackman is a movie star, but as half of Gene and Betsy, the couple has been helping in the community.
Their friendship also begins by chance. Lanham said the couple entered his restaurant Jinja Bar & Bistro in the early 2000s and eventually chatted with Lanham and other owners. The topic of Arakawa’s cooking skills emerged.
Lanham invites Arakawa to arrive the next day and the kitchen will try some new recipes. Arakawa obviously has some of his own ideas.
“The next day, Betsy looked so great and confident,” Lanham said. “This is Gene behind Betsy, radiating a cooler with all the food that Betsy has prepared for everyone.”
Eventually, the couple invested financial stakes in the restaurant. Over the years, Hackman contributed the artwork now hanging inside, including a large piece of 5 x 13-foot wall.
Initially, Hackman was frightened by the scale of that piece, Lanham said.
Gene Hackman spoke at the grand opening ceremony of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe in 1997.
(O’Keeffe Museum, Georgia)
“You shot all these great movies, we got this little wall, we just wanted to go on one piece of art. I’ve never heard of you saying you do nothing.
But three weeks later, Hackman called the restaurant owner until his artist studio. There, they found a pile of tropical leaves hanging from the ceiling wires that he used as a model, a large triplet painting on the back wall, a woman watching the sunset in the South Pacific environment.
When Arakawa showed off the piece, Hackman was softer, Lanham said. The overall customer response was positive, but there were critics.
“You see them crossing their arms, looking at the mural and then, ‘It’s a [Paul] Gauge, look at the color. Then I went, ‘Oh, it’s a Go-Gene. Look at this color,” Lanham said.
According to news reports, the couple has slowed down over the past few years.
Arakawa and Hackman’s friends Daniel and Barbara Lenihan and their son Aaron told People that Hackman was “essentially a family bondage” and stopped riding his bike near him. The family told the magazine that his wife was “in good health” and he had been showing his age for the past few months. She tried to keep him active and engaged, including doing puzzles and yoga on Zoom.
“They look like real life partners, they’re really each other, they’re both very friendly,” Aaron Lenihan told people. “They’re reserved, but they’re real, [and] Very interesting. ”
