Gene Hackman and wife lived a peaceful, private life in New Mexico, friends say

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa were found dead at their New Mexico home.
• The couple lived a private, adventurous life, cherished by friends and the Santa Fe community.
• Authorities are investigating, with no immediate signs of foul play or external trauma.

LOS ANGELES — Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, shared a peaceful and private life, rich in adventure, art and genuine love, before their unexpected deaths, their friends fondly remember.

Their close, longtime friends, Daniel and Barbara Lenihan said the couple, who was found dead Wednesday in their New Mexico home, had chosen to live in a quiet area, tucked away inside a home they built atop 12 acres of land up in the mountains just outside of Santa Fe.

"They were very private, and we certainly respected that," Barbara Lenihan told CNN, adding that Arakawa rarely used cellphones and would usually communicate by email.

"They were really by themselves, which is the way they wanted it," she said.

The two couples met over 30 years ago when Hackman and Arakawa were visiting Santa Fe and stopped by a diving shop, where Hackman saw a drawing of the USS Arizona and Pearl Harbor that Daniel Lenihan, an underwater archaeologist, had mapped. Hackman wanted to meet Daniel Lenihan, so the four of them went to lunch together and immediately hit it off, "and it was history from there," Barbara Lenihan said.

She and Arakawa co-founded Pandora's, a home decor and furnishing store in Santa Fe featuring fabrics from all over the world, as well as the work of local artisans. The two friends were inspired to launch the business after Hackman returned from central Europe where he was filming a movie in 2001 and brought back "beautiful linen pillows," Barbara Lenihan said.

She had last seen Arakawa three weeks ago at Pandora's but said the couple did not come to town very often.

"They were very, fairly isolated, when you look at the pictures of the woods and their home, so that was not unusual at all to have not heard (from them)," Barbara Lenihan said.

"He wasn't leaving much. Betsy was a wonderful wife. They were very close, and she was a good cook and really, really took good care of him," Barbara Lenihan added. "They ate very well. He had had a triple bypass, maybe around (age) 60, and he'd been in really good health since then, and I'm sure she was one of those factors."

Until a year ago, Hackman was still riding his bicycle, and Arakawa "had him doing yoga and different things at home on Zoom and trying to stay very fit," Barbara Lenihan said.

When the pair would host the Lenihans at their home, Hackman would often ask Arakawa to play classical pieces on the piano, and she was equally supportive of his accomplishments, Barbara Lenihan said. They loved to travel and were well-liked in their community, she added.

Daniel Lenihan, who wrote three books with Hackman over a period of around 10 years, said he'll remember him as an "interesting, funny, very intelligent man," while Barbara Lenihan described Arakawa as "clever and witty and fun."

"We're very stunned, and we have no idea what happened, but there were never any issues between them," Barbara Lenihan said. "Our son was saying today, he's maybe never seen such a compatible couple."

Santa Fe community honors couple

The legendary actor, his wife and their dog were found dead in circumstances officials deemed "suspicious enough" to warrant thorough investigation. The couple's bodies were found in separate rooms in their Santa Fe house, with scattered pills found next to Arakawa, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.

Data from Hackman's pacemaker shows he was likely dead for nine days before he and his wife were found dead at their New Mexico home, authorities said.

Hackman, 95, was an Oscar-winning actor known for his roles in films such as "The French Connection," "Hoosiers, "Unforgiven" and "The Firm." Arakawa, three decades Hackman's junior, was a classical pianist.

The causes of death are not yet known. The pair did not show any external trauma, and there were no immediate signs of foul play, according to preliminary autopsies and officials. There were also no immediate signs of a carbon monoxide or natural gas leak, authorities said.

The home where the couple was found is in a gated community at the end of a long, curving driveway. It was a fitting home for the reclusive star, featuring expansive views of nearby mountains but secluded enough to be largely out of the range of cellphone service.

Hackman and Arakawa moved to the Santa Fe area more than a decade before he effectively retired from acting at age 74. "It had a kind of magic in it," he told Architectural Digest in 1990.

Hackman was "a treasured New Mexico resident," New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday in a Facebook post, adding that he lived in Santa Fe "as a low-key and friendly member of our community" and was a beloved neighbor to many.

"He treated everybody well and with graciousness and respect. The same with Betsy," Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber told NBC. "These are two people who have huge, huge talent, gifts, global reputations, and yet here in Santa Fe they're just down-to-earth people, part of the community."

The couple was often spotted in Sante Fe at their favorite restaurants or at Arakawa's shop, and everyone in town has "a favorite story, a favorite memory, a huge amount of fondness and affection for both of them," Webber said.

Hackman, who enjoyed painting in addition to writing, was very involved with the art world, often gifting art to friends.

Another one of Hackman's friends, Stuart Ashman, remembers coming across the actor at a community arts gathering, a coincidental meeting that resulted in over 20 years of friendship, according to BBC.

The pair also attended Pilates classes together, and Hackman often got in trouble for talking too much, Ashman joked.

"Gene, are you going to workout or do you just want to talk to Stuart today?" Ashman recalls their Pilates teacher asking.

Ashman said he raised chickens and would often bring a dozen eggs to Hackman, who one day returned the kind gesture with a large landscape painting he made for Ashman.

"He was so down to earth that you didn't realize that you were talking to a celebrity. He was more interested in you than in telling you about himself," Ashman told BBC.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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